Industry titans PRSA and Bacon's recently performed a survey of over 15,000 PR professionals (including members and nonmembers of PRSA) entitled "2006 State of the PR Profession" to access their opinions about issues and challenges the industry is facing. The results clearly point toward increased focus on ethics and integrity, and respondents also feel that PR is gaining more influence in establishing their companies' reputations.

"Ethical issues, individual privacy, and organizational integrity" were rated as issues most important to the PR industry, while trends such as the "proliferation of new communications channels, text messaging, and MySpace" were rated highest in importance of the six trends examined.

When asked to choose from among four different issues, respondents felt the greatest single challenge faced by the PR profession is "upholding credibility within an environment where the lines between PR, advertising and journalism are growing increasingly vague."

When asked if top management believes that PR contributes to moving the organization forward in terms of "reputation, market share and financial success/sales," the strongest response indicated that most felt that their top management or CEO believes that PR contributes to moving their organization's reputation forward.

Respondents were also asked to rate the usefulness of ten different sources for acquiring information about PR, or PR services companies. Of these ten, the "Internet" and "Web sites" were perceived as most useful. When asked about the importance of certain attributes when choosing a PR services firm, "quality of products/services" was seen as the most important attribute followed closely by "customer service"and "corporate reputation."

PRSA and Delahaye, a division of Bacon's Information Inc., jointly developed the custom research instrument. The questionnaire consisted primarily of closed-ended questions with an opportunity to explain some "Other" responses.