In this week when we celebrate our 40th anniversary, I look back to 1971 when I set up Action PR. At that time the world was a very different place; no internet, no mobile phones and certainly no iPad! Times were challenging but exciting and my vision was to build a business that was to become the first full service public relations consultancy in the emerging markets.  Now those same emerging markets are not only the focus of global attention but also drive the global economy. As the company grew we found that, while we offered our clients effective communications combined with strong local knowledge, we also had to help educate local media and other influencers to understand the value of what we were doing. At first and in some countries this was quite a struggle, especially with highly regulated, even censored, local media. Now digital communications and social media have cut through these obstacles taking us into a new world of openness and change. There are still challenges to be faced, some of a very different kind to those we faced 40 years ago. But the difference now is that the Action team of professionals in over 40 countries have never been more effective, more professional or more committed. We should be proud of what we have achieved over the last 40 years, proud of our long standing client relationships and proud that we work with some of the world’s leading brands and organisations.  I salute all the Action team whether you are working in the heat of the Middle East, the cosmopolitan cities of Eastern Europe or the heady political world of Brussels. Here’s to the next 40 years of Action!

By all conventional knowlege, ‘expert’ is not instantly associated with ‘young’, yet the Romanian PR industry proves this assumption wrong. Romania has been playing a game of ‘catch up as fast as you can’ with the Western world over the past 15 years. While the PR industry is still young, it has come a very long way in a very short time, growing in leaps and bounds to respond to the economic development.

As with other ‘new’ industries in a young market economy, PR in Romania is about 10-12 years old, therefore many of the senior people are in their late 20s or early 30s. This is intriguing for business people not familiar with the region, its culture and history. Part of the same crowd myself, especially in the first career years, I could sense skepticism from a distance. Talking about practical experience, especially in crisis communications, always did the trick: “And how old are you?” Of course ‘hours of flight’ are essential – understanding media relations does not make one a consultant in reputation management. But it took some good years for a young industry to prove itself and become awarded on the same stage with countries that have a long-standing tradition in PR.

In our office the average age is 28 and we make no exception to the industry. Of the people I interviewed for jobs in the past two years, I can count those above 35 on the fingers of one hand. And the consultants in a team for a large project some years ago were all under 35, from lawyers to HR or PR experts. Luckily there is no language barrier for professionalism. Regardless of age or culture, professionals recognise themselves as such, move beyond any preconceptions and simply roll up their sleeves.

In my now (respectable) early 30s I realise the privilege of growing at the same time with my industry, which is what we, the Action network, have been doing in fact so successfully for more years than I’ve been around.

With Bulgaria witnessing increasing numbers of young professionals and nearly 2.5 million internet citizens in its ranks, Bulgarian bloggers are now a powerful voice in social media. With this in mind the traditional media are acting accordingly. The biggest daily national (Daily Trud) started a regular column to feature blog posts for its readers’ interests.

On 24 April 2009 this year a blogger posted several pictures from a small garden which had been recently renovated. With all the planting the actual renovation took nearly two months to complete, although the first visible results were available by end of April 2009. Post (in Bulgarian) is here.

[Image CC velqn.com]

Then a fellow blogger alerted Velqn four days later that his post had found its way to the offline media and got published by Daily Trud. Velqn took the newspaper, scanned the article and reposted it on his blog on April 28 2009.

But let me disclose something here: we at Action Global Communications Bulgaria are the PR agency behind this, together with the Indesit Company in an effort to promote the latest range of household appliances, Eco Time. More information on the product launch can be found here.

At the end of his original post the blogger hopes that the new white sand-like small stones will stay there because he like it, Paris style. As far as our involvement is concerned, we will do that because we’re pleased to say that this Indesit project is not a one-time only thing and due maintenance is planned for the future.

Who would have imagined me becoming a blogger?  After all, those that know me also know that I didn’t even use a computer five years ago.

Well, now it’s my pleasure to be writing the first blog post for our brand new site.  I’m also looking forward to us growing our PR services for our emerging markets, using classic PR tools, as well as digital and online social media, from standalone campaigns to integrated communications.

In these difficult economic times, it’s also good to see that the emerging markets continue to show promise – even – as the Financial Times notes, a resurgence, especially for the long-term – and across a number of different sectors.  You only have to read the independent research reports and surveys being published to know this: PriceWaterhouseCoopers on the banking industry in the emerging markets; Deloitte on confidence in the private equity markets in India; besides the good news we read about major brands and their goal of continued investment and profile-raising, including Microsoft and easyJet.  And these are just to name a few of the success stories in these markets and the many countries that we service therein.

As Action’s Chairman, my mission has always been to provide PR for clients based on relationships of quality, with meaningful, credible messages and results.  I’m proud of the fact that, as a result and over the years, we’ve catered for the great and the good, with clients representing every industry across 40 countries in our network of PR agencies.

But whatever the technologies or communication channels that we use in public relations, let’s never forget that what matters now is the same as what mattered when I first started in PR in the 60s: delivering great results for clients and their audiences.