When should communications bosses outsource PR to agencies?

The relationship between a client and its agency isn’t always necessarily smooth – but why do some brands out-source some of the PR function when it has an in-house comms team? Mumbrella’s Miranda Ward spoke to in-house communications professionals to find out what an agency partner offers a brand. 

Agencies of every description like to tell their client partners that they want to understand their business as well as they do, that they consider themselves to be an extension of their business. Essentially, in-house teams and their agency partners are attempting to play happy families – but how does that relationship play out in reality?

“Ideally you wouldn’t out-source anything but you kind of have to,” Emma Rugge-Price, GE Australia and New Zealand VP communications, told Mumbrella.

Rugge-Price: ‘Managing agencies is a whole other job skill’