Amazing as it may seem, there are still a few businesses out there that are happy to pay large fees to PR companies without expecting…or getting…much in return.

It’s a situation exemplified in a conversation we had with the boss of a well-known and successful local radio station. Citing one of our largest international consultancies, he said: ‘every month they send us a fee invoice, yet they do absolutely nothing for us in return.’

For many years, the Mission Statement has been part of the corporate communications toolbox.

Managers have been wedded to it, seeing it as a short, simple, easy-to-read composition that would magically portray an organisation as responsible, caring and committed, with determination and resources to serve its various publics to the very highest standards.

When choosing a public relations consultancy, one will inevitably run up against that age old choice: Should I opt for youth or go for a firm that has experience?

Looking through a recent Who’s Who in Public Relations supplement published by Business Plus magazine, one was struck by the many fresh young faces whose agencies were profiled and whose opinions were quoted.

How often have you heard that old chestnut? Yet, how often have you seen people behaving just as if it’s true?

Here in Ireland, the war of words that waged around the Limerick City of Culture debacle was another example of a controversy around which the ‘silence is golden’ advice might have been better observed.

Isn’t Twitter wonderful?  Instantaneously, it can place a message into smart phones across the globe.  As a low cost, no effort means of communication, nothing beats it. And the beauty is…it penetrates that youth market that every manager wants to reach.

We welcome Government’s plan to legislate for the introduction of a Register of Lobbyists. 

We welcome it – not for the benefit Government believes it may bring – but for the fact that its introduction may well encourage PR firms to turn their backs on this trade as a means of earning fee income.