PR will far outstrip Advertising and Promotions in job market according to Feds

The reknowned Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports in an updated study from 2009 to late 2010 that public relations (PR) will far outstrip "advertising/ promotions" in creating new managerial jobs. In fact, advertising-promotions management will decline -1.7 percent and fail to even replace the positions openned due to retirement. PR will grow 12.9%. More entry level and tactical jobs as "PR specialists" will grow 24%. A number of PR related jobs in writing will also grow (tech writers 18.2%, writers and authors 14.8%). The report will remind some readers of a popular book nearly a decade ago: Ries and Ries The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR in 2002.

The good news for communication professionals in PR and journalism in the first two decades of the 21st century is the growth of PR according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It may be surprising that even branding does not give advertising the lift some expected while corporate branding (reputation) and marketing PR for products and services branding will grow.

The negative 1.7%. means that growth in advertising and promotions management is projected to be zero from 2008 to 2018 and even jobs that exist will not be filled 100%. However, to put this BLS employment category of advertising, marketing, promotions, PR and sales management in perspective, the employment size of sales management will continue to be 6-7x that of PR and marketing management will be 3X that of PR. PR will continue to be 27% greater number of jobs than advertising and promotions and increase to 45% more by 2018. (T. Alan Lacey and Benjamin Wright Occupational Employment Projections to 2018)

For young professionals this does not mean that some of the skills and knowledge of advertising is dead but that the institution of advertising may be in decline. The same can be said for journalism. Some of the institutions of journalism may be dying but the values and skills of journalism may not be dead. In fact, the allignment of PR and journalism has long been a professional track for journalists using their gifted writing and communication skills. More on this in a future blog. At the Medill School I have offered and am planning classes to address this gap in employment and thinking. My graduate and undergraduate classes include topics in PR and marketing to cross train advetising students and journalism students. Also, remember that despite the lack of general opportunities in some fields there is always room for talented and well-educated and trained professionals in any field.
http://www.medill.northwestern.edu/faculty/imcfulltime.aspx?id=128377
http://www.amazon.com/Fall-Advertising-Rise-PR/dp/0060081988/denominatorbo-20

Guest Blog on Culpwrit Blog February 22, 2011

Prof Offers 20 Tips to Land Internships Reprinted from www.culprit.com
February 22nd, 2011 · 1 Comment

Clarke Caywood

As a teacher I have spent 20 years helping hundreds of graduate students secure over $3 million in tuition and fees from companies, agencies and NGOs. Through this experience of matching students with organizations, I have learned a few lessons that might help students and teachers work as teams for securing residencies as we call them.

1. Contact the human resources department or internship program directors, but personal contacts with professionals in the field are critical.
2. Use Linked-In, professional association memberships, class speakers and other contacts.
3. Write finely honed resumes, Linked-In and Facebook listings of client-based projects from courses, summer internships and previous work experience.
4. Give the company a choice of candidates (but not too many) since using resumes will make the process manageable for them and the internship team (professor and student).
5. Rely on experienced staff with relevant contacts at the university who can manage the critical details that professors seem to lose track about.
6. Build a website about the program and maybe an old fashioned brochure to allow the agency, company or NGO to show the quality of the school program to others.
7. Produce a strong video interview on YouTube, Yahoo video or Flickr as a link.
8. Use interview skill training for internship candidates.
9. Academic credit can be helpful if the professor is involved for a syllabus of expected work to evaluate the internship and intern.
10. In school-managed programs students should agree to go to the first company choosing them to avoid traditional market job competition.
11. Students should only apply and be matched to organizations that they are willing to work for.
12. For 10 weeks students should expect to work like any other employee without special requests for summer time off, weddings, etc. Work early and work late to show your willingness and passion to solve the organization’s problems.
13. Having a job description prepared by the faculty and team in advance will allow the student to get to work more quickly.
14. Treat all staff including administrative assistants with great respect–they can facilitate your productive time.
15. Seek out mentoring and learn about the organization over cups of coffee on a break or modest lunches.
16. Be prepared to do more than the assigned work when they find out you are not the typical intern even if you think you might not want to work there.
17. Plan the end of the internship carefully so that you don’t leave any work undone.
18. After you return to school send your contacts an occasional article or reading from your courses that might interest them and keep them aware of your pending graduation date,
19. Write a paper on your experience and use of course knowledge for internship credit or for publication in a trade journal.
20. When you have established your career reciprocate with internships for the next generation! Finally, I don’t believe in in “free” internships. Any company or agency can afford to pay some amount to at least cover your expenses. School programs should include securing payment for at least the course tuition. Good luck!

Clarke Caywood is Director of the Graduate Program in Public Relations in the Medill Graduate School at Northwestern University where he teaches crisis management, communications management, marketing and public relations.

* Share/Bookmark

Tags: Advice from a Pro · Guest Post · Job Search
1 response so far ↓

*

1 Jesse Davis // Feb 22, 2011 at 11:08 am

To start this is some great information. However, I am a college senior majoring in public relations and I am currently looking for an internship. I have been rather successful in finding the right person to talk to or take out to coffee, but I don’t know how to begin a conversation with them without looking like all I want is a job. Do you have any advice to begin to ask people if they are willing to take time out of their day to have a conversation about their job?

Another question I have is that I really like the idea of a YouTube interview video to separate myself from the rest of the applicants, but how creative or casual should you get with the video to show personality while maintaining a professional image?

Thanks for posting this blog!
*

2 Clarke Caywood, Ph.D. // Feb 22, 2011 at 12:53 pm

Jesse thanks for being alert to this important blog site. Watch my Twitter site for more clues about PR at IMCPROF. People in our field seem naturally inclined to help mentor the next generation. As long as you are respectful in your request, ask interesting questions (based on your classes and readings) most PR pros will try to be helpful. The creator of this blog, Ron Culp, taught me that meeting young professionals pays off in the long run as you may have an opening for them at some point in the future. They know you want a job or internship. You know they know so just be transparent. “Do you have an opening or can you help advise and direct me toward a career in PR?" is a fair question. On Flickr or YouTube (other sites as well) I would use a digital image, on a tripod (to avoid Blair Witch Project look) with a friend (swap out). Casual but not sloppy is fine, look into the camera and say something interesting about yourself and something interesting about the field from your studies. You might mention your findings on a class project for a client. 3 minutes is enough. You might rotate the video or have two titled for a choice. See IMC residencies on YouTube though they are bit dated. Good luck!

Trade Mark Decision Relies on Study by Gronstedt and Caywood for Ruling

The case is a mark infringement case
Hearing: Mailed:
December 16, 2009 June 11, 2010
Bucher
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
________
Trademark Trial and Appeal Board
________
National Pork Board and National Pork Producers Council
v.
Supreme Lobster and Seafood Company
________
Opposition No. 91166701
against Serial No. 76574162

One quote of many praising the research.

The preponderance of this
evidence convinces us that this slogan, THE OTHER WHITE
MEAT, has become part of the fabric of popular culture in
the United States. We find especially compelling the
evidence from the Northwestern Study of 2000 showing that
only four other consumer slogans in the United States had a
greater degree of recognition than THE OTHER WHITE MEAT.
[Ex. 338] This finding supports a conclusion that
opposers’ mark is extremely well recognized by a broad
spectrum of consumers, and that this degree of recognition
among the general consuming public of this famous mark also
supports the conclusion that dilution by blurring is likely
upon the introduction of applicant’s slogan into the
marketplace.


Northwestern Study of 2000
As noted above, applicant objects strongly to
opposers’ submission of a study conducted in the year 2000
by outside academics at the School of Integrated Marketing
& Communications at Northwestern University (the
“Northwestern Study”). Applicant argues that this study
should be excluded inasmuch as the working papers for the
survey were inadvertently disposed of during an office move
well before this litigation arose, because the methodology
for the survey was flawed, and because the time frame of
the survey allegedly renders it irrelevant and
prejudicial. We disagree.

A brief on the case will be forthcoming along with a 2010 replication of the research.

Watch out! Pedestrian and Passenger Train Safety - Communication Challenge

Comments from a presentation on railroad safety for passengers and pedestrians. NU program June 22, 2010. Recent increase in crossing gate deaths in Lake Forest IL and 5000 deaths reported by the Federal RR Administration gave momentum to the program with about 60 attendees sponsored by the Transportation Center at Northwestern University. Three E's were on the agenda: enforcement, engineering and education/communication. On communications some notes:

Point 1: How many of you are under age 35? (about 15 percent of the hands went up). The rest of us are not the target of education and communications for the most part. The learning behavior of over 60% of the population is unlike our experience. If you grew up where teachers, coaches, police officers and members of Congress were your friend. You are in the older 40%. You may know "stop drop and roll" and "look listen and live". You saws PSAs, watched network TV, read ink on paper news. We did not try to simultaneously task everything all the time. Today we have new channels, new media new messaging customized to the new ways people learn and behave.

Point 2: Risk communications teaches us that if only 5% of the 5000 deaths reported by the Federal RR Administration has occurred in a single accident; the press, the Congress, the industry would have reacted much more directly and quickly to this still significant problem. When the crashes are isolated and are statistically more dangerous the public and media do not respond. We need new means to capture the attention to the importance of this issue with its higher risk to passengers and pedestrians.

Point 3: Federal grants do not ask for policy or significant communications about research on this or related topics: an academic article is not significant communications for a policy issue. We need more demands for education and communications.

Point 4. Stay on message: "How do we convince people to recognize the fatal consequences of being distracted around railroads" is accurate but not memorable or pithy enough to be repeated easily.

Point 5: Who is credible. Research can tell us this. It is not the President (or any recent President of the U.S.) or corporate leaders, government leaders. It may be NGOs or cartoon characters - seriously.

Point 6. We need to motivate and coordinate other institutions with billions of dollars of resources and investment in the risk of losing their employees.

1. employers who equip their highly educated and distracted professional with iPhone, Blackberries and laptops must help
2. families must be motivated to have designated safety directors (as we did with green issues and stop smoking issues in families).
3. Cell phone manufacturers and service providers need to accept (as liquor sellers) their contribution to the distraction and death of users beyond the auto
4. We need to link up with other more know programs in auto safety and instruction,
5. We need to organize all the RR, communities along the tracks and those with employees who depend on RR commuting

Let's go to the groups for your ideas.

[The talk was followed by a modified nominal group brainstorming session producing 60 ideas from 10 people in 45 minutes.]

New JIMC introduction

http://jimc.medill.northwestern.edu/JIMCWebsite/site.htm

The Stakeholder Curriculum of the Future Clarke L. Caywood, Ph.D. Professor and Publisher of the Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications, http://jimc.medill.northwestern.edu/JIMCWebsite/site.htm

Most of the business leaders we meet are initially curious about why the faculty and students researching, teaching and working in the field of integrated marketing communications (IMC) are in the Medill School of Journalism and not in the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. The explanation is not complicated, but the question has become more common as the IMC students increasingly have been seen as business leaders with stronger financial, marketing and management knowledge and skills.

With over 115,000 people earning the MBA degree each year, the 80 plus experienced graduate students in IMC at Northwestern can be seen as even more valuable specialists with many of the same team, leadership and experience qualities. However, like any “product” in a competitive world the IMC students must possess skills and knowledge that will allow them to remove some burden from their manager or team and have knowledge and skills that their managers and other team members in their firm or agency do not know. In other words, bring something new and useful to the workplace. The competitive advantage of communications, IMC and journalism students is that they have the strongest possible knowledge and insight to the hundreds of categories of publics, audiences and stakeholders beyond the customer.

The history of the teaching of marketing communications, still called advertising and public relations, being taught in the Journalism and Communication Schools is not particularly remarkable. When the schools of journalism (Medill, Missouri, Wisconsin) were created in the very early part of the last century there was demand for educated and well trained men and women to work for newspapers. Before that time the work was not considered a role of higher education. The work included both working as reporters and editors as well as advertising specialists who filled the paper with as much advertising as they could sell and then leaving a “news hole” to fill with news content. At the same time, public relations specialists began to emerge as advisors to business leaders on how to work with the empowered media

To lead rather than follow industry and to offer newer knowledge and skills, during 2007 the Medill School of Journalism is seriously reevaluating its role in modern journalism and media. Under the direction of John Lavine as the Dean of the School (a former publisher and industry executive), the faculty and students are seeing substantial changes in the journalism curriculum. The IMC faculty have again rewritten our curriculum in the spirit of the changes in the market and academic and industry research in advertising, public relations, direct marketing, database marketing, e-commerce, communications, management and marketing.

Our most recent changes include a new core required course being developed by this writer for the class of 2008 students. The course will more fully develop the idea of “social media” as a more modern means to communicate and manage relationships with hundreds of stakeholders that impact a corporation and its employees. We have looked, of course, at the CEO use of blogs, customer blogs, pod and vodcasts. We have tested SecondLife.com as a three dimensional website for avatars (3-D representations of you) to meet and plan, learn and be trained (see Gronstedtgroup.com). We added content to You Tube, Face Book, BlogSpot, dostang, naymz, eon, Flickr and others for building an open source textbook on marketing and marketing communications. Naturally we will be looking at more traditional means to communicate with stakeholders as well. To add value to the process will be using the most advanced computerized media, expert, trend and web tracking systems available to industry. Description and predictive systems such as Biz360 and Evolve24 used by the very top firms in the world will be tested by our graduate students. As Senior Vice President of Grainger Corporation and Senior Lecturer in Investor Relations in our Department for 14 years, Nancy Hobor, noted, “CEOs are looking for leaders who can understand and integrate the corporate stakeholders, not just customer and not just business functions.” (See Caywood in Kellogg on Advertising and Media, Calder, ed. Forthcoming).

The traditions of newsgathering and the requirements of more sophisticated management, marketing and communications are merging in this new curriculum at Medill. In part, the evidence will be in the likely renaming of the School to reflect the requirement that our school graduates, destined for the media and journalism world, will share and integrate some common values with our new undergraduate and graduate students in the IMC program. They both focus on newer technologies that deliver and drive the transfer of information. Even more important, from the value system of ethical public relations, advertising and marketing, we will be able to deliver valuable content to our most relevant; important; and socially, economically and politically crucial stakeholders.

The next generation of Medill graduates be able to identify the widest range of important stakeholders and be able to use the best of the traditional and newer media to reach them. They also will be educated and trained to use the most sophisticated statistical, analytical and insightful software to understand the customer, the media, experts, government and other stakeholders with artificial intelligence..

Over the past 16 years, this Journal has focused on a wide range of stakeholders and their impact on business and society. With the support of the new curriculum, the new connections to our colleagues and students in journalism and media, we expect to strengthen our new offerings of knowledge and skills to the market. You can hire a Medill student to do the core work of your organization but you can also count on them to bring something fresh and intelligent to help your organization achieve its goals.

What about IMC?

As Northwestern University's Medill School sorts out the future of Journalism and its business related academic and professional partners of advertising, public relations and direct database marketing we are considering expanding more business fields of study into the undergraduate program. Over 30 years ago such a program existed but the last age of excitement in Journalism (Watergate) probably helped to move the undergraduates out of "harm's way" with only a concentrated program of journalism.

In discussions about the new offerings of courses to undergraduates I note: Our undergraduate program does not show the most recent work of the IMC faculty to offer classes to J students with a certificate or "minor" for non-J students. I hope that we can secure a pre-accreditation review of our ideas so that we might push the limit more on the range of new courses offered in the IMC category to J students - especially related to the highly related field of PR. If the new courses can be listed it will help the new and current J students to see the opportunities for careers using communications. We also need data on the career paths of J undergraduate and graduate students from 1-5 years out and 6-10 and 11 and beyond.

The IMC program shows nine so-called "branding" courses (there is no sector, professional field or organization for branding) and only 5 courses in the "analytical" realm. The concept of "analytical" was not meant to differentiate qualitative from quantitative disciplines or courses. However, the sorting of them seems to suggest "hard" from "soft". In fact, the Marketing PR class listed under branding requires the use of at least two beta tested softwares to perform analysis of millions of words in messaging about a firm or organization. It is certainly analytical in its recommendations to clients such as Coca Cola, Aidmatrix and others.

We continue to have discussions about the direction of the program regarding the so-called specialties of advertising, public relations and direct marketing. Each of these academic bodies of knowledge are far, far more substantial than IMC as a field but we continue to deny that the market recognizes them as field of work. The memberships in the two leading organizations in public relations exceed 40,000, direct marketing 20,000 and advertising should be comparable. While we declare these professions "dead" the demand for junior, mid and senior level professionals still call for men and women with this knowledge and experience. We are confusing rather than serving the market of firms who hire our graduates. IMC as a self-standing field is still a "nice to have" not a "need to know" in the 21st century marketplace. This is not to say that IMC is not a leading edge example of best practices, but it is "not asked for by name". Pieces of IMC are asked for but that is another story.

We will confuse the undergraduates and their parents (and grandparents) over "what are you studying"? with IMC and we confuse the graduate market with majors in branding and analytics without any supporting work in the jobs in PR, Adv. and DDE they are hired to fill.

We need more conversation on this topic. More to come.