Why Large Corporations Are Centralizing PR Efforts

Many multinational corporations that provide products and services easily identified by citizens around the world have begun to centralize their PR efforts. Each corporation or conglomerate is finding their own path to doing that, but clearly, they believe the move will be more effective – both financially and from a sales, marketing, and public relations standpoint.

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Coca-Cola and their various other drink and snack companies are centralizing their efforts and moving away from using multiple agencies around the world dealing with different areas of specialization as well as locations. Coca-Cola started doing this in smaller markets and has had success with it. The company is now moving to their new model in the U.S. In doing so, they created the North American Social Centre, which is a real-time newsroom they will use to manage their social media efforts for all their brands.

GM has also been centralizing its PR efforts gradually over the last year or so. It has been dividing the different makes of automobiles under the GM tent and going through an RFP process one or two at a time to find the best fit for that make of car. Ultimately Cadillac, Jeep, Chrysler, Buick, and all the rest will establish ties with a PR agency working for that type of vehicle and helping them with PR and marketing efforts around the world. That changes from having had many agencies around the world representing the brands on a location basis.

WeWorks, although not as well-known, is still a multi-billion dollar company and has been using PR firms since its inception in 2010. Recently they announced they are going to move their PR and marketing efforts in-house. They will continue to work with PR firms as they expand into new areas, allowing experts to lead the way until they become better established in those new locations.

Jaguar Land Rover made a less drastic shift in their PR approach. Their decision was to move to one PR firm instead of two.

Consolidating efforts isn’t always about money or even more effective social media campaigns. It can also be about having a cohesive unit working well together, in part because they’ve already been working together long before being signed by the new client. That approach can work for much smaller companies as well, even for ones doing their PR in-house. Put together a skilled and creative team that functions easily together. Making sure the relationships among the team are relatively stress-free so that they can focus more on doing the work of building the company.