What will change in the PR industry over the next 30 years? Which competencies will be key? Or perhaps PR will be absorbed by another field? It is worth considering the directions of further development in order to better prepare for what is to come.

Research methodology

What does the study say?

The discipline and profession of the PR practitioner have changed greatly in recent years. This raises the question of what future awaits the industry in the longer term – and how to prepare for it. The PR 2050 study was carried out using foresight methodology. This is a type of forecasting aimed at creating probable development visions in the short and long term. This process combines an analytical-research aspect with a participatory one – the analysis of available data and expert knowledge, as well as that of entrepreneurs, scientists, social organizations, and representatives of public administration. Such a formula supports the substantive identification of factors and potential problems affecting the future of the area under study. Foresight leads to the distillation of the most probable models and development scenarios, and thus helps in the context of making strategic decisions and actions. Due to the variability of trends and the non-linearity of ongoing changes, it is not synonymous with predicting the future. Its goal is to determine the most probable direction of change and realistic, equally valid visions concerning the future.

Scenario 1: PR is dead. The death of PR – a crisis of the category.

Over the next 30 years, the understanding of the very concept of PR will change (this is claimed by nearly ¼ of our respondents – the largest category of answers to the question: "What do you think will definitely change regarding the PR industry in Poland over the next 30 years?"). This could be such a radical change in the perception and understanding of public relations that it violates the autonomy of this category to such an extent that PR itself may undergo disintegration. The field of public relations will be absorbed or replaced by other communication disciplines – so that we will no longer practically need this concept in communication with the client/market. At least several factors may contribute to such a state of affairs. These include, among others, growing automation and the role of AI, advancing digitalization, a low barrier to access to information, the end of traditional media, and DIY PR.

Scenario 2: an imaginary algorithm?

Despite the development of digital technologies and automation processes, PR as a profession will withstand ubiquitous digitalization due to the difficult/impossible-to-fully-replace nature of its competencies and the value of interpersonal relationships, which are the foundation of public relations. Technological progress will not replace PR, but paradoxically will strengthen its position as an elite and valuable profession (measurable in market terms), because it is impossible to replace with a machine (especially against the backdrop of the constantly growing tendency to displace many professions by solutions that do not require human involvement). Creativity, relationships, and soft skills will still be key, and will only be supplemented by new tools and products of the technological revolution, which will undoubtedly increase over the next three decades.

Scenario 3: Pay-per-hour or pay-per-performance?

What increasingly influences the economy today is often called the gig economy. It is an economic model based on the principle of sharing, where people work not on a permanent basis, but "from assignment to assignment." This gives the opportunity to choose the projects that a person wants to carry out at a given moment.

81% of respondents claim that we will work "project-wise" – the work of a PR practitioner will not require full-time employment. This will change the model of employment in projects. Contracts will be more flexible – short-term B2B commitments, civil-law contracts, etc. will dominate. Of course, this will give rise to further implications, e.g., project succession (because by nature they will be more ephemeral), issues of knowledge sharing, soft skills (working in distributed teams, shorter adaptation time).

This will change the operating model of agencies. They must be more agile, multidisciplinary, working mainly in the cloud, and able to maintain financial flexibility. The number of agencies with medium turnover (£370,000–£925,000 per year) will increase. There will be agencies specializing in industry categories (these competencies are already visible). The importance of employer branding in agencies will increase very strongly.

Scenario 4: Data driven PR.

We produce, process, and analyze numbers of data previously impossible to imagine. As a result, we increasingly understand certain social processes and behaviors. Data has strongly determined the advertising market; today targeting in the vast majority is based on segmentation and data analysis. Most respondents indicate that data analytics will be a key skill for the PR industry (alongside soft skills and – separately – creativity, digital content, and SEO).

Most respondents also indicate that the digitalization of media and communication is a process that can no longer be stopped – 88.1%. Therefore, one can predict an increased supply of professional digital training, specialized postgraduate studies, and online courses. One will need to be able to search for and manage data.

We can expect the development of open tools, but also commercial solutions, such as tools for "white intelligence" and data merging, tools combining data sources, or tools for quickly capturing trends. The task of the PR practitioner will be the translation and visualization (through word, image, animation) of existing databases. The competencies of a PR specialist will also include not only the ability to shape stories based on data (so-called storytelling), but also the ability to use software.

The report can be downloaded at: CLICK

The partners of the report are the Polish Public Relations Association and the Exacto PR Agency.

Summary

The PR 2050 report, based on foresight methodology, outlines four scenarios for the development of the public relations industry over a 30-year perspective. From the complete disintegration of the profession (PR is dead), through defense against automation thanks to soft skills, to a change in the employment model to project-based (pay-per-performance). Most experts (88.1%) have no doubt that digitalization is irreversible, and data analytics will become one of the key skills of a PR practitioner – alongside creativity and relationship building.

An interesting fact is that the report points to the growing importance of agencies with medium turnover (£370,000–£925,000 per year), which will have to operate agilely, in the cloud, and with flexible teams. This is a signal for the entire industry that the future belongs to specialists combining hard analytical competencies with the ability to tell stories based on data.