Public Relations in the Roaring Twenties

By Evan Vedros

A century ago, the Roaring Twenties were a decade of carefree celebration and extravagance in the wake of the 1918 influenza pandemic. Many were enthralled by a number of new inventions, especially screens and television – the idea that you could watch someone perform on the other side of the country without leaving your living room inspired awe and optimism across the world. 

After spending the last year glued to screens while working from home, chatting with friends and family over Zoom, and binge-watching shows until our own global pandemic ends, it is only fitting that some have begun to anticipate that the period after the pandemic recovery will be a new “Roaring Twenties.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought many changes to the world of public relations. As we enter our own century’s Roaring Twenties, it is time to ask ourselves what the industry is going to look like in the future.  Did the pandemic force us to try new strategies, only to realize that we like them more than our old ways?  Or are we desperate to get back to normal?

2020 was the year of tele-everything – telecommuting, telehealth, teleconferencing, and so on. The change to telecommuting was welcomed by Gambel Communications, but now that our team is vaccinated, we’ve shifted back to a more “normal” schedule. We have transitioned back to working in the office most days of the week, but some days are still designated for working from home, and the option to work from home is available as needed. Throughout the pandemic, telecommuting has also given us the opportunity to onboard multiple team members remotely.

We have had similar experiences with how we meet clients during quarantine. Out of necessity, people are now used to using Zoom. We can use it for meetings that might have been conducted over the phone before. Being face-to-face with a client, even if remotely, goes a long way to help build trust and rapport, so this is a change that we fully welcome. We are still happy to be able to bring clients into our office again, but it is nice to have this third option in between phone calls and in-person meetings.

More specific to our industry, our clients have the option to remote in to broadcasted interviews or guest segments. This is not only convenient for our clients, but also potentially beneficial for their message – a client participating remotely can prepare up until the last second, they can be in a comfortable environment, and they can have their talking points right in front of them. 

The hard part is understanding that there’s more to a successful interview than what gets broadcast – when you show up in person to an interview, you’re also there to shake hands and make connections with the media, and that is a lot harder to replicate remotely. This is especially important if your client is the type to be interviewed multiple times, or to be positioned as a resident expert on their subject.

Another popular remote PR tool brought by COVID is the Zoom seminar. Local industry associations and universities have always hosted speakers for regular meetings, but the transition to remote meetings has made them more accessible to both speakers and viewers. These provide an excellent opportunity to position a client as an expert and a thought leader amongst their peers, and now, a client in New York can speak at a meeting in New Orleans, without having to physically be in New Orleans. It seems likely that many of these organizations will continue to hold online meetings, so we’re happy to make use of these opportunities.

However, we’re also excited to return to in-person industry meetings and speaking opportunities. It is easier for our clients to make meaningful connections, position themselves as thought leaders, and engage directly with audience members when they’re speaking in front of a crowd rather than in front of a laptop.

We are also very happy to be able to meet with clients in person again. We moved to our brand new office just before the stay-at-home orders came down, so we never got the chance to share our great space with anyone. We just had our first meeting with a client in our new conference room back in late May, and we were so excited we may have gone a little overboard – we were fully stocked with muffins, coffee, cold water bottles, and everything else, even though we only had four guests with us.

The meeting was both productive and fun, and I feel like we connected well with our client that day. This opportunity also made me realize how utilitarian Zoom calls of the last year and a half have felt: you log in, you go through the meeting agenda, and you log off. It felt great to have the chance to socialize again, make small talk before and after our meeting, and share snacks and coffee together in real life.

Beyond that, though, we also learned valuable information about our clients’ projects while chatting after the meeting. We were able to give them useful advice and revise PR strategies, all based on the small talk that wouldn’t have happened if we had just signed off at the end of a Zoom call instead.

Now that the end of the pandemic is on the horizon, it is time to start looking forward to what these changes will mean for the future of public relations.  The pandemic has pushed our industry to adopt many new tools, strategies, and procedures, and while these are convenient options to have even after this is all over, they’re missing the best parts of public relations. It is much more difficult to form deep connections with clients, industry partners, the media, and audiences through our new distanced methods, so we’re patiently anticipating a return to normal.