What Kind of Public Relations Industry Will Gen Z Inherit?

Emily Page (00:00):

Before today's conversation, let's take a step back, not just in time but in memory. This is a story about a generation that swore it would break the rules and about how somewhere along the way the rules stayed and they stayed too.

Doug Downs (00:22):

In the late 1960s, they marched in the streets with flowers in their hair and fire in their voices. They believed they were reshaping the world, rejecting war, rejecting greed, rejecting the gray suited system that told them how to live, what to value. They sang about peace, justice, and freedom, and they were sure that by the time they were in charge, everything would be different. They promised themselves they wouldn't sell out, they wouldn't trade passion for paychecks, they wouldn't become the kind of people they were fighting against. But time as it does had its own plans. One by one, the rebels put on suits. They got jobs in the very offices they'd once picketed promising to change things from the inside. But slowly, almost imperceptibly, the causes dimmed and the careers took over. The slogans were replaced by strategies. The movements became marketing and the promises they'd once made to themselves got lost. Somewhere between the conference calls and the quarterly reports, today we sit at a crossroads. Once again, a new generation is stepping up, wide-eyed and determined, eager to build something better and maybe even prepared to succeed with those before them. Faltered. Today on stories and strategies we ask, will the next generation transform the industry or will history simply suit up and repeat itself? Sometimes the hardest thing to disrupt is yourself.

(02:02):

My name is Doug Downs

Farzana Baduel (02:03):

And my name is Farzana Baduel. Our guest this week is Fred Cook, joining us from Los Angeles. Hi Fred.

Fred Cook (02:10):

Hi, how are you?

Farzana Baduel (02:11):

Good. How are things in glamorous la?

Fred Cook (02:15):

It looks like a beautiful day in LA and it always is, so I think it's good.

Farzana Baduel (02:20):

Now, Fred, for our audience, you are the director of USC Center for Public Relations at the Annenberg School, where you guide the next generation of communication leaders. You are the chair emus of Golan, where you led global campaigns for brands like McDonald's, Nintendo and Toyota. Over a 30 year career, most recently you spearheaded the Mind the Gap report revealing sharp generational divides, shaping the future of the PR industry.

Doug Downs (02:49):

So Fred, your job is to teach the next gen coming up. What kind of freaking mess are we leaving behind for the next generation because this is an as we know it that may no longer exist in the same way and shape.

Fred Cook (03:04):

Well, it's definitely a period of great disruption right now with AI coming on the scene and people working remotely and the media changing and polarization, all these things. We studied that in the Mind the gap, but I think we found in our research that Gen Z, the generation that's coming up into the public relation profession is really where the puck is going. They're already there. So I think I have a renewed confidence in their ability to manage all of these changes and lead us into the future.

Doug Downs (03:38):

It's going to be one resilient generation because we're putting so much on them that way. Your sense when you work with the young generation, are they ready for this, that they're shouldering a lot?

Fred Cook (03:49):

Well, I think there are a lot of people like me who have put a lot of weight on their shoulders in terms of fixing all the problems that my generation created, and I don't think that's really fair. I don't think they're going to change the world necessarily. I grew up in the sixties and seventies and we thought we were changing the world and everything went back to being the same. So I think that it's not a good idea to put that on their backs, but I do think that as far as communications is concerned, that they're very comfortable with where things are headed, and I think they'll be able to manage it much better than probably the older generation would be able to.

Farzana Baduel (04:29):

Fred, I read your report and what struck me is just how difficult it is for a PR person to communicate across different generations because already the media landscape is so fragmented. When I grew up, we had a couple of broadcast channels, a couple of print, and then all of a sudden you've got this plethora of social media platforms and now on top of that you've got generational segmentation. And so from a PR perspective, if our budgets aren't rising alongside the complexity of communicating across generational divides, what sort of advice would you give us? How to navigate if actually it's not about communicating one generation or the other, we have to communicate to both. How would we do that when we then have to then come up with almost two separate programs?

Fred Cook (05:15):

Well, that's an interesting question, and it is true that people are receiving information from very different sources, especially the older and the young. And we saw that in our survey. Our survey was a PR people, and they also are, they're representative of a broader landscape. I think you have to use all different channels now to reach people, and you have to decide which audience is the most important and put your emphasis on that. The channels that get to them are all very different, but sometimes the messages can be the same, but you just have to find different channels for them. It's much more dispersed. You're reaching smaller groups of people, like a podcast like this reaches a few thousand people, and you have to have a lot of little things that build up to a bigger thing that accomplishes your goals. But I think that it's not as complicated as it sounds when you understand these different channels and you know how to use them because they all play off one another and integrate. So even in social media, you see a lot of traditional media being replayed in social media, and the same players that are creating that content also have channels on all these different social channels. So if you learn the way it works, it's not as hard to figure out.

Doug Downs (06:37):

So social media, Fred, a lot of stuff I read is that social media engagement statistically is on the decline. And I'm not saying the death of social media, but are you getting that vibe from the younger generation that social is not quite what it used to be and what's going to take its place?

Fred Cook (06:56):

Well, it depends on what you refer to as social. I mean, the platforms come and go. Some become popular and some become unpopular over time, and there's always new ones coming online that people are interested in. I don't think it's going away. When our survey, we asked people whether they thought that social media would be the primary source of news in the future, and majority of people said yes, especially younger people. They also thought that influencers on social media would be the primary marketing vehicle for companies to build their brands and sell their products. So I think that that is still going to be the direction of travel, and I think legacy media is going to continue to decline. I don't see any way that that's going to come back in a big way. So I think it may not be growing as fast as it used to, but I think the trajectory is going to be the same as it has been for the last decade.

Doug Downs (07:54):

So is your sense that this is all just democratizing if traditional media or one-stop shop want to get something above the fold in the newspaper, that idea is like dead

Fred Cook (08:04):

These

Doug Downs (08:04):

Days. Is this just democratization of comms?

Fred Cook (08:08):

Well, it depends who you ask. If you ask older people who are used to legacy media, they feel like it's democratization, but it's also going to be misinformation and a loss of credibility and that sort of thing. If you ask younger people, they feel more positive about it. They feel more like now everybody has a voice and that social media is going to be just as relevant and just as credible as traditional media has been. So there's a difference of opinion depending on what you've grown up with. The PR people that have grown up with social media feel totally comfortable with that. They would rather find content for TikTok, create content for TikTok than they would pitch the New York Times, which they have no idea about. So I think that it's all from your point of view.

Farzana Baduel (08:59):

Fred, I wanted to ask about human nature. So when you look at newspapers, broadcast channels, especially 20, 30 years ago, you have left off center right of center and as political animals, what we're seeing is when social media first started coming around the last 15, 20 years, it was almost like this utopia moment where everybody actually had a town square. Whether you were left or right, we would go on Twitter or Instagram or Facebook, and now you're beginning to see social media channels actually following the same politicization that you see in traditional legacy media. And do you think that's just basically human nature that cut the utopia off the town hall of social media and then turned it into the politicization of the legacy media that we've always had? In the uk we have The Guardian on one side and the Times and the Telegraph on the other, the US you have the same. So that's obviously been quite recent with Elon Musk's foray into owning social media and also US politics.

Fred Cook (10:04):

Well, it's a good question, and I think the answer is a little bit discouraging actually. What's happened is that the media have found out that being polarized, it's not a disagreement anymore, it's a marketing strategy.

(10:20):

And being polarized allows you to get more viewers, get more donations, get more votes, whether you're in the politics or in the media. And so people are being, channels are being polarized because that attracts viewers who already believe what they believe and that's why it's getting worse and not going away because it's a way to build your audience and it's a way to build your brand as an individual or as a media channel. And I think that's the scary part of polarization, that people are polarized on purpose because it benefits them to take some extreme view on something and they realize a lot of people aren't going to disagree with it. They're going to disagree with 'em, but they don't care because there's a lot of people who do. And it creates these echo chambers online and that people just reinforce each other's views and spread them on social media. And it's a big cause of why we're so polarized right now.

Doug Downs (11:20):

And I'm a curious person, and I know Fred from other discussions, you think PR people should be curious. And the curiosity to me that stands out is maybe that's the path for pr. Maybe that's our role is to help build the bridges between these constantly separating polls of opinion. But on the other hand, it feels like the industry's kind of killing itself with regard to curiosity because we all conform and we all seek comfort and we use AI continuously, and it's just scouring what others have said. Not much of a question there, more of an observation and looking for your take on that.

Fred Cook (12:02):

Well, one of the most staggering numbers in our recent survey was that every year we asked the question, do you think companies are responsible for getting engaged with social issues regardless of whether it impacts their business? And the numbers of PR people that believe that have been in the past, the last couple of years, like 89, 85, and it dropped to like 54% this year. So the number of people who believe organizations have a responsibility to talk about social issues has plummeted. And I think I would've never predicted that a few years ago I thought that purpose was going to be the trajectory of our business and we were going to be talking more and more about what organizations are doing to improve the world. And the appetite for that has dropped by half almost.

Farzana Baduel (12:54):

Why?

Fred Cook (12:55):

Because it's not politically smart to do that anymore, because so much risk associated with it. In this political and polarized environment, you lose customers, you get penalized by the government. There are all kinds of penalties for speaking out. And so people are afraid to do it. And I think that's been the biggest change. See,

Doug Downs (13:17):

But at the same time, gen Z in particular wants us to take a stand.

Fred Cook (13:21):

Yes.

Doug Downs (13:22):

So are those conflicting messages or are we seeing a change?

Fred Cook (13:26):

I don't know yet. I think the question is whether Gen Z still expects companies to do this and to get engaged and the older generations do not anymore. So the question is whether Gen Z will change the dynamic in the next five or 10 years or whether they will become disillusioned like everyone else and just give in to what is the current state?

Doug Downs (13:49):

I confess I want business leaders to take a stand. I just want them to take my stand, that's all. Yeah,

Fred Cook (13:55):

Everybody feels the same way.

Farzana Baduel (13:58):

It could actually be two separate things where Gen Z do want their CEOs to take a stand, but actually the comms people don't because the comms people know that if you please this Gen Zed, then this Gen Zed is not going to be very happy. So maybe from the comms people, it's actually you don't want to choose. So you end up being Switzerland, you end up being neutral, you end up being a little bit bland because you don't want to offend. And perhaps it leaves them between a rock and hard place where you're either called out for silence on social issues, or if you take a stand, you then lose half of your market. So it's quite difficult to terrain to navigate.

Fred Cook (14:39):

It is difficult, and that's why people are opting out just to say nothing

(14:43):

Because it's a hard thing to navigate. But there are still companies that are going to speak out. There are ones that are Patagonia, for instance, and Nike and Levi's. There are companies that have a strong commitment to their corporate values and they're going to always speak out. It's just there's not very many these days. And a few years ago when Black Lives Matter happened, everyone was talking about equality and racial equality and racial injustice. But now that there's just a handful that are still doing it, I think that'll change. But it's a question of when and how much over time, but we can only wait and see.

Farzana Baduel (15:23):

I've often wondered, Fred, because our meeting in the UK we're quite global and outward looking.

Fred Cook (15:28):

Yes. In the UK is more than the US for sure.

Farzana Baduel (15:32):

And we're obsessed with the US. So I often sort of follow US politics more than my cousins who live in the us. And I just want to know why is the US media more insular and not outward looking? And why is the UK who we're quite culturally similar in some regards, why has that shift? I mean, one of my cousins said to me, it's because, listen, we don't have as many holidays as you, so we're not traveling all the time. And then the other reason he gave me was he's like, also, we are so blessed with our country that if we want to see mountains or sea, we just don't have to leave the us. We can have that, and there's enough cultural diversity and geographical diversity that we don't have to leave. I mean, that was the answer he gave me, but I'd love to hear it from you.

Fred Cook (16:17):

Well, there's some truth to that answer. I mean, people in the US like to go to Las Vegas, one of the biggest destinations in there. You can go in the Venice canals, you can see the Eiffel Tower, you can see the pyramids of Egypt all in one place without ever changing money or needing a passport. I think. And Americans don't have passports. The percentage of Americans have passports. It's much lower than it is in the UK and other countries. I think there's an element of what you said, we have everything that we need here, but I think there's also a fear. Fear of anti-Americanism and a fear of being ripped off and a fear of cultures and not speaking the language. And I think some Americans just aren't comfortable traveling as abroad the way that Europeans go from country to country. And I don't think that right now, unfortunately, I don't think we feel as welcome in places as we used to because of the politics of our country are not popular right now. So I think Americans feel more safe and comfortable at home in Mexico City. There were protests just two weekends ago about Americans coming there to live and to visit in Barcelona. They're squirting people with squirt guns. I think that there's an element, and you shouldn't be afraid of a squirt gun, but there's an element anti-American element out there right now that's real for people.

Doug Downs (17:50):

Fred, really appreciate your time today. This is good stuff. Thank you.

Fred Cook (17:54):

My pleasure.

Farzana Baduel (17:56):

Fred, I do have a question for you that has been left by our previous guest and Ayeni, he asked the following question.

Fred Cook (18:29):

Well, I think that's an interesting question. I don't think it's likely to happen. I've worked in PR agencies my whole life and goal and mainly, and I think that we play agencies play a vital role in communications. But it's an interesting time right now. I think with all of the things that are happening, agency's role is changing. And I think that the agencies who adapt to that, the changes that are taking place with artificial intelligence and with the media and with hybrid will evolve and be just as vital as they always have been. But the ones that don't are relying upon the strategists of the past, I think are going to have a tough time. So right now we're seeing in this period of disruption, we're seeing a little bit of shakeout, I think, in the agency world, and we will see what happens. As far as replacing them, I don't think that's likely. I think some of the tasks that agencies perform will be done by AI more cheaply and simply, quickly. But agencies will have to reformulate what their offering is in order to compete with, not compete with their artificial intelligence, but adapt to a world where some of these mundane tasks can be done all with a computer. But I think for the smart ones, it's going to be the future looks bright. It may not be for everybody though. Yeah. Adapt or die.

Doug Downs (19:58):

I agree.

Fred Cook (19:59):

Yes.

Farzana Baduel (20:00):

But Fred, if I was in-house, do you think some in-house people are thinking, well, actually I could just use AI tools rather than farm out work to agencies? So are agencies really in a strong position?

Fred Cook (20:12):

Well, I met with someone I know over the weekend and they work, do corporate PR for B2B AI company. And they don't use an agency anymore. They use AI tools instead. But it's a small company. It's a B2B company. And I think maybe that will work for them, but I think for the larger, bigger brands, that's not an option.

Doug Downs (20:34):

Your turn. Fred, what question would you like to leave behind for the next guest to pontificate on?

Fred Cook (20:39):

Well, the one that I'm pondering the most is one we've been talking about is this polarization idea. We've that at USC for the last few years, and it seems to be almost a permanent condition. And I for one believe that it's really a negative impact on people on a political level, a personal level, and a social level, a family level. And I guess the question is what can be done to reduce polarization in the world, especially in the United States, in the current circumstances we're in? How can that be reduced? And I wish I had the answer to that, but I don't.

Doug Downs (21:19):

I do more podcasts.

Fred Cook (21:22):

Long conversations, long conversations lead to understanding. Well, it depends if the conversations are including people from both sides. And that's the difference. I think the conversations are happening, they're just not happening with each other.

Doug Downs (21:36):

Brilliant. Thanks again, Fred. You're welcome. Thank you.

Fred Cook (21:38):

Bye-bye.

Doug Downs (21:41):

Here are the top three things we got today from Fred Cook at USC number one. Gen Z brings confidence, not burden. Fred believes Gen Z is ready to navigate PRS disruptions, but he says we shouldn't expect them to fix all the world's problems. Number two, polarization pays. And that's the problem. He points out that media and brands fuel division because it builds audiences, it sells soap, turning polarization into a marketing strategy. And number three, AI will reshape not replace agencies. Fred says, agencies that adapt to AI and changing media will thrive, but those stuck in old models risk fading out. I think the agencies that are trying to get started for Zena, it's going to be hard to build early traction unless you already have a big name for yourself, it's going to get harder that way. So strategically based now,

Farzana Baduel (22:36):

But at the same time, I met this guy the other day who said he's building an AI first PR agency. So just like back in the day, you had legacy banks and then you had these neobanks and digital first banks and they didn't have to deal with dismantling the existing sort of legacy infrastructure and rebuilding. This friend of mine has said, I'm not going to even think about the way that legacy PR agencies run. I'm going to do it AI first, and I'm going to approach it just like the disruption that Neobanks brought to legacy banks. I thought that would be really interesting. I don't know what's going to happen, but I know it's going to be super interesting and I'm all here for it.

Doug Downs (23:15):

Ding, ding episode idea.

Farzana Baduel (23:17):

I don't worry. I've already got him lined up.

Doug Downs (23:20):

No, you would.

Farzana Baduel (23:22):

I wanted to touch on a serious note about what Fred says about polarization. That is a big worry. And what was quite interesting about what he mentioned about polarization is that it's very much a currency. It's valuable.

Doug Downs (23:37):

Yeah, I know.

Farzana Baduel (23:37):

It builds people's careers. It helps them meet their KPIs. It gets the messages across, it cuts through.

Doug Downs (23:44):

It's all based on fear. Fear drives

Farzana Baduel (23:46):

Action, right? And it drives the algorithms which then reward the polarization. So what's the fix? If anyone's listening and they've got some ideas of the fix, please do let us know. Or anyone who is a good authority on this subject, we would love to get them in.

Doug Downs (24:04):

The only saving grace is those peddling the fear are still saying the other side is peddling fear. So we agree on the value that fear tactics and strategies are wrong. We're just not executing them. So I see that as a silver lining. Our values have not moved.

Farzana Baduel (24:20):

Yeah. Yeah. Very, very good point. If you'd like to send a message to our guest, Fred Cook, we've got his contact information in the show notes, stories and strategies is a co-production of Curzon Public Relations, JGR Communications and Stories and Strategies, podcasts. If you liked this episode, please leave a rating and possibly a review. And thank you to our lovely, hardworking producers, Emily Page and David Olajide. And lastly, do us a favor for this episode to one friend. And thank you so much for listening.