Public Relations Summit 2009 has brought fruitful discussion of professionals on the PR role in current turbulent times

Experts in the Public Relations agreed the future lays in symmetrical and bilateral communication, especially in new media and social networks

On Wednesday 21st October more than 170 representatives from PR agencies, PR experts, communication managers and marketing and public affairs directors from various sectors of economics have participated at the 1st year of Public Relations Summit in Prague andel’s hotel. The presentations and the following discussions tried to find an answer to the question “How big of a slice can PR take from the MarCom pie?“ Along with the presentation of the keynote speaker the specific competition Pecha Kucha part has become the most appreciated part of the program.

The conference main topic was cultivated both by people doing in-house PR as well as working in agencies. Their diversified views on this question brought a great benefit to the expert discussions. At the beginning the participants and speakers were welcomed by Pavlína Rieselová, member of APRA Executive Board, and Michal Vlasák from Euro RSCG Public Relations, who also opened the conference program. In the introductory part called “PR Role in turbulent times” the first speaker Vadim Petrov, General Manager of Corporate Affairs Department at Toyota Peugeot Citroën Automobile Czech, outlined the way how TPCA (the producer in small cars segment) faces the current economic recession and what external and internal policies have been applied. An interesting part of his presentation was the view inside the multicultural company with Japanese compounds, which TPCA surely is. Listeners got the chance to find what kaizen, yamazumi or muda mean. Alexandra Gjurić, Communication Manager and Press spokesperson of ING ČR/SR, giving the speech entitled “Crisis of trust in the field based on trust”, has presented the specific steps of external and internal communication the ING company has made during the last year, challenged with the rapid growth of negative medial publicity concerning financial institutions. The possibilities offered to PR field by online communication and web relations were the main topic of presentation of Jakub Hrabovský, PR Manager Corporate Affairs Vodafone Group from Vodafone UK. He stressed that the potential of these channels as well as of social networks has not yet been filled in the Czech Republic and it is a great promise for the future development in this field.

The keynote speaker was Lou Capozzi, current president of international organization ICCO and guru of PR field with more than 40 years of experience from the leading world PR agencies and in-house. Lou Capozzi calls the current time “The Conversation Age” – age that brings interesting perspectives to PR. Above all to that PR, able to activate and involve third parties, advising not just on communication, but on behavior and offering strategic consultancy skills. This is the right model for the future. Capozzi stressed this field has a lot of opportunities for growth on condition it does not underestimate the importance of educating new PR professionals as experts, who fully understand the core of business, strategy and marketing communication needs of customers. PR experts should also take hold of the challenge to create system tools to measure PR activities effects, similar indexes marketing has been using for showing out its efficiency since years.

The liveliest and highest evaluated part was unequivocally the afternoon part of the conference where the moderator Barbora Tachecí has motivated five professionals in competition of presentation skills in the Pecha Kucha style. In the presentation limited by less than 7 minutes each of them was trying to find an answer to the question going along with the whole summit, “How can PR get the bigger slice of the MarCom pie?”. All the competitors performed very professional and funny, prompt and informative presentations. The attendants in conference hall have collectively evaluated the presentation of Václav Pavelka, Managing Partner of Native PR, as the best one. According to the enthusiastic reaction of summit attendants the new format Pecha Kucha proved to be interesting and efficient way of presentation and so we can expect it will be used also in other conferences.

The expert part of the summit was concluded by presenting the results of a study “Tomorrow in PR According to Czech PR Professionals” made by GfK agency and the following panel discussion of in-house and agencies experts. Even though their opinions were different in some aspects, all have agreed the current economic recession brings new challenges and opportunities for this field. These lay especially in the necessity to communicate the difficult and strategically important topics for the company, like restructuralization, fusion or acquisitions that might prove the PR value for company performance. Discussion participants have also agreed the future of this field lays especially in “symmetrical two-way communication”, especially using the “new media” and social networks. The traditional model of one-way controlled information has been surpassed. The information recipient is becoming an active participant of the communication process and can significantly influence the final result of the whole communication and its impact on the goals and perception of the company.

The conclusion of the conference was dedicated to announcing the 1st year of PR Manager of the year award. The winner is Dana Dvořáková, Corporate Communication Director of Unipetrol Company.

For more information see www.prsummit.cz or ask the conference organizers:
Antonín Parma, General Manager Blue Events (antonin.parma@blueevents.eu)
Pavlína Rieselová, Member of APRA Executive Board (rieselova@ewingpr.cz)