The role of PR in a full-service agency

13th September 2024

There’s always been an assumption, at least outside of the PR industry, that what we do is something of a dark art. In fact, I’ve had clients say that exact phrase over the years. I saw a recent viral social media post that summed it up well. It said something along the lines of “Whatever you think we are doing in PR, we’re doing that and a whole lot more you don’t know about.” In my experience that’s pretty accurate. But what does a PR agency actually do? What’s the difference between a PR agency and a full-service agency? And which should you use to elevate your brand?

What does a PR agency do?

A PR agency acts as a seamless extension to an in-house team. The agency acts as a gateway to the media, facilitating or creating news stories to elevate your brand, but also perhaps more importantly, protecting your reputation and brand image.

Contrary to popular opinion, most of our time is not spent writing press releases and thought leadership. In fact, it’s actually spent having conversations. This could be with clients, keeping up to date with the latest company developments, looking for story angles, interviewing members of the team or visiting key sites around the country. It’s also about liaising with our friends in the media because effective PR is built on strong media relationships. We speak to journalists on a daily basis and explore angles for stories. This isn’t just us selling to them... it’s about understanding what they are writing about and how we can contribute to that narrative.

Obviously, we do a lot of writing, but it’s the research and insight that goes into that content which actually makes it valuable and unique to a publication. Most people can construct decent copy, but taking a message and translating that into something that fits a certain media style and subtly weaving in key mentions, that’s an art.

It’s much more than that as well. We have to be creative. People remember big PR stunts. Every PR’s dream is to create a memorable campaign that achieves national, or dare I say international recognition, which transcends PR into social media and advertising channels. It’s nearly always a juggling act and when there is a big national story, every client will want to know how they can leverage the content. Sometimes they can. Sometimes they can’t. Which brings me nicely to the next point – we have to be accommodating, while being strong enough to push back when something is unrealistic.

Finally, we have to be very calm. There will be times when the media narrative isn’t positive and it’s our job to manage that situation. Sometimes that’s reacting to a story, other times it's just about knowing why and when to leave a story to fizzle out.

What’s the difference between a PR agency and a full-service agency?

A PR agency is purely focused on PR and driving all the activity I’ve outlined above. From the top down, that type of agency will live and breathe only that discipline. That usually brings a real niche specialism which could be in a particular sector, or it could be with certain long-standing clients.

My media and communications team at CWA sits as a strong, fully functioning department within a larger full-service agency. I’ve worked in both environments in my career and what I really appreciate about being in a fully integrated environment is having everything under one roof. The nature of PR means it naturally touches so many other fields.

Which should you use to elevate your brand?

In my experience, a strong brand proposition and clear objectives that work in a multi-discipline, omnichannel way, achieves far greater impact than a small PR campaign in isolation. A clever PR campaign should, for example, be supported by really strong imagery that ties into the visual identity, and brand guidelines which directs its tone. These days, video content is king and if we can activate that alongside perhaps some out of home advertising and tie all of this into some on site SEO and email campaign activation, you get so much more value.

That’s not to say a dedicated PR agency can’t help with those things, but personally I just think it’s a lot easier having all of those things under one roof with the same team. It also brings in different perspectives from other experts in the business. The alternative is having to buy in freelance design, videography, strategy or whatever it may be.