The USC Center for Public Relations secured input from these business leaders as well as more than 1,500 public relations professionals around the world to gather answers to numerous questions about where the industry is headed. The results were released earlier this year in its Annual Global Communications Report.
This was the first time the Global Communications Report solicited input from CEOs and sought to “determine where they think their company’s communication efforts should be focused.”
While the report provides more data and insights into the perspectives of PR professionals (agency and in-house) and students, it is interesting to see how CEOs responded to questions regarding their communication goals and the strategies they feel are most valuable. Below we have recapped some of the findings.
When CEOs responded to the question regarding their most important communication goal for their company:
- 44% of CEO respondents shared that their most important communication goal for the year is to sell products and services. Interestingly only 25% of in-house communicators indicated this was the most important goal for their company.
- 39% of CEOs indicated their primary goal is to differentiate their company’s brand from the competition. In-house communicators were in sync with the CEOs on this goal with an identical 39% indicating this was the most important goal.
- Marshalling data and analytics to gain insight into opinions, issues and trends was the top priority for 12% of CEO respondents and 14% of in-house communicators.
- Only 1% of CEOs stated that shaping position on social issues was the most important communication goal for the coming year. Eight percent % of in-house communicators felt this was the most important goal for their organization.
When asked what communication strategies CEOs feel will be most valuable to their company in the future, the results were divided:
- 38% stated shared media (i.e., social media and online influencers) were most valuable
- 36% percent responded that owned media (i.e., original content distributed through company channels) is most valuable
- 14% indicated earned media is the most valuable media strategy for their company in the future
- And only 12% felt that paid media was the most valuable media strategy
The full report can be accessed here: https://uscannenberg.formstack.com/forms/2019_gcr.