Tag: ICCO

About the paper

The report is a global survey-based industry study of agency perspectives on the PR market in 2024–2025, covering growth, talent, AI, measurement, client demands, ethics, and regional differences.

It is based on an online survey conducted between July and November 2024 among 227 PR professionals across Africa, Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, the United Kingdom, North America, Latin America, and the Middle East; some regional sub-samples were under 20, and the report does not clearly specify further methodological details beyond the survey format.

Length: 47 pages

More information / download:
https://iccopr.com/world-pr-reports/

Core Insights

1. What is the report’s central argument about the current state of the PR industry?

The report’s core argument is that PR is entering a decisive period shaped by two simultaneous realities: continued commercial opportunity and rising structural strain. On the one hand, agencies are still broadly optimistic. The report says 67% are optimistic about market growth and 61% expect profitability to rise. On the other hand, that optimism sits alongside budget pressure, economic uncertainty, talent strain, misinformation, and a more politically volatile operating environment.

What makes the report more than a routine confidence survey is that it frames these pressures as a change in the nature of PR itself. The industry is moving further upstream into higher-value advisory work such as corporate reputation, strategic consulting, and increasingly public affairs. That suggests PR is no longer being defined primarily by media execution, but by its ability to help organisations navigate risk, trust, purpose, regulation, and contested public discourse.

So the big story is not simply “the industry is growing.” It is that PR is trying to become more strategically indispensable at the same moment that technology, geopolitics, and ethical risk are making that role harder and more consequential.

2. Where does the report see the strongest commercial growth and investment potential?

The clearest growth pattern is a shift towards reputation-led and advisory-led work. Globally, the top growth areas over the past year were corporate reputation at 31% and strategic consulting at 28%. Looking ahead, the top expected growth areas are strategic consulting at 38%, corporate reputation at 37%, and public affairs at 23%. The rise of public affairs is especially notable because it suggests clients increasingly need help navigating political and regulatory complexity, not just public messaging.

By sector, technology is the standout growth engine. It was the biggest growth sector over the past year at 46%, ahead of healthcare at 32% and financial and professional services at 27%. Looking forward, IT and technology remains the leading sector for expected growth at 54%, followed by healthcare at 30% and financial and professional services at 27%.

Expected investment priorities also reveal something important about how agencies think the market is evolving. ESG leads expected investment at 40%, followed by strategic consulting at 31% and influencer communications at 29%. That mix is striking because it combines boardroom issues, advisory work, and newer influence channels. In other words, agencies appear to be investing both in strategic counsel and in the communication formats needed to activate it.

Taken together, the report suggests that commercial growth is coming less from traditional media relations and more from helping clients manage reputation, policy exposure, stakeholder trust, and complex social expectations.

3. How does the report portray AI’s impact on PR, and what does that imply for the profession?

AI is presented as the single most transformative force in the report. Artificial intelligence is named by 86% of respondents as the most relevant future technology, 74% say their organisations have already integrated AI tools into everyday processes, and 79% believe AI’s impact on the industry will be significant, with a third calling it game-changing. Mastery of AI tools also ranks as the most relevant future skill set for PR executives at 47%, ahead of strategic consulting at 44%.

But the report does not treat AI simply as a productivity story. It makes a more layered point: AI is likely to reshape both what PR does and how PR proves its value. The biggest expected AI impact area within PR is measurement and analytics at 56%, followed by multimedia content creation and research/insight/planning at 44% each. That means the report sees AI not just as a content engine, but as a tool for analysis, interpretation, and decision support. On page 20, the chart also shows that respondents expect technology to matter most for operating more efficiently, building online communities, and improving employee engagement.

The implication is quite profound. If AI takes over more routine production and accelerates analysis, then human value in PR shifts further towards judgement, advisory capability, crisis counsel, ethics, and strategic interpretation. The report therefore points towards a profession in which technical fluency with AI becomes necessary, but not sufficient. The real differentiator becomes whether agencies can combine AI-enabled efficiency with trusted human counsel.

4. What does the report identify as the industry’s biggest weaknesses or unresolved problems?

The report highlights four interlocking weaknesses: commercial pressure, talent problems, thin progress on measurement maturity, and ethical vulnerability.

Commercially, the biggest challenge for firms over the next 12 months is clients unwilling to commit sufficient funds at 37%, followed by economic conditions generally at 34% and pressure to meet profit or margin targets at 26%. So even where growth opportunities exist, agencies still face a market that is cost-conscious and demanding.

On talent, the biggest strategic challenge is retaining key talent at 51%, followed by motivating younger executives at 35% and developing junior and mid-level staff at 33%. The report also notes a decline in perceived talent availability and in the industry’s ability to recruit from outside PR. It argues that this is especially problematic because the fastest-growing sectors, especially technology and healthcare, require specialist knowledge that traditional PR talent pipelines may not supply.

Measurement is another weak point. Although the report presents some encouraging signs, such as measurement being used for reporting, planning, and decision-making, client demand still appears fairly basic in places. The most likely client requests are media clippings at 52%, engagement metrics at 39%, and AVE at 31%. That continued prominence of AVE suggests that parts of the market still rely on legacy proxies rather than more advanced evaluation approaches. At the same time, only 36% say they use AMEC frequently or sometimes, though Asia-Pacific performs better at 46%.

Finally, ethics is not presented as a side issue but as a structural problem. Misinformation is the top ethical concern at 40%, lack of consequences for unethical agencies is at 38%, and balancing income with ethics is at 37%. Although 73% say they have turned down a client or job for ethical reasons, only 39% think PR is more ethical than other industries. That contrast suggests a profession that sees itself as trying to behave responsibly, while also recognising that its wider legitimacy remains fragile.

5. What broader conclusions does the report draw about the future role of PR?

The report’s broader conclusion is that PR’s future will depend on whether it can become more strategically important without losing ethical credibility. It repeatedly returns to three themes: reputation, responsibility, and reinvention. Clients’ most important objective is proactive corporate reputation at 61%, ahead of increased sales at 46% and crisis management at 37%. That tells us PR is increasingly tied to the stewardship of intangible value, not merely campaign delivery.

At the same time, the profession’s future role is shown to be inseparable from ethical leadership. The report argues that PR professionals now operate in a world shaped by misinformation, polarisation, geopolitical instability, and AI-enabled content manipulation. In that context, 91% believe agencies have a duty to steer clients away from unethical behaviour. The message is that PR cannot credibly claim a strategic role unless it is also willing to act as a moral and reputational adviser.

There is also a social dimension to this future role. Clients are most likely to prioritise sustainability and environment at 59%, followed by diversity and social inclusion at 28% and technology empowerment at 25%. That suggests PR’s remit increasingly includes helping organisations communicate around public-interest issues, not just commercial ones.

So the report’s real conclusion is this: the future of PR will belong to agencies that can combine strategic consulting strength, AI capability, robust measurement, sector expertise, and ethical judgement. It is not a story of simple industry expansion. It is a story of professional upgrading under pressure.

About the paper

The paper is a mixed-methods industry report on the state and direction of the global PR agency sector, covering growth, AI, talent, ethics, measurement, client demands, and workplace issues.

The core dataset is an online survey of 268 PR professionals across eight regions, supplemented by a focus group of senior leaders from PROI Worldwide agencies in a dozen countries and a short excerpt from the Global Women in PR Annual Index; the report states fieldwork for the global survey took place between August and September 2020, which is unusual for a 2023–2024 edition and should be treated as stated rather than clarified.

Length: 67 pages

More information / download:
https://iccopr.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/ICCO-report-2023-interactive.pdf

Core Insights

1. What is the report’s central argument about the current state of the global PR industry?

The report’s main argument is that the global PR industry remains fundamentally optimistic and growth-oriented, but that this optimism sits alongside real structural pressure. The industry believes it can grow, invest, and adapt, yet it is doing so in a context marked by economic uncertainty, fee pressure, talent strain, misinformation, and changing client expectations.

That duality runs through the whole report. On one side, 96% of organisations say they expect to grow over the next five years, and the average optimism score for PR market growth is 7.0. On the other side, the two biggest near-term challenges are general economic conditions and clients unwilling to commit sufficient funds, both cited by 42% of respondents. The report therefore does not paint a triumphalist picture. It presents PR as a sector that is resilient and ambitious, but also under pressure to prove value, modernise its skills, and defend margins.

The tone is especially revealing: the report repeatedly suggests that PR is moving into a more strategic and consequential role, but that this role is not guaranteed. It has to be earned through better consulting capability, stronger measurement, technological adaptation, and more credible ethical conduct. In that sense, the report is not just describing industry conditions. It is urging the profession to mature.

2. Why does AI occupy such a dominant place in the report, and what does that suggest about the future of PR work?

AI dominates the report because it is treated as the clearest symbol of the industry’s current transition. The report frames AI not as a niche tool or isolated trend, but as the defining force reshaping future relevance, future skills, and future operating models. 86% of respondents rank AI among the top three most relevant technologies for the future of their business, 59% say they have already integrated AI tools into everyday processes, and 96% believe AI will have a significant impact on the PR industry.

What is especially important is that the report links AI to three different kinds of change. First, it links AI to efficiency: the top expected application of new technology is “operating more efficiently” at 55%. Second, it links AI to content and workflow change: multimedia content creation rises sharply as an area likely to be affected. Third, it links AI to capability change: “mastery of AI tools” becomes the single most important future skill set, ahead of strategic consulting.

That suggests the future of PR work will be shaped by a tension between automation and strategic value. Routine production, analysis, and content tasks are likely to become faster and more scalable. But the report does not imply that technology replaces strategic judgement. In fact, strategic consulting remains near the top of growth areas and skill priorities. So the deeper implication is that PR professionals will need to combine technical fluency with higher-order advisory work. AI raises the floor for efficiency, but also raises the bar for strategic differentiation.

3. What does the report identify as the main growth opportunities for PR agencies, and what do those opportunities have in common?

The main growth opportunities cluster around three themes: strategic value, sustainability-related work, and technology-linked demand. In expected growth areas, strategic consulting ranks first at 47%, followed by corporate reputation at 40% and purpose/CSR at 38%. In expected sectors of growth, IT and technology leads at 49%, followed by financial and professional services at 40% and healthcare at 39%. In expected areas of investment, ESG comes first at 49%.

These opportunities have a common logic: they are all areas where PR moves beyond tactical publicity and towards business-critical advisory work. Strategic consulting implies deeper involvement in organisational decision-making. Corporate reputation and purpose work imply longer-term, stakeholder-based value creation. ESG and sustainability work imply communication at the intersection of business performance, legitimacy, and public expectation. Even technology-sector growth is not presented as mere sectoral luck; it reflects where complexity, innovation, and narrative demand are highest.

The report also makes clear that clients’ priority issues reinforce this trend. Sustainability and environment is by far the top social issue clients are likely to prioritise, at 69%. That means agencies are likely to grow where they can help organisations explain, justify, and operationalise their role in society, not just where they can generate coverage.

So the big picture is that the strongest opportunities lie in areas where PR can claim strategic relevance to business outcomes, legitimacy, and adaptation to major external pressures.

4. What are the report’s biggest warnings or criticisms of the industry itself?

The report’s sharpest criticism is that the industry still too often fails to measure what matters. Measurement and analytics are clearly seen as important, and AMEC usage is growing, but outdated and invalid practices still remain. Most notably, 34% say AVE is a likely client request, even though the report explicitly describes AVE as a discredited and invalid metric. It argues that this creates a disconnect between clients’ stated objectives, such as improving reputation, increasing sales, and building brand purpose, and the weaker metrics often used in practice.

That criticism is about more than metrics. It is really about professional credibility. The report suggests that if PR continues to rely on activity measures, media clippings, or flawed proxies, it risks looking busy rather than valuable. The language is unusually direct: there are “no excuses” for failing to demonstrate impact properly.

A second warning concerns ethics. The report shows significant concern about misinformation and about the lack of consequences for unethical behaviour. It also shows uneven commitment to codes of conduct across regions. The message is that PR cannot claim a serious advisory role while tolerating weak ethical enforcement.

A third criticism concerns talent and inclusion. The report notes progress in DEI policy and mental health support, but it also shows a gap between having policies and actually reflecting the diversity of the public served. That is a subtle but important critique: formal commitments are not the same as substantive change.

Taken together, the report’s warnings are aimed inward. They suggest the industry’s external opportunity depends on internal discipline.

5. What broader conclusion does the report reach about what PR agencies must do next to remain credible and competitive?

The broader conclusion is that PR agencies must become more strategically useful, more technologically capable, and more professionally accountable at the same time. The report does not suggest that one of these is enough on its own. Growth will not come simply from adopting AI, or from talking about ESG, or from improving wellbeing policies in isolation. The argument is that future success depends on integrating these elements into a stronger model of agency value.

That means, first, agencies must improve the quality of their counsel. Strategic consulting, corporate reputation, ESG, and purpose all rank highly because clients increasingly need advisors, not only executors. Second, agencies must upgrade skills, especially around AI, analytics, and advisory work. Third, they must strengthen the way they prove outcomes, because measurement is central both to reporting and to budget justification. Fourth, they must deal more seriously with ethics, misinformation, and trust. And fifth, they must look after their people, because retention, motivation, and development are major vulnerabilities.

The report’s final implication is that PR’s future is not mainly about media relations becoming digital or content becoming faster. It is about whether agencies can position themselves as credible partners in navigating uncertainty. Economic volatility, climate pressure, AI disruption, and trust erosion all make communication more central to organisational success. But they also make superficial PR less defensible. The path ahead, as the report sees it, is open, but only for agencies that can match optimism with capability.

One caveat worth noting from the report itself: the methodology is not fully transparent in every respect. The survey sample and regions are stated, and the report includes a separate PROI focus group contribution, but the reported survey fieldwork date appears inconsistent with the edition year. That does not invalidate the report, but it does mean the methodological framing should be treated with some caution.