“This year is good for public-relations business, given the big fillip provided by the AEC,” said Hasan Basar, managing director of Bangkok Public Relations – one of the country’s foremost PR consultancies.

“In recent years, Thai companies have been taking away PR talent for their in-house teams because of the change in visionary leadership at those companies. The CEOs or even PR teams have to see that in-house and PR consultancy offer slightly different experiences. More importantly, two is always better than one,” he explained.

Over the last three to five years, Thai firms have either been branching out to neighbouring countries or building a business empire at home that is attractive for overseas customers, in order to capitalise on the integration of the 10 Asean markets, he said.

This is in line with the global trend, in which international firms are shifting more focus to building and strengthening their own in-house marketing communication and public-relations arm as a complement to PR experts outside the company.

Basar added that this development also could be seen in legal consultancy. Despite having a strong in-house legal team, global companies still need to work with outside legal consultancy to make sure that the outcome is the most satisfactory for the organisation.

“This has provided a considerably good opportunity for my company to work with talented clients,” he said, citing his client Siam Piwat as an example.

The Kingdom’s major luxury retail operator and real-estate developer has its own strong in-house PR team with visionary leaders, he said.

“Working with them can help my team gain more insights about their business direction. So, we are able to get on the right track in suggesting to them the best, compelling communication strategy aimed at the right target, impact-fully,” the PR expert said.

Another important issue to be addressed in terms of the PR trend is that, in the current hyper-communication age, a company needs to have a key ambassador or spokesperson, like a well-reputed CEO, to create and amplify the impact of its message, he explained.

Despite the economic slowdown, Bangkok Public Relations believes that PR activities remain important both for local and international brands, he stressed.