Through the PR years

Manning Selvage & Lee's Asia Pacific chief has 20 years experience in PR and a macro overview of the industry with his current remit overseeing Singapore, Shanghai , Beijing, Hong Kong and Tokyo. He shares his observations with Clarice Chiam.

Talent shortage has become something of a catchphrase in marketing. Bandied about for a long time, agency heads are becoming increasingly frustrated facing increased demand for services but lacking the right talent to meet that demand.

Shanghai-based Glenn Osaki, senior VP and senior director, Asia Pacific of Manning Selvage & Lee says talent shortage and rising economies top his list of the most pertinent observations about PR in the region.

As a rising number of global companies take their operations and brands into new markets, there is also the trend of PR being tasked with taking on a strategic role in establishing dialogue, building brands with stakeholders, and instituting communications as a business driver.

"In Asia Pacific, this is particularly noticeable in China and India, where both international and regional firms are leveraging the economic growth and resulting opportunities," Osaki says, while cautioning that as PR functions and practitioners in these markets are still in the emerging stage, further education is needed to reduce misunderstanding about the strategic function.

It seems this cautionary point is not just confined to emerging markets - the red flag has also been raised on Singapore's PR scene where ordinary operational publicity exercises seem to be regarded as strategic functions to some. Both China and Singapore are also prone to encountering competition arising from local agencies where cost is still the deciding factor for many clients. Similarities aside, he says the Singapore PR scene is more sophisticated, and in terms of talent, has a significant edge over China even though the local media environment is much smaller.

The rise of the China and India markets has also brought about other challenges. With more companies seeking business opportunities across Asia, PR professionals have found it difficult to keep up with clients due to the lack of staff with practical expertise in the Indian and Chinese markets. Adapting regional campaigns to the cultures and tastes of each local country is another challenge; often clients expect results to be the same across the region with an integrated campaign, unaware that with different approaches and local adaptations, end results may not always be the same from market to market.

Despite this, Osaki says practices from 20 years ago and now have changed with the perception that PR has come into its own as a discipline with its own place at the boardroom table.

"While there is a greater need for PR to be an integral function in integrated campaigns, we find that clients are understanding better the long-term benefits of merging PR into their business planning processes to build stakeholder value; we're more often involved at the ‘C' suite of our clients now than previously," he says.