Part of the appeal might be that adding a PR arm is not much of a risk, according to marketing guru, Carl Hopkins. “It’s an easy set up and an easy sell with high conversion rates,” he reasons. “In lots of cases it’s not particularly accountable, but it tends not to be particularly costly so clients tend to scrutinise other areas of their marketing spend first.”
But Hopkins tempers those agencies whose mouths are watering at the prospect of a cash cow, adding that PR is not without its share of caveats. “Although it’s relatively inexpensive as a marketing channel it can be seen as a luxury by clients and turned off quickly,” he warns. “The problem will be that if lots of agencies are offering a PR service, they will need people and there will not be enough good ones to go around. So your good ones will become (more) expensive and lots of bad ones will get jobs which will deliver a bad service to more clients which will give the true PR professionals a bad name.”

The recent abundance of agencies launching PR offshoots is a sign that they have “woken up to the fact that clients are investing more heavily in PR-led communications,” says Charles Tattersall, MD of PR firm Citypress. “Companies know that the top down marketing tactics to persuade customers to buy their products are not getting the same cut through. The best marketing campaigns now engage consumers in conversation.”

CAUTION
Tattersall’s peers in the PR world agree that agencies from other disciplines need to approach the move to PR with caution.

“If this is a return to full service agencies then I think the timing’s wrong: clients are still demanding specialists,” says Paver Smith MD, Dougal Paver. But Paver relents that he can see PR’s appeal to outsiders. “I can understand why agencies would want to secure the stable income that PR enjoys but they’ve got to know what they’re doing. The danger is that the new divisions end up harming the parent brand, so you need to make this sort of move advisedly.”

Brian Beech, boss of Biss Lancaster, is quick to point out that “PR isn’t something you can just drift into”. PR is, he says, a highly sophisticated marketing discipline and he notes that the current generation of young PR professionals have spent years at university to gain entry into the highly competitive industry. “It really pisses me off that agencies think they can just add PR on to their letterhead and that makes them a PR consultancy, or because someone is a digital guru he or she thinks that makes them equally equipped to be a competent PR practitioner,” Beech adds.

But agencies are savvy enough to know this and, as such, many are trying to tempt some top names from the PR profession to help establish their new ventures.

The protagonists behind these new PR ventures also insist they are responding to gaps in the market, or providing a service their clients have intimated a desire for. Guerilla has launched PR arm Guerilla Propaganda, because, MD James Allen, says: “We have seen our clients have a natural demand for this service and we see it as a key component of our integrated offering.”

Meanwhile Steve Leach, chief executive of SEO giant Bigmouthmedia, has launched Revolver PR, as a response to the unrealised possibilities of PR online. “Three times more content is now read online than offline,” Leach says, “yet despite the rapidly increasing importance of online news the PR sector is still struggling to get its head round the internet.”

Design firm D4 has created D4 PR as a standalone entity, because, like Leach, its directors have recognised the opportunities the web presents. D4 director Clare Williams says there is minimal local competition and the online-targeted PR offering will appeal to clients attracted to the idea of marrying the disparate skill sets of PR and web design through one agency.

Similarly, OnVisible is a venture aimed at targeting online PR by ad agency Brahm and sister digital agency Swamp. Deborah Copeland, head of OnVisible, says online PR was already a service offered to clients but now the time felt right to flesh the offering out.
“Increasingly the web is the first port of call for people when they are researching a company, or a product or a service,” she says. “They are going online to find out what other people think, and how things are reviewed and rated, so it felt like there was a need for us to branch out and offer a service for brands who want a buzz online.”

In the midst of recession, it makes sense for agencies to trumpet a service they already offer and make it more visible to clients. But what about an agency that has never offered PR before?

Emma Park, recently appointed PR director for Threebrand’s newly unveiled division Threebrand PR, says branching out into the specialism has been on the minds of the agency’s board for some time. “Threebrand often and still does work with many professional partner agencies but have found more clients expect and often assume we have a team of PR professionals onboard, so such an opening felt very natural to the business.”

The team at the agency are confident that their new venture will add value for clients and allow them to tailor their communications. But Park also adds that it isn’t just about establishing the stable income that PR agencies enjoy – as some commentators have suggested of any creative agency setting up a PR division – but about creating a new service that will eventually compete on a national stage: “We are aiming to establish Threebrand PR to compete amongst the best of the UK’s PR consultancies and be truly proud of the work we do.”

CHANGING FACE
It is not just creative agencies that are noting the changing face of PR. PR consultancy Corixa has created a new division to focus on the over 55 mature market. The firm’s MD, Lis Anderson, says PR is being transformed because traditional ‘media’ channels have changed so much. “The PR industry is so much more strategic and targeted about the work it delivers,” Anderson says. “The knock on effect of PR being highly regarded and an effective communications tool is that being specialist within certain sectors packs even more punch and offers clients even greater areas of expertise.”

After the deluge of launches that have seen creative and marketing agencies muscling in on what they once considered a black art – and with the prospect of PR consultancies continuing to adapt to market specialisms – the coming months promise to be PRetty interesting.