Public relations, more commonly known as ‘PR’, can be defined as the practice of managing communication between an organisation and its publics. It provides an organisation or individual exposure to their target audiences using topics of public interest and news items that provide a third-party endorsement. Common activities include organising speaking opportunities, media relations, crisis communications, social media engagement and employee/internal communications.

PR is increasingly tied to online and social media communications as companies look to integrate their online and traditional brand building activities. Awareness and monitoring of online sentiment is also an important part of any corporate social relations (CSR) programme.

Here are some typical activities and benefits companies can realise from engaging PR:

• Raising the profile of an organisation in target media to support sales activity
• Differentiating an organisation within a specific market
• Helping to manage change communications regarding eg, a factory move, closure or change of company management
• Profiling and communicating company strategy to business/financial markets in a pre-IPO situation
• Creating a media personality for an organisation’s figurehead e.g a CEO, chairman, managing director

Our capabilities

At ibd we have numerous advisors with PR expertise, from those with experience of business-to-business markets, to consumer and not-for-profit. We can cover any sector specialism a company might require and are able to pool teams of advisors where a client might require a breadth of marketing support.