The University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communications recently published the fifth annual edition of its highly authoritative Public Relations Generally Accepted Practices Study, and concluded there is a sharp correlation between where the PR function reports within organizations and its adherence to best practices. The higher up the organizational chart the PR function reported, the better that organization and its PR performed against the 13 best practices the study’s authors identified.
For example, the study said, organizations where the PR function “reported to the C-suite were more likely to utilize a combination of evaluation metrics,” including those yardsticks most valued by executives such as contribution to market share, profitability and sales. “However,” the study continued, “Organizations that reported to marketing were more likely to use only the total number of clips and total number of clips in top tier media” as their evaluative metrics.
There were many other correlations but a generalization could be made that the higher the PR function reported, the more it was valued, the greater support the PR professionals felt they received, and the better the organization itself performed on questions such as ethical conduct and social responsibility.
Fortunately, the trend towards having PR report to the C-suite is gaining a firm hold, with 64% of the study’s respondents reporting that was the case in their organizations. In 23% of the cases, PR reported to marketing, while the balance reported to human resources, legal, finance and strategic planning.
I have always insisted that PR should report to the highest rung on the organizational ladder and for my entire communications career, I have been a strong advocate of bringing real and meaningful evaluative criteria to PR, a function that for too long has resisted measurement and been allowed to do so. I don’t know what is cause and what it effect in the USC study but it surprises not in the least to learn that there is such a sharp correlation on these indices. A PR practitioner who insists on reporting to her or his most senior executives AND is armed with the strategic vision and evaluative framework necessary to have those executives fully understand, buy into and support the function, is the PR practitioner who will create genuine and quantifiable value with that organization.
So, I ask again, to whom does your PR function report? And what does it mean for your organization if it doesn’t report to top brass?