Public Relations 28 Days Later: The Outlook for 2025

My new CommPRO.biz column acknowledges, “It’s too much to compare what we are going through to the Zombie apocalypse movie 28 Days Later", but perhaps in the understatement of the year, “the world has changed”.  

Consistent with the movie title, I write that over the last 28 plus days, “America as we knew it has been turned upside down”. For some that may not be a bad thing. But it is already clear that not all Trump voters signed up for the chainsaw dismembering the government, American values, and the world order.   

I believe that the next 28 days will be even more consequential. Clients are hunkering down and, in some cases, cutting spending. “The direct and implicit threats to business from the U.S. government to toe the ideological line are sending a chill wind across the country and the communications industry. Since communicating is currently seen as a risk, flat or lower budgets should not be an unexpected outcome.”

It is too early to reach a verdict on what comes next. If inflation and market volatility rise, along with unemployment - consumer confidence, which saw it's biggest drop since 2021 in January, will continue to erode.  

The coming weeks will be of critical importance to a better understanding of the direction of the economy and the PR industry’s outlook for 2025.

“It is important not to overstate the downside risks to the economy versus the potential for economic benefits of cost cutting over time. Even during the great depression in the 1930s, 75% of the American workforce was still working. One way or another, business will continue, programs will be completed, and PR support will be needed.”

In the past, PR industry revenues have proved resilient through periods of change. But even small cuts may have a significant knock-on effect on budgets and employment. If following the clearcutting of government, the green shoots of a promised new Guilded Age of prosperity for all (rather than the few) start to emerge – something which is clearly not on the immediate horizon – we may have reason to be more optimistic.  

As I conclude: “Will we be able to call the definitive direction we are headed in a month? No. Will we have a far clearer sense of what comes next? In my view, the answer is, absolutely.”             

Read the full article here:  America’s 28-Day Upheaval Is Just the Beginning as Turmoil Tightens Its Grip

Simon Erskine Locke is founder & CEO of communications agency and professional search and services platform, CommunicationsMatch™, a CommPRO partner and columnist. He is a board member of the Foreign Press Association, an agency founder, and has held head of communications roles at Morgan Stanley, Prudential Financial and Deutsche Bank. CommunicationsMatch’ s technology helps clients search, shortlist and hire agencies and professionals by industry and communications expertise, location, size, diversity and designations. CommunicationsMatch developed the industry’s first integrated agency search and RFP tools, Agency Select™, with RFP Associates. CommunicationsMatch™ powers PRSA’s Find a Firm agency search tools.