Are PR Agents the real heroes of the fashion industry?

Showroom 22 Founder & Director Murray Bevan writes his perfect Headline and examines the future of New Zealand’s fashion & beauty PR industry.

Does the PR agency maketh the brand, or does the brand maketh the agency? This is a question that was posed to me many years ago by Jack Yan of Lucire as he composed one of the only profiles ever written about me. In a profession that should really be invisible, why was it that he wanted to profile me: a 20-something-year-old guy who was representing some of the least known fashion labels in New Zealand? It’s a question that has also stuck with me as I have evolved my agency for the last 23 years, and for me the answer is the latter. I am nothing without my clients, and I’m nothing without my contacts. So in an era where everyone wants to be famous, and every brand and designer appoints a PR agent almost before they’ve even registered their company name, have PR agents become part of a brand’s secret sauce?

On the note of fame, we’ve done a fair amount of promotion on KOLs in recent years, so we decided that maybe it was time to turn the spotlight on those who make other people famous – The humble PR agent (I can hear the laughter now). But seriously, in the climate we’re in right now, the industry needs cheerleaders, and if it ain’t us, then who else?

As someone who has been in the fashion PR industry for the best part of a quarter century, I’m feeling incredibly optimistic about the state of our profession as we look down the barrel of 2025. But we have some immense challenges ahead.

The elephant in the room that few PR agents want to openly discuss is the drastic decline of editorial opportunities that are presenting themselves in local media. Who wants to tell a client that they can’t hit last year’s KPIs? Along with the attrition of fashion design businesses over the last 18 months, there has also been a steady decline in the staff and resources of those media that remain. The knock-on effects of this are fewer valuable moments for editorial to be created and published, adding to a decline in the amount of inspirational images and stories that can be shared with customers and fashion devotees.

So what do we do about it? It’s no secret to any good PR agent that in the last 12 months, the big brands that have survived the last 5 tumultuous years are yearning for the story to be told again. Brands who ‘pivoted’ to an all-digital strategy after Covid have finally realised, once again, that they need to engage with people. This means more storytelling, more events, more ‘brand’ activations and, overall, more ‘layers’ of visibility through multiple channels. PR agents have to jump on this trend with everything they’ve got.

We all know that any successful strategy must be multi-layered, and of course traditional media play a huge role in this.

But it surprised me and shocked me a bit that, two years ago, when I was speaking to a small number of fashion Masters students at a local college, that they had almost no connection with local media. I mentioned to the group (12 students) the names of several different NZ media. Few students had even heard of these titles, let alone read them, LET ALONE bought them. All these students were interested in were international news feeds that are crammed with the news that the algorithm feeds them, full of a fashion student’s most predictable brands: Raf, Margiela, Rick Owens. Yawn.

Have local brands forgotten how to market to young audiences? Are we too focused on the ‘silver generation’ and not on their kids and grandkids who will eventually be their VIPs? And what role does modern media play in connecting those brands to local customers?

And worse still, do brands and PR agents think that all Gen Z do is walk around gawking at their screens? Surely there’s more to them than that.

These are the conundrums that fill my head at night. I am obsessed.

In my agency, the one thing I’m afraid of is that we will fall into the trap of being reactive. We’ll wait for the media to come to us with an idea or a theme, and we’ll just fill their dropbox with more and more flay lays and campaign shots. This is not PR. What I want, and what we all need, is for brands, media and the agencies that connect them to motivate themselves to do better, to be more creative, to create ideas that fill a void and tell a story. We’re all way too smart to just believe that the status quo is all there is.

What this also means is that we need KOLs, writers, editors, and those who aspire to be our future leaders, to speak up. I have loved seeing small agencies pop up recently that look after a niche and have a point of view. We need more of this. There’s more than enough work to go around to fill the account loads of the big existing agencies, so just like the shifting of the tectonic plates of NZ fashion designers, we need new voices in media and PR to speak up.

And while I’m on the subject of motivation, we also need our biggest and most experienced editors to stop moaning about how hard it is. It’s hard for everyone! This is the industry you fell in love with, and your job is the one you dreamed of having 20 years ago. More optimism, please.

When I started my business in 2002 at the age of 22, many people said it wouldn’t work. All of the incumbent fashion media and marketers were dubious about the brands I represented and if a showroom would even be useful. Fast forward 23 years and it’s all worked out OK. So my message to the newbies and the sideliners is to take the plunge, take a risk, do the thing. It’s rewarding and exciting and enjoyable. We need you now more than ever.

Read more about our 2025 PR Power List here – thank you to my friends and colleagues who contributed to this list.