PRSA chair and CEO Rosanna M. Fiske, APR, discussed the state of the public relations industry, along with the challenges of corporate reputation management in the "WikiLeaks Age" in a speech given to the PRSA Miami Chapter Feb. 15, 2011.

1. The State of Public Relations in 2011:
Corporate Trust Meets the WikiLeaks Age — Rosanna Fiske
PRSA Miami Chapter Speech
Feb. 15, 2011
Thank you, Annabel, PRSA Miami Chapter Board Members and my fellow colleagues for
inviting me to speak here today …
I come before you less than two months into my tenure as chair and CEO of the Public
Relations Society of America, a professional opportunity that is immensely enlightening and one
that I am fortunate to have the opportunity to pursue. I’m also an associate professor in the
Florida International School of Journalism and Mass Communication, so my experience and
insight spans from many years on the agency side, to now, mentoring the next generation of
public relations professionals.
Like many of you, I have seen the dramatic changes that have taken place in our profession
over the past decade, and viewed more broadly, since I started in my first corporate position
some 20-odd years ago.
After all this time, I’m still passionate about our profession; where our industry is heading; how it
helps businesses grow; public relations’ ability to serve the public good; the role we play in
protecting and advancing the free flow of accurate and truthful information that is essential to
democratic societies.
It’s a responsibility that I do not take lightly, both my role leading PRSA and my belief in public
relations’ ability to do good for the world — both for society and for the clients and organizations
we counsel. As you know, we’re in a time of significant global political upheaval, augmented by
our own domestic concerns. More specifically, the media landscape we all live and play in has
been irrevocably reshaped after the tragedy in Tucson; a moment in time that shed light on a
subject dear to our hearts: discourse, the written word and communications. I’ll return to that
subject a little later.
It’s not all gloomy, though. We’re in a vibrant period for the industry’s growth and perceived
value. While our brethren in advertising have seen a fairly sharp contraction in spending on their
services in the United States, down eight percent in 2009, public relations spending is rising —
rapidly. In the U.S. alone, we’re now a $4 billion industry, with a 55-percent increase in
spending, to $8 billion domestically, by 2013.
When I told this recently to a reporter at the Financial Times, he was so surprised by the robust
growth in our industry — he’s used to ad agency execs boasting about the latest big account
they’ve won — that he came back to the number 10 minutes later and asked me if this could
possibly be correct. It is. And as I told the FT reporter then, businesses and executives often
don’t realize they need strategic public relations until it’s too late; PRSA is out to change that
perception.
As part of PRSA’s revamped national advocacy program, there are three key areas we now
focus on, each of which I’d like to discuss with you today, in the broader context of the current
geopolitical and business landscape, and what effect that has on our profession and our value.

2. Briefly, our national advocacy efforts fall within three categories:
• The business value of public relations …
• Ethics, and …
• Diversity within the profession.
Each forms a core area of focus for PRSA, and will be heavily discussed, among other exciting
topics, at our 2011 International Conference in Orlando Oct. 15-18.
Let’s extrapolate that out to what really concerns your clients and employers: what value do they
get out of public relations? It’s a great question to consider, and a few recent events help put
public relations’ value into perspective.
What do today’s CEOs want and need most? If you were to ask the public, they would likely tell
you CEOs need better reputations. It’s doubtful many would argue that sentiment. I read a
recent post in The New York Times’ “You’re The Boss” blog that put the need for improved CEO
reputations into perspective. In it, the author relayed a story from a CEO who has a school-age
son who came home one day and asked if his father would call himself something other than a
CEO. It seems that the boy’s classmates were giving him a hard time about the fact that his
father runs a company — as if it were something to be embarrassed by. Not exactly a ringing
endorsement for modern executives.
As the 2011 Edelman Trust Barometer indicates, trust in American businesses, and by
extension, the reputations of corporations and their leaders, is now at an all-time low, at just 46
percent, or barely above last-place Russia.
Think about that for a moment: trust in the American business community — the very clients you
represent and the organizations you work for — is barely above the level of that in a country still
struggling with the modern concept of free enterprise and democracy. That’s a somewhat
disturbing thought.
Unfortunately, the massive data dumps that WikiLeaks have inflicted upon governments around
the world likely will not leave American and global businesses immune from significant
reputational threats. If you’re to believe numerous revelations from WikiLeaks founder Julian
Assange in recent high-profile interviews, a leak of business-related secrets is imminent, one
that could “bring a bank to its knees.”
Simply put, WikiLeaks has thrown governments and corporations into an international anxiety
attack.
And while the common perception has been that CEOs are most concerned with financial
returns, recent studies and surveys don’t bear that true. In fact, a 2009 study by McKinsey & Co.
found that reputation risk was the top concern of CEOs, echoing similar findings from AON
Insurance that nearly 50 percent of the CEOs they surveyed felt unprepared for managing
reputation risk.
This comes at a time of unyielding reputational threats from the likes of WikiLeaks, OpenLeaks,
the Brilliant Yes Men and a variety of underground groups that have technology and, some

3. might contend, a plurality of public sentiment on their side in foreign markets, to expunge
corporations of their most treasured secrets.
Like it or not, the coming year will see corporate America attempting to manage the "gotcha!"
whims of transient whistle-blower organizations that don't play by conventional rules of
engagement. These are groups that can outsmart and outrun even the best of a business's
high-tech security measures, and our profession’s most thorough crisis management plans.
CEOs will never again know if, or when, an assault on their company's reputation is coming, or
who from within is spilling the proverbial beans.
Perhaps for the first time in our profession’s history, technology, rather than our keen insight
and experience, largely dictates whether our ability to help clients and executives manage their
reputations is successful or falls flat. I don’t mean to be hyperbolic in saying that; recent events
lead me to believe this is becoming our new reality. The New Normal in reputation
management, if you will.
So what is the logical, practical, and above all else, most ethical manner in which we can guide
CEOs toward building greater corporate trust and reputation in this new era of reputational
uncertainty? Echoing the sentiment of my predecessor, Gary McCormick, APR, Fellow PRSA,
this may sound clichéd, but it’s been proven to be immensely effective: advise clients to be as
transparent as possible. We must help businesses focus on building and, in some cases,
rebuilding trust, with the public, while they simultaneously fortify their financial standing after two
year of bleak economic returns.
That belief is reflected in this year’s Trust Barometer, with 65 percent of respondents saying that
trustworthiness is one of the top-three factors toward enhancing corporate reputation.
That doesn’t necessarily mean advising clients to take unnecessary risks just to appease a
small, but vocal, group of dissenters. That’s not feasible, and would most certainly devalue our
efforts to help businesses prosper. There are equally important benefits to confidentiality in the
C-suite, so long as it is buttressed by a small gap between public and private conversations and
a commitment to disclosure.
But it does mean we should help executives find new and innovative ways to better express
how they manage their business. We have to be the eyes and ears — and yes, the conscience
— for external and internal reputational opportunities and threats for the executives we
represent and counsel. They turn to us to understand the sentiment of their key audiences,
whether that be customers, stakeholders, the public at large or their employees.
Despite all of this, we appear to have entered an era where, paradoxically, image matters more
than reputation. We live in a hyper-connected world, one that is constantly throwing new ideas,
links and a myriad of distractions our way. The question of which is more valuable — image or
reputation — is largely a moot point, and I would argue both have equal value within certain
context.
Certainly, having a strong brand image is vital to quickly grabbing and maintaining a customer’s
attention. That level of attention, however, can be fleeting. A strong reputation is often the
antidote to what commonly ails brands trapped in a crowded marketplace, one where every
company is competing to have the flashiest ad, or spiffiest new app; a marketplace that

4. becomes watered down over time.
Reputation is hard-earned and long-standing. It comes from years, not moments, of doing and
saying the right thing. And it’s an incredibly powerful bellwether indicator for how well executives
can lead a company out of tough times. According to a 2010 Inc. magazine article, 60 percent of
employees in America do not trust that their senior management can turn an organization
around when it gets off track.
A comparison of results from the 2007 and 2011 editions of the Edelman Trust Barometer offer
some perspective on how quickly companies can lose their affirmative reputations. In the pre-
financial crisis results of 2007, trust in American businesses was measured at 62 percent — a
13-percent rise over the previous year — higher than both media and the government. Fast
forward to 2011, and the credibility of businesses in America has plummeted, to 46 percent, or
five percentage points above last-place Russia. Meanwhile, trust in American CEOs stands at
only 34 percent, compared to a plurality among global respondents in their level of trust for
CEOs.
Circling back to a point I made earlier, if the reputation of our country’s businesses is only
slightly better than Russia that certainly says something about the immediate need within the
United States to rebuild the business community’s credibility among the public.
When successful, trust is the climax of actually putting customers first, ahead of revenues and
brand recognition; of having a meaningful relationship and conversation with the customer. And
that sticks with people, gets passed along in the best form of word of mouth possible and helps
brands sustain success during the inevitable marketplace challenges.
Returning to the reputational threat of WikiLeaks, much concern has been raised within the
global business community over a group that has no physical location, little trust from the public
and whose reputation is based on an enigmatic personality that New York Times executive
editor Bill Keller recently described as “having his own agenda” and “openly contemptuous of
the American government.” Hardly a character one would associate with inspiring worldwide
admiration and respect.
Yet, in a way, Assange and his cohorts at WikiLeaks have attained all of that, and more. Of
course, he’s also considered a pseudo-enemy of the state in many countries, including our own,
and his actions appear to be getting more sinister and bizarre by the day.
But viewing WikiLeaks as purely an enemy threat to corporations would be a mistake. Instead, it
should be seen as an opportunity; a global call-to-action for CEOs to transparently present their
full and honest side of the story. This is true at nearly every point in history, but certainly no
more relevant than in the current climate of public skepticism.
That brings me to my second point: we’re at a precipice for ethical standards that meet today’s
modern business, marketing and communications challenges. As I noted earlier, the past five
years have been a remarkable time for marketers, communicators and public relations
professionals. Technological advancements, from Facebook, Twitter, podcasts, blogs,
Facebook, Quora … the list goes on and on … have infused a new and refreshing vibrancy into
our profession, making public relations more relevant to consumers and the public, and equally
valuable to the business community.

5. But that increased value comes with greater responsibility.
Technology is moving so rapidly that it’s becoming increasingly apparent the need to establish
modern ethical standards for today’s modern public relations and marketing practices. As
WikiLeaks and other new threats to corporate reputation shows us, the old marketing playbook
has been completely thrown out the window. We’re now left to rewrite the rules of engagement.
Hopefully, for the better.
As you well know, PRSA’s Code of Ethics has been at the forefront of the profession’s ethical
conscience for more than 60 years. But, like everything else, the Code must evolve as times
change and as the pressing business concerns of today’s executives trump those that were
relevant when the original Code of Ethics was unveiled more than 60 years ago, or even when it
was completely overhauled in 2000.
A recent example comes to us from our friends at the Word of Mouth Marketing Association.
Each year, WOMMA performs what amounts to a crowdsourced review of is Ethics Code,
soliciting input into what pressing business and marketing matters it should address in its Code.
This year’s review looked at two key issues affecting marketers of all stripes: digital disclosure in
social media contests and data scraping across websites, which is the practice of online
marketers and advertisers using computer algorithms to extract data from the users of certain
websites. Typically, these websites are forum-based, where people are offering advice,
information and other content that would provide invaluable purchasing and lifestyle information
to advertisers about each user.
We’re in an era where incorporating such norms as disclosure in our communications isn’t
always in vogue. It’s a time of rapid-fire online engagement between brands and consumers.
Greater emphasis is often given to reaching the biggest influencers, rather than how well you
connect with and inform your core audiences.
That leaves the ethical public relations professional stuck in the middle between aiming high
with disclosure and other ethical standards, but possibly feeling constrained by time, resources
and client pressures. Not to mention the increasingly abbreviated space available to actually
provide proper disclosure. Hello, 140 characters! Actually, make that 120 characters, if you want
to get retweeted …
So what came of our efforts to help WOMMA revise its Ethics Code? Two things:
• One, we developed greater organizational understanding and respect for the challenges
that our members must overcome to solve the modern marketing challenges perplexing
businesses in the digital age.
• Secondly, we prescribed a set of clear and simple points of focus for how, when and why
disclosure within social media contests should be used. Those include:
o Disclosure of relationships, motivation, compensation and other pertinent factors
should be the basis of all forms of marketing and communications, including
emerging practices like social media and online contests.
o Marketers must reasonably inform consumers of the motivations and intent of
use behind the messaging they receive, no matter the medium used.
o Where practical, social media contests should provide a link to a clear and simple
Web page noting all of the uses for the contest, the information submitted as part
of the contest and to whom that information will be given to and for what
purposes.

6. o A material connection exists between a brand and a blogger when the blogger
writes about and/or discusses his or her contest entry in any format, whether that
be a blog, Tweet, Facebook wall post or a LinkedIn update.
You can find more information on PRSA’s commentary for WOMMA at our website, PRSA.org.
While public relations professionals will always be a shining light for innovative digital
communications and social media practices, we also must remain cautious and vigilant in our
understanding of the implications of the new channels and technologies we use. The onus is on
each of us to ensure that the same stringent ethical standards and best practices guiding
traditional practices are infused in work that engages new technologies and techniques.
The coming year, I have to believe, will finally see us finding that happy middle ground between
real-world marketing realities and instilling modern ethical standards for modern marketing
practices.
Finally, I’d like to touch on two issues very dear to me: diversity in profession and public
relations research, along with the value each holds for the business community. We’re in the
midst of Black History Month, a time of celebration across the United States for the unique
perspective, vision and insight African-Americans bring to our country. In mid-September, we’ll
begin celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, a time that is dear to me, as it is to many of you.
I’ve been particularly struck by the thought-provoking blog posts and comments that many of
our members and industry leaders have written as part of PRSA’s Black History Month
celebrations. Larry Jones, who is the director of communications at the Consumer Specialty
Products Association, made a passionate argument recently for the business value of diversity
in a blog post he wrote for PRSA.
In it, he noted that, “By incorporating different types of voices to tell an organization’s story, it
can only enrich the communications capabilities while adding to the creative mix. Diversity in
communications also can mean building bridges to new audiences or tapping into new
perspectives and ideas.”
I can’t think of a better way to describe the real-world economic impact of diversity. Playing a
leading role in conversation development across a variety of societal, economic and ethnic
variances has always been one of public relations' strongest areas of focus. A key component
of public relations continuing its surge in value will be our ability to generate two-way
conversation-themed strategies. And this can only come from the inclusion of nontraditional
hires, such as bloggers, social-media influencers and analysts that come from a variety of ethnic
and racial backgrounds.
Taking that a step further, our members tell us that diversity within the profession will be key to
their agencies' success in the year to come, as businesses continue seeking a more global
perspective to their communications and marketing initiatives.
As a Hispanic American, I have seen first-hand the immense growth and impact that diversity is
having on the American economy and culture. When the final analysis of the 2010 census
becomes available, it will show that there are now more than 50 million Hispanic-Americans;
that is sixteen percent of the total U.S. population. By 2050, that is predicted to rise to 133
million, or one-third of the U.S. population. Even more impressive: the combined annual buying
power of Hispanic Americans is in excess of $1 trillion.

7. If Hispanic-Americans comprised their own country, it would be the fifth-largest, by population,
in the European Union. Our level of acculturation is enhancing rapidly, meaning that marketers,
advertisers, lawmakers and all of us are hurtling into an era where the business and marketing
of diversity, particularly Hispanic-American business, will be at the forefront of the American
conscience.
While public relations, like other professions, has progressed significantly in the area of diversity
in order to meet the global business community’s diverse communications and marketing
challenges, we still have a ways to go. Similarly, funding for our industry’s educational
endeavors lags behind our peer professions.
A report released last December by the Commission on Public Relations Education, which
received partial funding from the PRSA Foundation, found that total philanthropic support
dedicated to public relations education has reached at least 15 million dollars. The report’s
author, Kathleen S. Kelly, Ph.D., APR, Fellow PRSA, professor of public relations at the
University of Florida, documented sixty-four major gifts ranging $10,000 to $2 million.
While those figures may sound impressive, the report emphasized that philanthropy for public
relations education is in its infancy compared to the amount of funding and resources dedicated
to business and other areas of professional education.
As I noted earlier, I’m a communications professor at Florida International University, so this
topic is of great interest to me. For any field to gain credibility, and more importantly,
believability, it needs to constantly augment its body of knowledge. Much of that is
accomplished through research.
A good example of this is in the field of medicine. Medical research is happening every single
day, every single hour and a significant amount of money is poured into medical research and
philanthropic work. When there’s a medical finding or breakthrough of some kind from the
research, there’s growth in medicine and in its body of knowledge — and hopefully in human
life.
Public relations, on the other hand, started very late in the research game. Therefore, we’re
decades behind our peer industries in terms of accumulating the funding we desperately need
to advance the scientific and educational research required to advance our profession. A focus
on funding for public relations research would lead to unimaginable possibilities for public
relations:
• Imagine for a moment having the research that would once and for all confirm that
companies who secure customer trust indeed fare better in profitability?
• What about if you tie trust directly to messaging or message strategy?
• What if there was a way to show that people’s comprehension of a message, crafted
through communications and public relations led them to actual behavior?
As a public relations professional, educator and leader of PRSA, I know firsthand the value that
research can have in building our industry’s value. Hopefully, you can see its value as well.

8. Reflecting on where our profession has come over the past few years, and the remarkable
future I truly believe it holds, it’s easy for me to stand up here and tell you that the state of the
public relations industry is vibrant.
Advanced technology, an increasingly diverse business community, augmented by greater
demand for ethical and strategic communications in an era of corporate transparency, have all
come together to create a moment in time in which public relations can and should own the
conversation. There is an incredibly exciting and innovative path forward for the public relations
industry, and you can be sure PRSA will be at the forefront, ensuring our members and the
broader profession are well primed on their journey along that path.
That’s the new frontier for the state of the public relations industry. Let’s go for it!
Thank you. I welcome your questions.
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