Alina Galeriu-Olteanu (Galeriu & Partners Public Relations): “'Video is king' is a trend that is here to stay”

2023 was a very dynamic and full year, until its end. But what should we desire from this year’s reality? BR sat down with Alina Galeriu-Olteanu, general partner Galeriu & Partners Public Relations, in another series of interviews and talked about the Romanian PR industry, its evolution and what to be expected from 2024, at the same time not forgetting to touch the trends and agency’s side as well.

By Romanita Oprea

How would you characterize the evolution of the Romanian PR industry?

The Romanian PR industry has always been a vibrant field, with a lot of enthusiastic new players emerging and a constructive sense of competition driving everyone to always outperform the most recent campaign.

How would you characterize the industry right now (creativity, budgets, strategy, etc)?

Creativity levels have always been high in our industry, and they are maintaining the course, forced by low budgets compared to other communication fields. Scarcity does enhance creativity indeed, but at the same time it’s also a seed for frustration and burnout for the human resource, so that is the other side of it.

What would you change in the industry and why?

I would like to have a magic wand to make our industry worthy of more respect and consideration from all the other parties involved in the brand building process. I would like to influence the overall perception about our industry and shift it from a “nice-to-have set of activities” to a “must-have strategic asset”.

What are the main challenges right now in your opinion, in the industry?

The overall socio-economic uncertainty also affects our industry for sure and it is probably the most vicious of the possible setbacks. The fiscal changes have frozen for a while the budgets as everyone stood still to find ways to implement the changes and align to all the requirements. Depending on the industry, some clients have been more affected, for example those that should align with the SGR system for recycling bottles. The adjustment to change is always time-consuming and the sudden changes are the ones that de-stabilize the most our industry.

What still inspires you and gives you drive and joy in PR and why?

I still love every minute of it. I could not imagine myself doing anything else. It is not an easy job, but it surely is rewarding. I love to create eloquent brand strategies; I love to imagine the future path of the brands I take care of, and I love to make it happen and watch it evolving sometimes with bigger amplitude than it was initially designed.

What trends did you notice on the local market/and how do you intend to represent them in your agency?

“Video is king” is a trend that is here to stay. That is the reason why we developed a dedicated photo-video division in our agency – 35 Creatives. Crafting state of the art, impeccable visual content for a clients has become increasingly valuable for our services portfolio and I believe this is a trend that will influence the industry even more in the coming years.

What are the agency’s main services required by the clients and why?

Influencer marketing strategies are more and more in focus for most of the clients. Also, event management is back on track after pandemic years. Content creation for social media channels is also on the wave, and we include here also the photo-video content.

How was 2023 in terms of creativity and projects, turnover, etc?

2023 was a good year for us, especially in terms of new business opportunities. By gaining new clients we managed to increase the total revenue by approximately 20%. But compared to the actual workload, the budgets did not necessarily match the level of work all the time. Efficiency was the main goal, and most of the briefs focused on delivering results in a cost-effective manner.

What was so far the impact of AI?

So far there is no true threat in terms of AI replacing the value of public relations. However, the ever-refining process of the tools based on AI could become integrated in our work in the future. For text creation the AI tools still cannot fully grasp the nuanced written communication that a strategic human-touch approach could bring. Maybe as a research technique AI content aggregation could be useful at this point. Video AI effects are also still on the rise and have some time up to the point where they can be truly integrated in the visual storytelling for brands, but there is potential for AI tools to become allies for our work, used strategically and responsibly.

What about the pitches you entered?

Some were successful, some were not. But a client gain worth more than any pitch won was the return of a client we worked for about 5 years ago and the desire to work together again. It meant the world to us!

What are your goals for the agency in 2024?

Our main goal this year is to strengthen our assets, to solidify our clients’ portfolio and to strengthen our team bonds. Also, in 2024 we celebrate an important milestone: 10 years anniversary for our agency so we aim at some time for introspection and lessons-learning overview of the past decade.

What are the changes you intend to bring in the agency in 2024 and why?

We will focus more on long-term projects that allow us to communicate coherently and build strong and carefully planned brand image campaigns. And if at times we will need to select the projects we get involved in, because of the available resources at the time, for sure the project-based collaborations will be declined in the favor of long-term clients that trust us to build long-term campaigns.

Also, an important focus will be the photo-video division that we want to grow and expand so we can enhance our efforts in terms of generating high-quality visual content for our clients.

Where do you see the Romanian PR industry compared to the European one?

I believe the level of creativity in the Romanian PR industry is similar or maybe even higher than the European market, but unfortunately the budgets have yet to be aligned so we match the European trends.

DMCA

PROTECTED