Diversity in PR - how representative is PR

I found this interesting video clip, made by Rich Visions Marketing and PR limited, on You Tube which I thought I should share with you as it gives useful statistics on how diverse the UK populations is.

Diversity in the PR industry is highly important as it allows PR strategies to be tailored towards all the different groups in the society making it very representative. I know this issue is central to the UK PR industry because in addition to it being perceived as a predominantly female and white profession, it is also seen as less representative of the multi-ethnic and diverse nature of the country. For instance, as observed by Kate Nicholas, Associate Director of Communications at World Vision and formerly associate publisher/editor-in-chief of PRWeek, "95.6% of consultancy staff say they are white and in my ten years at PRWeek I only remember meeting one disabled PR professional,"

Wednesday the 5th of March's class was on 'diversity in the PR industry', with specific reference to the UK industry. Having read about the issue from PR books, I wanted to learn more about it. Thus I was enthused about the idea of a guest speaker who specialises in diversity PR coming to give a presentation. Personally I thought it was best to hear an insiders perspectives diversity PR practice. She happened to be Zena Martin, from Acknowledge Communications in London. Her presentation focused on diversity PR practice in UK: How to organise successful PR campaigns for minority groups. She succeeded in using her rich experience from diversity PR practice in the US to draw some parallels between diversity PR practice in the US and UK. It seems whilst the practice may be common and entrenched in the US it isn't accorded the same level of significance in the UK. This is however in contrast with the multi-cultural and several minority groups in UK.

I was inspired to hear from Zena that the absence of such diversity communications consultancy in the UK which prompted her to specialise in that area, when she arrived from her the US. This seems to have provided her with the unique opportunity to work for clients who needed to talk the different diverse groups in UK some of which were identified earlier on. I found her to be an inspirational speaker who is very knowledgeable in her field of specialisation. The presentation centred on how to create and implement successful communication and PR campaigns for the different minority groups in UK. It included how to identify such groups and how to organise successful PR campaigns for them, taking into consideration their peculiar needs, culture, sensitiveness and many more.

From the lecture I gathered that some of the minority groups in UK society included the gay and lesbian communities, the disabled people, ethnic minorities such as Africans, Caribbeans, Asians etc. It was very useful to me to hear that huge efforts have to be put into planning and creating PR campaigns for the diverse groups in order not come up with a disastrous and unsuccessful PR campaign. This is because the slightest mistake can generate bad publicity for the client or business in question which can impact negatively on its bottom-line if people boycott its products and services.



The presentation was followed with a class exercise which was quite interesting. My group was asked to "develop a PR campaign to attract men into the PR industry". It was not easy coming up with a campaign within that short period of time. Later on, I read Grunig et al (2006), who had some great ideas on how to diversify the PR industry. I find it very interesting and worthy of notice by PR practitioners. They mention that one key prerequisite important to conducting "multicultural public relations and manage diversity within public relations is self-awareness of one's own identity, including heritage, culture, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic factors". (p. 392)

Further to this, they also establish three main dimensions for increasing the "potential for diversity in public relations practice". These are "improving the experiences of minority practitioners, using public relations to promote organisational commitment to diversity, and facilitating the development of multicultural competencies in public relations" (p.392).




After reading the chapter on diversity in the PR industry from Grunig et al, I asked myself the same question again, how can more men be attracted into the PR industry? Then I realised that a new campaign entitled "PR the new career choice for men" can be organised to target male students in colleges and sixth form aged between (16-20) years. This can help attract them at the early stages, when deciding on their future careers, to the PR profession. A similar campaign can also be organised in schools to attract pupils from ethnic minority background to the PR field.

My extensive reading on this issue has shown that it does not affect only the UK PR industry. Other countries where PR practice is well advanced, such as US, also face similar problems. For example a recent diversity survey by Hill and Knowlton in the USA showed that the lack of diversity in the US PR industry is still an on going issue. They acknowledged that although businesses and consultancies are earmarking more resources to improve their "multicultural staff base to represent modern American societies, still the situation needs to improve. You can read the full article at http://www.prweekus.com/The-diversity-riddle/article/99887/




Diversity in all professions is important, but diversifying the PR industry is highly important for effective communication within a society. Therefore the UK PR industry should put more effort into its diversification programme to attract more minority groups into the profession. Along with this, more PR consultancies should be encourage to specialise in diversity PR to make the industry become more representative of the UK society. Being an ethnic minority (black African) myself I am concerned about the barriers and difficulties that I may face in my search for my first PR job. However I am determined to breakthrough and I hope to gist you when it happens.