Davis Richardson
Davis Richardson

The top PR and communications firms are about to have their floors break from the growing number of elephants in the room.

Major media outlets are consolidating…

The slog to get placements in tier 1 outlets is growing (do clients even want them anymore with the massive distribution reach of podcasts?) …

And – perhaps the biggest elephant – Trump will return to the White House in January.

A potential harbinger for the future of the PR industry, Edelman yesterday reduced its headcount by 5% and laid off 330 employees. In an unusually candid interview with PRovoke Media, CEO Richard Edelman attributed the layoffs to an 8% revenue reduction, and firms needing to integrate their services across corporate reputation, public affairs and brand, away from boutique approaches.

“We are skating to where the puck will be — everything is interconnected now,” said Edelman.

There is partial truth here. But the paradox of public relations over the past few years is that the media landscape has become more niche. While Edelman may be downsizing (and potentially cannibalizing its ability to offer tailored services in key markets), many smaller firms are growing. According to a study conducted by Gould + Partners, nearly half of PR firms surveyed reported an increase in revenues, compared to 36% which admitted a decline.

So what’s the deal?

Like all sectors, the PR industry is in a transition period. Every company right now needs comms, whether that’s a Gen Z following a founder around conferences with a smartphone or a detailed action plan from industry veterans for crisis situations. But PR also needs to provide tangible success metrics in a big data economy, which traditional firms have long shied away from, by emphasizing the human element of building interpersonal relationships. The middleman approach of connecting journalists to executives is dying out, and client prospects are increasingly skeptical of “strategy” as a stand-in for lack of deliverables.

It’s also important to know when to weigh in on news cycles, and when not to.

Embrace History, Geopolitics, and the Story of Human Civilization…

Trump is back. And he’s mainstream now.

While the President’s win in 2016 blindsided many experts and appeared as a “blip” in the democratic tradition, his return to power and win of the popular vote cemented his standing in the U.S. political establishment. Company executives cannot keep their heads down like ostriches if they want to remain relevant in a deafening media environment. This means weighing in on potentially divisive news cycles which include Trump, and offering a careful and nuanced perspective.

Many PR agencies are all-too-familiar with clients who avoid touching politics. But politics is a historical process: Effective leaders apply history to the present in order to shepherd their organizations into the future. Chase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon always engages with journalists on political topics, navigating loaded questions about Trump, war, and inflation with ease because he understands these forces construct history. And it’s the job of the CEO of one of the largest global financial institutions to understand history.

Our firm Paradox Public Relations, for instance, has earned a reputation for placing our clients in a historical tradition. Rather than frame media placements as a ladder of “brand building,” we view individuals and companies as representatives of historical forces. Digital forensics firms, like Elementus and Crystal, represent “law and order” arriving in Wild West emerging markets akin to the FBI cracking down on the mob in Las Vegas during the late 70s; our longstanding client, robotics artist Agnieszka Pilat, meanwhile, represents a pivotal moment in which humanity offers sentinels our final gift of human creativity.

To be something in history, one has to be willing to speak about it. This starts with navigating tough conversations in public forums about the direction of markets and their impact on political economy.

But Avoid Partisan Kowtowing

Companies and executives today seem to be making the same mistake with Trump they did with DEI.

As the culture has shifted rightward, many prominent business leaders have gone on charm offensives with the current administration. Mark Zuckerberg lauded Trump as “badass” after the president survived an assassination attempt, while Marc Andreessen has publicly accused the Biden administration of pressuring tech companies to comply with government orders.

There is a fine line between discussing history and offering thoughtful insight like Dimon, and leaning too much into a given political regime. In 2017, for instance, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said that he wanted to force diversity and inclusion policies on companies, which was heavily in line at the time with left-leaning activism. Six years later in 2023, DEI messaging from Bud Light led to a massive boycott against the brand, plummeting the company’s stock valuation. This year, conservatives recirculated Fink’s comments online to incite negative news coverage about BlackRock.

Zuckerberg, Fink, and Andreessen are all billionaires. So they’re fine no matter who is in power.

But there are lessons here for every company. Certain flavors of politics go out of vogue, and it’s important to keep an eye on the culture of tomorrow.

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Davis Richardson is Managing Partner of Paradox Public Relations, a global communications firm delivering top PR results for clients in aerospace, defense, global development, and emerging technologies like blockchain and AI. Paradox PR’s clients have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, Fox News, and The Guardian.

Paradox PR is a proud member of O'Dwyer's, the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council, and the Government Blockchain Association, among other industry leading trade organizations.