This month I’ll have spent 20 years working in communications, primarily for tech companies. So it’s got me thinking about the industry has changed over that time. Three shifts stand out to me.
1️⃣ Most of all, the centre of gravity of the comms industry has changed. What were once pure-play PR agencies have evolved into what are, to all intents and purposes, marketing agencies.
As traditional media has shrunk, and the internet has permeated every aspect of our lives, PR people have had to stay relevant by learning about marketing funnels, brand frameworks, owned and paid media, and so on. (Once upon a time this was called “convergence” and was a big thing people worried about a lot.)
It’s why at Delphi we now talk about “comms” rather than just “PR”, as the communications approach is so much more integrated (to use another old buzzword no one seems to talk about any more).
2️⃣ In turn, that’s driven the second big shift: the move away from heavily tactical comms to strategic thinking. A better way of putting this might be a shift from reactive to proactive work.
When I think back to the 2000s, it’s incredible how preoccupied we were with responding to the latest news with small stories that got a client namecheck, rather than creating bigger campaigns that would land strategically valuable messages. The traditional media was so dominant, and news slots were so plentiful, that you could happily surf the news agenda like that. A small element of this still exists today, but the balance has shifted a long way towards planning, strategy and campaigns.
3️⃣ The third shift is in the reputation of the tech industry itself. It’s hard to remember now, but in the 2000s tech was often dismissed as a small sector that got overhyped in the dotcom bubble and would never recover. But from around 2005 to 2016, it grew enormously, powered by the rise of web 2.0, smartphones, social media, and the rest.
Then in 2016, tech got blamed for the Brexit and Trump shocks, and the techlash began. Tech companies lost the benefit of the doubt. Since then, the industry has continued to get richer and more powerful, but from a reputational perspective tech firms are viewed more like political actors: with greater scrutiny from the media, and often a default scepticism.
In my view, tech is always the most interesting sector to work in because it’s always changing and there’s always something new to learn. But it’s now a much more reputationally complex and nuanced sector too.
We founded Delphi in the light of those three shifts, to be a strategic comms agency that understands the challenges tech companies face and how to navigate them. Let me know if you agree with these shifts or if you think I missed anything?
