This is according to a new global benchmark report released by Outcomes Rocket, which surveyed 858 marketing and communications professionals across industries and company sizes worldwide.

The study found that 84.1% of respondents believe PR will take on a larger part in supporting sales and business outcomes by 2028.

At the same time, 73% expect PR to become even more strategic as organisations adapt to changing ways people find and consume information.

The findings indicate that PR is moving beyond its traditional role of generating awareness and media coverage. Companies now see it as a business function that supports credibility, customer trust and revenue growth.

Seven in 10 organisations said PR now plays an important role in their go-to-market efforts and this is also seen in company structures.

Nearly half of respondents, 48.7%, said PR is fully integrated with marketing and sales teams, while another 36.6% reported partial integration.

Despite that thriving influence, many organisations still focus their PR efforts on awareness rather than direct business results.

Increasing brand awareness is the leading objective for 66.3% of respondents. Reputation management follows at 39.4%, while only 14.4% said supporting go-to-market campaigns is a key priority.

Just 17.1% listed visibility in emerging search environments among their main objectives.

The report also highlights the gap between the importance companies place on PR and how they measure its impact.

Half of the organisations surveyed still rely mainly on traditional indicators such as media mentions, impressions and share of voice.

Although 43.7% connect PR activity to website traffic and 41.3% track referral visits from earned media, 11.5% admitted they do not systematically measure PR impact at all.

For many teams, proving business value is difficult.

Budget limitations emerged as the most common challenge, cited by 30.9% of respondents. Another 26.7% said they lack clear tracking processes or key performance indicators, while 25.4% struggle to connect PR activity to sales and revenue outcomes.

The study found that organisations are also failing to maximise the value of media coverage after it is secured.

Only 13.1% share earned media coverage directly with sales teams, while just 6.1% incorporate PR insights into sales training and enablement programmes.

Meanwhile, 33.2% use PR content in marketing campaigns, but only 21.7% repurpose media coverage into blogs, newsletters or other owned content.

Budget trends point to maturing trust in PR, although investment remains measured.

On average, organisations allocate 14% of their marketing budgets to PR. Nearly half, 47.7%, increased PR spending over the past year, although most described those increases as modest rather than substantial.

The report also found that 44.8% of organisations increased PR investment because of changes in search and content discovery, while 32.5% reported no change in spending.

Most companies manage PR internally. More than a third, 35.9%, operate dedicated in-house PR teams, while 34.9% handle PR through broader marketing departments. Only 8.4% rely entirely on external agencies.

Another key finding centres on governance and policy.

While the use of automation and digital tools has become global across communications teams, only 21.4% of organisations have formal, documented and enforced policies governing their use. More than 70% lack fully established guidelines.

Respondents identified data privacy and compliance as their biggest concern, cited by 40.1%. Accuracy issues followed at 37.9%, while 29.2% worried about losing a consistent brand voice.

Even so, the report found limited evidence of major negative consequences so far. More than a third of organisations, 35.4%, said they had experienced no major issues. Only 6.6% reported reputational or quality-related problems.

Over the next two years, respondents expect automation to be the strongest force driving PR. Nearly half, 46.6%, pointed to automated workflows as the biggest trend, followed by growth in digital PR activities at 38.2%.

Summing up the findings, Outcomes Rocket said PR has reached a turning point as organisations connect communications efforts with commercial outcomes.

“The data shows that PR is no longer a supporting function. It is a strategic driver of visibility, authority, and business impact.”

The company added that while PR’s influence grows, many organisations still face gaps in execution, measurement and governance that could limit their ability to demonstrate business value.

The report is based on a global survey conducted in March 2026 among 858 marketing and public relations professionals drawn from sectors including professional services, technology, education, ecommerce, healthcare, financial services and manufacturing.

“When the trust account is high, communication is easy, instant, and effective”,

– Stephen R. Covey.

Corporate communications in Nigeria’s public sector is akin to walking the eggshells. Balancing public and institutional interest in information management is a daunting responsibility.

Public sector institutions prefer significant confidentiality measures in their information management processes. Emerging cybersecurity technologies and knowledge management have led to the introduction of extra steps for information storage and retrieval.

Many of these organizations currently store documents in digital formats, encrypted, and, in some cases, introduce a password for access. In federal ministries, agencies and departments, the use of physical files is, however, still prevalent.

Several memos, reports, and documents transverse the institutions in utmost confidentiality. Spokespersons or Directors of Communications in these government agencies walk a tight rope in information management.

Government officials have attributed this state of affairs to the confidential nature of public sector activities and the need to protect the organizations and government from unintended information leakages that could cause embarrassment.

These officials have cited the Official Secret Act, also known as the Oath of Secrecy Act, 1962, as the significant barrier to corporate communications in the public sector.

The overarching objective of the Act is to “check against the publication of highly confidential information or documents that may weaken or limit the integrity of any government and, by extension, threaten the security of the state” (Asemah, 2009, p. 371). 

Citizens have continued to express concerns over the continuous use of the 1962 Oath of Secrecy Act, 61 years after the country’s independence.

The Clerk of the House of Representatives, Yahaya Danzaria, in a story in Premium Times of August 9, 2022, was quoted as intimating the staff of the House of Representatives that the Oath of Secrecy Act of 1962 has remained in force to prevent the leakage of important official documents of the government, stressing that institutions must protect vital government information to avoid exposing it to embarrassment and ridicule.

Despite enacting the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in 2011, government officials still fear the consequences of divulging official government information. Some government employees have lost their jobs for releasing confidential information without authorization.

The above places enormous restrictions on Directors of Communication or Spokespersons of government agencies. The need to withhold some vital information, and justifiably so, while under pressure from the media and other stakeholders for information could be unsettling.

Industry professionals, the media and members of the public have expressed grave concerns over limited information on the activities of some government agencies, stressing that, at times, some of the statements released are inadequate and outdated.

Corporate communication analysts have observed that the FOIA 2011 has not necessarily solved the problem, arguing that obtaining information from government agencies remains challenging.

The recent upsurge of requests for information from government agencies under the FOIA, 2011, is attributed to the existing communication gap between public sector organizations and stakeholders. Strategic stakeholders’ engagement is crucial to information management.

As mentioned above, the prevailing scenario underscores the need for regular stakeholder engagements, where the public sector institutions provide information addressing nagging questions.

Stakeholders’ engagement strategy reduces the pressure institutions encounter regarding requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act of 2011. 

In 2013, the Public Affairs Department of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), under the leadership of Dr. Eugene Juwah, the then Executive Vice Chairman (EVC), obtained an approval of the department’s strategies to guide the Commission’s corporate communications.

I must emphasize that, it is in organization’s best interest, to have one spokesperson to avoid the release of mixed messages, thus creating communication dissonance. The messaging should be consistent, factual, and unambiguous.

The spokesperson must keep abreast of the subject matters and be very knowledgeable. The corporate affairs director or spokesperson should elicit the trust of the CEO, the approving authority for all external communications.

Any suggestion of pursuing personal interest would engender suspicion and consequent censorship due to a lack of confidence and doubt.

The CEO should approve all sensitive materials for external communications. Owing to the sensitive nature of the communications industry, statements from the Commission must be consistent, clear, transparent, timely, and factual and should address the issues at stake. 

During the period the industry experienced poor Quality of Services (QoS), the Commission decided that our communications would be frank and regular, without coverups.

Denials of obvious situations and challenges provokes the people, but acceptance of the existing situation craving for understanding, while the situation is addressed, elicits favorable considerations.

The Commission was transparent, empathetic, and timely in our strategic communications. The public affairs department adopted an open-door policy and was ready to respond to media enquiries. There were regular media appearances addressing the challenges in the sector and the regulatory interventions the Commission engaged to solve the problems.

The Commission acknowledged the existence of the QoS challenges in all media appearances and press releases but outlined the measures the Commission had adopted to deal with the issues, such as insisting on the strict compliance of service providers to the QoS benchmarks.

At that time, NCC wielded the big stick and issued the highest fine ever imposed by any regulator in the continent to a major operator in Nigeria for breaching the Commission’s regulations. 

To effectively manage the Commission’s information, we conducted a study to discover the factors that negatively affect corporate communications.

Our findings indicated that; delays in releasing substantial public information fuels rumours, and inaccurate information encourages negative ‘grapevine’ stories, an adversarial relationship with the media is not helpful, lack of transparency in governance breeds suspicion. Blocking communication channels lead to unfriendly relationships.

A Spokesman should keep an open-door policy with the stakeholders, especially the media, to avoid speculations and adversarial publications.

The organization should maintain regular interactions with both the online and mainstream media. Regular consultations with relevant stakeholders is necessary to keep them informed of the activities of the organization.

In 2015 , as part of our strategic communications drive, the department obtained the approval of the Current EVC/CEO, Professor Umar Garba Danbatta, to set up the Online media unit in the Public Affairs Department, and continue to utilize the social media handles on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram to disseminate information on the Commission’s activities.

The organization was one of the first public sector organizations to use social media platforms to engage our stakeholders.

The Director of Public Affairs had a Twitter handle that informed the public of the Commission’s activities, on real-time basis, engaging directly with Stakeholders and consumers of communication services. The Commission streamed many of its events live on social media platforms. 

The the world is a global village, and information is currency in the digital age. A former Chief of Staff at the U.S. House of Representatives, C. Lillie, on August 26, 2014, stated that “Information is the currency in the digital economy and as such has value.”

Mark Barrenechea, in his article “Why Information is the New Currency“, opined that, in a digital world, information is the new currency, and as information flows across networks and is exchanged, more metadata is collected, thereby growing in value.

Despite the existence of the Oath of Secrecy, Act, 1962, organizations can still find innovative ways to communicate with the public, without compromising very sensitive information. Corporate Communications must be strategic, intentional and purpose driven.

Social Media platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook have democratized information gathering, thus introducing some measures of disruption in information management processes.

Public sector organizations should embrace both the mainstream and the new media in communicating with the various publics. Information is a digital asset; organizations that ignore its impact on information management do so at their peril. 

Tony Ojobo, former Director of Public Affairs, Nigerian Communications Commission, writes from Abuja.