PR practitioners celebrate first “World PR Day”

PR practitioners and enthusiasts the world over will today celebrate the first-ever World Public Relations Day, inspired by a need to present a unified global agenda to make the world understand and utilize PR better.

World PR Day presents opportunities for public relations and marketing communications practitioners across the globe to unite and stake a claim for the practice. World PR Day will from today be held annually on July 16 and is a day dedicated to truth, honesty and reputation management in a way that is beneficial to all humans across the globe.

Due to the rise of digital communications over the years and significant changes in the way people read and digest news, interesting developments have emerged, and public relations, as a practice, has had to incorporate new trends in order to adapt to the times.

However, practitioners believe that while public relations is widely accepted, it is barely understood, due to a reductive view of its scope of functions. Analysts also believe that this trend has contributed directly to the lack of consideration the public relations industry has received, in comparison to advertising.

Another issue identified by industry experts is the common failure of organisations to attribute the results of PR activities to their top line, and this has eroded the value of PR not only in the eyes of senior stakeholders in organisations and Government but also in relation to other marketing and communications activities competing for budget or substantial financial backing.

“PR is more than a terribly misunderstood, poorly appreciated, and thus poorly remunerated practice. We believe businesses, countries, and people do, not just practitioners, but themselves a huge disservice, if they continue to fail to see PR for what it is and should be: a strategic aspect of business and governance, invaluable in building relationships, preventing crises, achieving business objectives; pushing national interest, and preventing the kind of confusion that could ruin a company or lead nations to war. I was surprised to discover that there’s not a single day dedicated to PR and Comms. No unified global agenda towards making the world understand and utilize PR better. And with July 16, we are changing that,” Ayeni, CEO and founder of BHM stated.

The date July 16 pays homage to one of the forefathers of public relations, Ivy Lee, who was born on the same day in 1877. Holding annually on July 16 from 2021, World PR Day will present a unified global agenda towards making the world understand and utilize PR better. It also spurs practitioners to answer a call of duty, to help people, companies and governments communicate more honestly and responsibly and help them to be more deliberate about using public relations to build, innovate and develop. World PR Day will also feature key activities to be announced soon.