Building the reputation of PR in Russia

by Nina Kinnunen

While surfing on IPRA’s website I found this article. According to it PR has clearly suffered from a negative image in Russia since it first emerged in the end of 80’s. Most of the population’s knowledge of PR was limited to political conflicts for a long time. And political PR widely used dirty techniques and mud-throwing. Thus the reputation of PR-specialists became associated with lies and bribery. In business PR "zakazukha”, (meaning bought-and-paid-for news articles) became a standard practice and main business of the newly-formed Russian PR agencies. Throughout the 90’s there was little understanding of the term PR and its role in the modern business environment.

But the article is also a proof that something has been done – and quite successfully even – to build up better practices and consequently a better reputation for Russian PR. The article is quite long, so I’ll try to summarize it for you here.

IPRA has the annual Golden World Awards (GWA) that recognizes the best in Public Relations work from around the world. It contains numerous award categories covering the whole range of public relations activities. In 2004 Russian SPN Granat Communications Agency was selected as the winner in the category “Recovery from Crisis”. In partnership with its client, the Russian Public Relations Agency, it had developed and implemented a program in 2003 in order to address the negative reputation of Russian PR and unprofessional practices within the industry. The 12 month program was based on three major international public relations events: PR days in Moscow, Baltic PR Weekend and PROBA Awards.

The Mission:

To rebuild the reputation of Public Relations in Russia, to identify the causes and incidents of unprofessional practices (Black PR), to bring the PR practices to the international level and build partnerships across all interested parties.

Objectives:

1.Drawing public attention to the PR profession
2.To determine the leaders, separating civilized PR practices from amateurish ones
3.Contributing to working out criteria for professional qualities in PR
4.Bringing together PR specialists and representatives of business, culture, politics and social sphere who are interested in creating favorable image in development of PR services area.

Accomplishments:

The arranged events reached both extensive geographical and media coverage. The efforts for strengthening the professional position of PR practitioners also paid off. Consequently, in September 2003 the profession of “Public Relations specialist” became officially recognized by the state and was entered in to the Russian Federation Professions Register.

There were also other more general changes listed on the site (not only related to this particular program, I think)

Changes in the structure of PR services in Russia:

1.For many, the first (and for a long time only) real sign of PR in Russia was the press release. So-called "carpet-bombing" of the media with press releases was almost the only activity of the PR specialist in the early nineties and beyond. Face-to-face media interaction was almost non-existent. Now other parts of the media relations tool set were utilized (press tours, press conferences, interviews, special events for media representatives): Russian executives and Russian journalists learned how to talk to each other!

2.Growing understanding of diverse audiences – companies and organizations, government and interest groups, customers and investors – which all required a different approach and a different form of dialogue.

3.The role of efficient internal communications became increasingly appreciated.

4.Economy leaders started to care about their public images, sponsorship and charity work for promoting the companies as responsible corporate citizens.

5.Establishing of the environmental PR: Learning from the international best practices, Russian oil, gas, pulp-and-paper and steel companies are investing in environmental programs and communicating these changes to the industry and the general public

6.Establishing of financial PR, investor and analyst relations.

7.Growing trust of PR agencies as professional in solving PR tasks

Even though the implementation of the program was clearly successful, there has been and still is a lot improvements to do, of course. Russian PR agencies have also won IPRA awards after the year 2004. I saw that one Russian PR Agency was also awarded this year, the PR Department of Slavinsky Art Gallery for launching the new gallery. You can see all the award categories here and check, whether your home country or any of your blogs’ countries were awarded this year.



USED SOURCES:
(Same links also in the text)

IPRA. 2004 Frontline Award: Building the reputation of Public Relations in Russia.
http://www.ipra.org/detail.asp?articleid=141

IPRA. Awaiting the Golden Age – Launch of Slavinsky Art Gallery.
http://www.ipra.org/detail.asp?articleid=1264

IPRA. Current Golden World Awards. http://www.ipra.org/currentawards.asp