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Every few weeks, I seem to encounter a situation that really makes me stop and think about what I am doing, and what PR really is. Are the things that we as PR professionals value and brag about really appreciated by our clients, or just a way for us to feel good about ourselves and justify a higher salary?

Measuring the effect of PR might be an interesting enough topic for anyone with an interest in PR, but do other people take any interest whatsoever in this? Do they care about what PR can bring to the table?

This week, I attended a pitch for a project in Shanghai. We received very late notice of the project, but felt that it was really interesting and something we wanted to do. As part of the preparations, we also found out who else was invited to propose, and the list of competitors was not making me feel comfortable with the situation, as the other two agencies have both worked with the client before, and also command appreciably lower fees than Eastwei….Well, we had already accepted the invitation; there wasn’t much to do but to follow through unless we wanted to damage our reputation.

So, we put together a decent proposal, did our rehearsal and went over for the presentation. Things did not feel great at first, but gradually we felt some interest from the client side, and got a good response both to our strategic considerations and to the creative input. At the end of the session, we opened for questions, and that was when the confusing part begun.

After a few anticipated questions, the head of the client side looked me in the eye and asked “so you will really do these things, or will you just give us a great plan and leave things to us to follow through?” At first, I though he was testing me but did not really know what he was getting at. As I must have looked rather lost, he was kind enough to clarify further, “I mean, will you have people actually writing the releases, inviting the journalists and making sure that they are briefed?”, “will you have people on the ground that take care of on-site operations, and make sure that any issues are being solved?”, “in short, will you be responsible that what looks so good in the plan actually gets realized?”.

At this stage, I understood that these were all honest concerns, and that he wasn’t making things difficult for me on purpose. Now it was my turn to look him in the eye, and give a short and well thought through answer, “yes”. And he was satisfied with this.

So, are things really that bad? Is it natural for a client that has been dealing with PR agencies in China for more than five years to have these kinds on concerns? If so, the standard of much work done is still too low to discuss measurements and value contribution.

Personally, I believe that the standard of PR work in China is continually improving, and that in many areas, China is already leading in Asia. It is up to everyone working with PR in China to prove that this is true!