Listen to Honest Abe and tend to the tree not the shadow, by Nick Freer

After another year orbiting the Sun while advising some of Scotland’s most exciting companies around all things corporate PR, I guess the aim is to do more of the same in 2025.  As the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

I’ve never subscribed to the notion that PR is an overly difficult discipline, although maybe that comes from having now worked in the industry for over three decades. If anything, common sense is the guiding force.  When PR is done well, the press get what they want from a story, and the client is satisfied with the result.  In this sense, the formula is pretty simple.

Of course, like most things in life and work, there are nuances.  Appreciating the nuances - around language, positioning, messaging, timing etc - can make the difference between mediocre and higher quality PR.

As a business leader, there has to be a realisation that PR as a transaction will require give and take. The resulting news story may not be exactly how you wanted it to turn out, but if you can land the majority of your messaging then that is usually a great result.  You can lead the horse to water, but editors will also determine how the water is drunk, and it shouldn’t be any other way.

Sophisticated companies realise that PR is a business fundamental - reputation and brand are just too important for it to be anything else.  And while it’s important when your corporate garden is smelling of roses, it’s arguably more so when the chips are down and CEOs are under pressure.

I’ve heard PR described as a ‘dark art’, conjuring up some kind of J.K. Rowling inspired craft.  Certainly, the rule of thumb is to be as straightforward as possible with the Fourth Estate, as engaging in smoke and mirrors doesn’t usually come off to anyone’s advantage.

Abraham Lincoln said, “character is the tree, reputation is the shadow”, and good PR should translate to tending to the tree, not trying to manipulate the shadow.  If PR is treated as an afterthought, don’t be surprised when you achieve poor press  coverage that doesn’t stack up with the corporate reality.

If you invest in PR, it should pay dividends, effectively communicating your business strategy outside the boardroom and keeping a range of key stakeholders informed.

As a small but highly rated agency, we buy into the maxim that leadership is not about size, it’s about knowledge and wisdom.  We work with small leadership teams, usually comprising CEOs, CFOs and CMOs from client companies, on big stories.  Experience and wisdom comes from advising corporate brands like Deloitte, the BBC, Westfield, J Sainsbury, Trustpilot, Deliveroo, and Skyscanner through the years.

As the press continues its inexorable march towards digital, the goalposts continue to shift around what makes the grade for a business story.  Across the board, business coverage itself is evolving, and so too is the related editorial standard.  So, a standard that used to be more about the big business stories of the day, can today be more about how many eyeballs individual stories achieve, if they convert to subscriptions and so on.

Accordingly, PR must also keep up with the brave new world that is the ever-changing media landscape.