Unemployment "Benefits" Receiver (12/13):
It could be sad but illuminating to see how many PR firms and vendors have been going out of business. Many of the departed were firms in name only, with no clients, existing to the unemployed can say they were consulting, not recipients of unemployment "benefits."
When firms are hard hit or go under, and one vendor recently required over 50 employees to take four days of "unpaid vacation" because the vendor was short of money, clients who pay before their results are in face the problem of how to get result reports.
It's like the problem of magazine subscribers when a magazine goes out of business, but instead of the few dollars that a magazine subscription costs, payment for PR firm counseling and services can run into thousands of dollars lost.
Human Resources Manager (12/14):
Trouble for some is opportunity for others. Just before a magazine goes out of business, there may be an opportunity to acquire it for next to nothing, getting a quality staff, subscribers and adverrtisers without having to invest in building up these groups. When a PR firm or PR service vendor goes under, the cause is commonly a loss of major accounts that have gone elsewhere. But a magazine's advertisers have advertised elsewhere for years so loss of an advertiser unlike losss of a major account may be quickly reversible. A PR firm or service often goes under because clients no longer want what the top people offer which is hard or nearly impossible for them to change or for an acquiring firm to change, but a magazine can readily change what it offers by adding a few creative people and dropping some who are less agile. Sometimes there is a major hemmorage of an organization's best people as there has been with Newsweek's many good people who left and as hit the service firm that lost many top people and then gave survivors an involuntary vacation without pay. But staffers have asset value so that changing a few in time can save the jobs of many.
Magazine Fan (12/14):
This report is probably about printed magazines, and there may be an increase in magazine numbers and circulation when you take into account on-air and online magazines. We may be seeing a reverse migration. Instead of unemployed magazine people moving into PR, unemployed PR people may be moving into on-air and online magazines. Contrary to a prvious comment, not many customers may pay for ad space or PR services before ads have been run and service results have been both created and reported. As in restaurants, we enjoy first and pay afterwards. |