I read it in Metro, so it must be true, it seems the latest casualty of the credit crunch is the mistress.

Apparently the City mistress, the ultimate affluent proof point, is one of the first luxuries to be jettisoned when tightening the personal budget belt.

In lean years, it can sometimes feel like PR is viewed in the same way. In times of corporate stress a common reaction is to view PR activity as a nice to have, rather than a necessary tool for corporate survival.

Obviously, I’m going to argue in favour of the latter. A good agency should align every activity to growing the client’s business and offer genuine, quantifiable commercial value that enhances reputation, secures market position and ultimately drives leads. PR has historically always been better placed than advertising in economic downturns, add to this the trend toward digital outreach – a new factor in the equation – and it’ll be fascinating to see which marketing disciplines do best at retaining their share of client budgets.

Curiously, despite the gloom in the business press, we are seeing a surge in new business calls as tech companies wonder if their incumbent agency has become complacent, or whether it can an offer the strategic council and additional services necessary to help them prosper through a downturn in the cycle. 

Assuming ours is not an isolated experience, we can expect to see a fair amount of revolving doors in our industry for the foreseeable future, which, while nobody ever likes to re-pitch, is healthy for the PR business, forcing the agencies to re-evaluate their performance and service offerings, and their genuine hunger for the business.

As for those City mistresses, I’d guess they are a wiley breed and quite resilient enough to ride out any economic blip. Meanwhile, perhaps one or two might want to consider giving  master classes in the provision of value added services, loyalty programmes and performance-related pricing structures.