Overview by Ketchum CEO Ray Kotcher

Ketchum's Chief Innovation Officer, Karen Strauss, and co-founder of Chicago-based InnovateNow, Lance Pressl, discuss the innovation laboratory that is the Internet and the innovation challenge in a knowledge economy

Viewpoints

How organizations can better manage their innovation processes, and how new crowdsourcing tools can tap innovative insights from the masses

Innovation Stories

Ketchum’s animated comic strip on innovation, The Innovation Chronicles of Kaptain Clairvoyant, and thoughts from recognized innovators in healthcare, design, and education

Roundtable

Approaches to creativity and innovation from China, Germany, Italy, Spain, the U.K. and the U.S.

Top 10 Communications Innovations of the Last Decade

The top 10 communications technologies since 1999, with a poll for readers to rank their top three

Street Smarts

New numbers on innovation's value

Street Smarts

Five Facts on the Strength of PR

Even as economic conditions continue to be uncertain, there are plenty of signs and sentiments that PR will be a leading contributor to the growth of the overall communications industry in the years ahead. Here are five facts, supported by recent industry research, that point to the continued or rising value of public relations.

1. PR-driven social media tactics are highly effective, even when they are not easy to measure. Forty-seven (47) percent of marketing and PR professionals agree that user reviews and ratings on Web sites are very effective, but just 15 percent believe ROI for those tactics can be accurately measured.

Similarly, 46 percent say blogger or online journalist relations are very effective, but only 11 percent think they can be accurately measured.

- 2009 Social Media Marketing and PR Benchmark Guide

2. Traditional PR skills are relevant for communicating in tough times. In facing the troubled economy, many PR professionals find their skills to be relevant, namely for enforcing transparency in business practices (70 percent) and helping the U.S. government communicate problems to the rest of the nation (52 percent).

- Council of Public Relations Firms in Collaboration with Kelton Research, Jan. 1-Feb. 24, 2009

3. Alternative marketing efforts will lead overall communications growth. The communications industry is expected to be the third-fastest growing segment of the U.S. economy through 2013, led by alternative marketing segments, such as word-of-mouth marketing, which are expected to grow at an annual rate of 12.6 percent. Total communications spending is expected to grow 3.4 percent annually from 2009 to 2013.

- "Communications Industry Forecast," August 2009, Veronis Suhler Stevenson, a leading private equity firm dedicated to the information, education and media industries.

4. PR spending has a strong growth outlook. Public relations spending is expected to increase by 17 percent by 2016, compared with a 6 percent increase in advertising spending.

- PR News/Burrelle's Luce

5. PR will be more important to overall marketing in 2010. Sixty-four (64) percent of marketing and PR professionals believe PR will become increasingly important in the marketing mix in 2010.

- Vocus Inc. survey of 1,800 marketing and PR professionals, November 2009

Street Smarts

Five Facts on the Strength of PR

Perspectives Staff