As Americans increasingly lose trust in big business, CEOs and other members of the C-Suite are turning to PR as a proven method of rebuilding relationships with key consumer demographics and building a strong personal brand.
Today’s consumers pose challenges for CEO brand strategy
Bloomberg reports that Americans’ confidence in large corporations has decreased from 30 percent in 1999 to only 16 percent in 2024. At the same time, American consumers are becoming increasingly skeptical of advertising.
Research shows that 52 percent of Americans don’t trust ads and 53 percent think they’re a waste of time. These patterns are particularly pronounced in the younger generations.
Given this environment, it may come as no surprise that business leaders are turning to PR, the communications strategy that focuses on building and repairing positive reputations for corporate brands and their spokespeople.
Related: How Gen Z is Impacting Business and Marketing Decisions
How PR builds a strong CEO brand
With ads, companies can trumpet their own greatness directly to consumers, but consumers don’t necessarily believe those messages. Indeed, a classic meta-analysis shows that PR is three times more effective at boosting a new business’s credibility than advertising.
PR can reach people that ads don’t because it’s an indirect form of communication that quietly inserts a business’s CEO or other spokespeople into media coverage. PR experts attract this free media coverage by pitching a possible interview or guest article with the company’s representatives to reporters and editors. These pitches explain how the brand ambassador has something valuable to teach the outlet’s audience about matters they care about. In other words, they describe the value of the executives’ thought leadership.
Interested reporters respond, interviews are set up, and in a few days or weeks — although sometimes it can take longer — a story that includes some of the brand ambassador’s comments goes live.
With PR, the target audience doesn’t encounter the business in the context of an ad and ignore it immediately. Rather, they stumble across the business’s representatives in their capacity as authoritative thought leaders and industry experts while reading or listening to a news article. The CEO’s brand almost sneaks into their awareness like a stealth plane flying under radar.
Moreover, since these spokespeople are not engaged in self-promotion, but rather share insights on trending subjects of genuine interest to the audience, people come to associate those executives and their companies with ethics, goodwill, values and vision. These positive qualities not only foster customer loyalty but also create engagement with potential future customers.
This strategic communication also shows the company’s CEO or other spokespeople in an attractive light, increasing their visibility and creating a strong brand. Executives can display their leadership style and communicate messages directly to key demographics. In some cases, they may even be able to explain how their business’s unique value proposition aligns with the topic under discussion.
But that’s not all. Shareholders, business partners and other stakeholders also tend to be impressed when they see a business’s C-Suite confidently conducting themselves, demonstrating discretion, and providing solid, reliable authority. Strong leadership of this kind enhances your company’s brand as well as public perception, trust and loyalty. For this reason, doing PR dovetails with effective investor relations and can open doors, leading to further business opportunities.
Related: Investors Pay Attention to Founders Before Looking at Company
Brand-building for CEOs
The first step is identifying two or three subjects the CEO can speak on with authority and experience. The more of these, the better. For instance, the CEO of a financial services company should be able to speak with expertise not only on financial matters, but also about their leadership philosophy, best practices for aspiring CEOs, tactics for engaging stakeholders and more.
The second step is to write down their personal story. Why is this company’s mission important to them in particular?
Third, find about five journalists who have written features about executives in your industry and start cultivating relationships with them on social media.
Fourth, pitch those reporters with possible angles for articles grounded in the CEO’s areas of expertise and backstory. These ideas should not promote your company, but instead offer value to readers.
Fifth, make the most of every mention in the media. Link the articles on the company’s website, LinkedIn, and social media.
While it is possible to do this work internally, the PR industry is changing to make hiring a PR agency more practical than previously.
New PR business models help all CEOs build their personal brand
Traditionally, only major corporations have had the budgets that permitted them to pursue a robust PR strategy and garner media attention. Most legacy PR firms are still positioned to serve that kind of client, expecting them to pay expensive retainer fees up front and possibly even requiring them to sign contracts without sunset clauses. These barriers to entry prevented many smaller businesses and startups from accessing high-level PR services and building a successful CEO brand.
Over the past few years, however, scrappy new PR firms have sought to level the playing field, offering limited-term contracts without special onboarding fees. This democratization of PR means that companies of all sizes can now enjoy its benefits. Even new entrepreneurs can afford a leadership media strategy that amplifies their executive presence.
Indeed, since research shows that the beginning of a new venture or product is an especially fruitful time to do PR, emerging businesses and new entrepreneurs can arguably no longer afford not to do it.
Related: Why Startups Should Invest in Public Relations Right Now
Executives can humanize themselves and engage consumers better
PR excels at creating, building and maintaining positive reputations for brands and their leadership. At a time when consumers want authenticity and distrust ads, doing PR opens up an effective way to engage them. Forging a close connection with people is more important now than ever, and that’s exactly the kind of relationship that PR fosters.
