PR Newswire, the leading global provider of news distribution and earned media software and services, released the 2020 Asia-Pacific Corporate Communications Report today.
The report, which surveyed 948 public relations and communications professionals, aims to be a barometer of the region’s communications landscape, covering trends and challenges that span distribution strategies, corporate news content and media budgets. The findings contain preferences on communications channels, allocation of media budgets, and content production to provide valuable insights for communications planning in Asia- Pacific (APAC).
With a multiplicity of languages, cultures, and media consumption behaviour, APAC has a spectrum of industry practices and preferences. The report examines a cross-section of views across 10 major markets – Australia, mainland China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. Industry professionals from seven PR Newswire’s partners also provided their inputs.
“We understand the challenges that businesses face when tailoring campaigns in a diverse media environment, and hope the insights contained in this report will help our clients better share their stories across different markets, cultures, and languages,” said Royce Shih, Asia-Pacific Vice President, Sales and Marketing of PR Newswire.
Key findings show that nearly 6 out of 10 businesses in APAC prioritise enhancing brand influence over sales growth and conversion in their campaigns. To optimise brand awareness, 70% of businesses prioritise news websites as the most important communications channel. It surpasses other platforms such as corporate websites, print media, and social media.
Here are the other key takeaways from the report:
- The top three communications challenges are content production (55%), measuring the impact of communications (54%) and budget constraints (51%).
- Maintaining trust and audience engagement shows the greatest variation across the region. 69% of businesses in Vietnam cite this as a challenge, while 28% of businesses in South Korea find it difficult.
- This year, 37% of businesses plan to increase their earned media budget, with larger businesses with over 1,000 staff showing a greater willingness to do so compared to their smaller counterparts.
- The preferred distribution channels for corporate news are: news websites (70%), social media (60%), official corporate websites (58%) and print media (56%).
- The most common topics in corporate press releases are: events (63%), new products/services (61%), industry perspectives (39%) and award announcements (38%).
Providing a holistic approach to communications, the report also features journalists’ preferences of press release content from previous editions of PR Newswire’s APAC Media Surveys, alongside with what communications professionals prioritise. By aligning corporate news with the needs of journalists who prefer newsworthy events and interesting story angles, businesses can strengthen their relationships with the media and maximise the effectiveness of their communications campaigns.
To download the full 2020 Asia-Pacific Corporate Communications Report, please click here.
