BUILDING BRIDGES: THE CHANGING RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PUBLIC RELATIONS AND LOBBYING

Lobbyists and Public Relations Professionals no longer work in silos. Increasingly both lobbying and public relations consultancies are offering integrated services. Many firms that were strictly PR are now providing public relations and strategic communication services working in the PR, lobbying and media fields. Typically, the range of theirs services will include the following:

• Strategic communications planning
• Public relations and public affairs
• Government relations and lobbying services
• Advocacy and stakeholder engagement
• Marketing communications
• Media relations and media training

Public relations is a strategic management function that enables an organisation to influence the people and groups on whom it relies for business success. However, strategic PR is not just about ‘communication’. It’s about well planned and well managed engagements and relationship building on a variety of levels and with a variety of influential audiences. Be they customers, media, unions, member companies, sector interest groups, staff, regulators or politicians – they all have perceptions, attitudes and influence that have the potential to affect an organisation. Strategic PR is about managing those important stakeholders in order to achieve agreed goals and outcomes.

There is a close connection between lobbying and public relations. PR professionals need to know and work better with those involved in lobbying and public policy advocacy. A plan that aims to influence legislation includes both advocacy and public relations. The mixture depends primarily on the degree of interest among the mass audience and media, how important the outcome is to the corporation or industry, and how strong the opposition is. Sometimes only a simple release to media is necessary; sometimes a full range of communications devices is warranted, including holding press conferences, arranging interviews, advertising, arranging for proponents to appear on radio and TV, and monitoring the opposition’s appearances on radio and TV, and even social media so as to appeal for equal time, among others.

Today many of the largest PR companies are now owned by large conglomerates such as WPP, Omnicom, Interpublic Group and Publicis Group. These super-companies bring together PR, lobbying, advertising and marketing companies to provide "integrated communications services" for their corporate clients. Bringing together all these different kinds of communications companies, the conglomerates represent a new era in corporate communications. The services of previously independent lobbying, PR, marketing and advertising companies are now fully  integrated.

PR can be broken down into three principal disciplines and most agencies are particularly strong in one or two of these.

1. Consumer: The biggest discipline by far is consumer PR, where the agency helps to design and implement campaigns to promote a brand, or particular products or services, to customers. Most of the large national and international agencies have a consumer PR arm.

2. Financial: Financial is the second-largest and often the most lucrative discipline, where agencies are called on to manage a business's reputation among financial journalists, analysts and ultimately investors. Financial PR consultants help companies manage the announcement of their annual results and are also brought in to manage communications during stock market floatations, takeover battles and acquisitions.

3. Lobbying and Public Affairs: Lobbying, or public affairs, is the third distinct discipline. Companies, public bodies and charities get advice from lobbying agencies on how to put their case to government, politicians and local councils. Lobbyists will alert their clients to political and regulatory issues that could affect them and help them to map out the political landscape.

A fourth discipline, corporate communications, runs across the other three. Corporate communications is about protecting a company's overall reputation, rather than promoting its products or services.

There has also been huge expansion in public relations for specialist industry sectors such as technology and healthcare. PR agencies not only implement campaigns, but help to plan them and measure their success.