PR firms back in business after tough time

The economic crisis dealt a fatal blow to many of the fledgling public relations agencies which set up shop in the early 1990s. Still, several new firms and industry stalwarts survived, even prospering, despite the tough times. The Jakarta Post team of Bruce Emond, Stevie Emilia, Rita A. Widiadana and Chris Brummitt looks at the issue. More on Page 3 and Page 5.

JAKARTA (JP): She arrives looking as pretty as a picture, toting a prerequisite media kit, replete with an envelope containing "transportation money".

Nary a furrow or grimace spoils her perfectly made-up face, although it soon becomes clear that she has not anticipated the flurry of questions.

Flashing a reassuring smile, she promises to check on the desired information as she beats a hasty retreat back to her office.

"She" is a stereotype, but many a reporter and businessperson can vouch for their own close encounters with PR people who look the part but have not done their homework.

However, industry insiders say the all-style-no-substance image and lack of understanding of the value of public relations (PR) is slowly being chipped away to reveal the true picture.

PR agencies, they say, are coming into their own.

"In some cases, yes it is true, especially in certain industries. As it turns out, those types don't stay long in the profession," says Wisaksono Noeradi, founder member and former president of the Public Relations Association of Indonesia.

Another PR veteran, Ida Sudoyo, agrees. "But it is getting better all the time, and many understand that PR consultants, like lawyers or accountants, are there to assist the company."

The last few years were not kind to PR firms. When the crisis hit, marketing, the traditional sphere of public relations, was among the first items to be slashed from companies' budgets. Compounding the problem was that many Indonesians, including leading businesspeople, still did not understand the value of a public relations plan, or the difference between PR and advertising.

Consumer-product firms, a major contributor to ad spend and PR business, also cut back on their expenditures.

But the crisis sorted out the big boys of the PR world from the fly-by-night characters, bringing the fortunate firms the spillover in business from those that went under and also opening up the field of crisis management.

Some PR executives believe the almost Darwinian process of natural selection in the industry during the crisis will help its development.

"Over the past two years, the public relations profession has grown exponentially, with the profession being thrust into the boardroom, where as of a few years ago it was in the domain of the marketing and product area," says Chadd McLisky of Indo Pacific Reputation Management Consultants.

He notes the crisis brought a windfall of new business for the firm.

"From three years ago, when Indo Pacific's business was heavily focused on more traditional public relations elements, today we have seen a complete turnaround to our business being heavily focused on issues and strategic counseling."

While many PR agencies closed or downsized, McLisky says proudly that Indo Pacific continued to grow.

The crisis also banked up business for Fortune PR Strategic Communications, which was established in 1983.

"We have focused more on strategic communications, as our name says, and crisis is our business," says the company's president director, Miranty Abidin.

Big companies which are in big trouble need the PR services to shape their image. The ultimate goal is, according to Noeradi, "to have a third party say good things about you".

Gen. Wiranto

If ever there was a shining example of how a public-relations campaign can work to gloss up a tattered image, then it is the shrewd drive launched for beleaguered Gen. Wiranto.

The international community may be clamoring for his head, but Wiranto, a savvy strategist if ever there was one, came out with all his PR guns firing.

In a crisis plan reportedly devised in a contractual relationship with Kita Communications, Wiranto has been a regular guest on TV shows, radio programs and paid-for slots, giving his side of the story of the East Timor debacle.

Dressed in casual clothes, speaking softly and articulately and helped out by sympathetic interviewers, Wiranto has come across as a kindly father figure who really could not help it if the kids got a little out of hand.

But is this what they teach you in PR school?

PR schools have taken flak for reportedly churning out the glamor-pusses who really cannot think on their feet. Some PR executives reportedly prefer to hire people with experience in marketing or business, and then teach them the basics of the industry.

The London School of Public Relations in Jakarta acknowledged that some firms preferred to hire people with a particular work or educational background "for types of services which need a special skill and when it is not necessary to have PR knowledge".

But school director Prita Kemal Gani argues that PR firms in the know eventually realize the value of formal PR education.

While some PR schools are trying to offer better education by involving practitioners to teach the students, they also underline the need to revise the government-made curricula in order to adjust it with the real world.

In the meantime, even though the economy has not fully recovered, there is a tendency in the growing PR business to work in new fields, not only in economics but in others, including politics.

The National Awakening Party hired Noeradi's firm to help with their election-winning strategy.

"We have to know their competitors. To formulate the strategy we have to identify interested parties. The potential voters ... what are their hopes, dreams and expectations," Noeradi said.

Cigarette company Sampoerna uses a public relations service to get "third-party opinion" of its planned moves.

"We ask a public relations firm's opinion on something happening within society, such as on anti-smoking campaigns, and request their recommendations on how to counter the issue since they're professional," the firm's head of corporate communications Niken Rachmad said.

On some occasions, the company also requests its public relations firm to look for further information anytime there's negative sentiment targeting the cigarette industry.

"In this matter, we will ask them to inform us about the sources of the issues and advise us on the right response," Niken said.

Miranty Abidin says the onus is on PR companies to brace themselves for the opening up of markets in 2003.

"We must be ready to compete but our advantage is we already know how to communicate with people in the different areas of this country. Still, we have to be ready for the foreign firms coming in, some of which have arrived already."