(Excerpted from Dear VOCAL MIDDLE: The 2025 Mid-Year Report )
“Dear VOCAL MIDDLE:” is VOCAL MIDDLE's biannual flagship insight report, published mid-year and year-end each year. Every edition revolves around one central theme: the future.
This time, we chose the theme “PR Next: The Future of Public Relations”, focusing on two key points:
The year 2025 marks a pivotal moment where the aftermath of the pandemic intersects with the widespread adoption of generative AI. Amid the profound shifts in the global communications ecosystem, we invited industry experts to collectively explore the implications of this transformation for the future.
Every job, role, and task within the communications field ultimately aims to create impact. If we say that the essence of creating impact is trust, then PR consultants represent the most fundamental, core function, role, and industry in the process of building trust.
This report not only reflects the views of VOCAL MIDDLE but also brings together partners from across the Asia-Pacific region, leaders from public associations, and communication education pioneers. Together, we ponder: as change and restructuring become the norm, how will the role of the PR consultant evolve from being “one among many” within the industry to becoming the central link connecting markets, businesses, organizations, and the public?
Expert Commentary： Joseph TANG, Founder of VOCAL MIDDLE
In the wake of the pandemic, we once said: "The deepest human needs have fundamentally changed."
Three years on, the rise of Generative AI has not reversed this shift — instead, it has accelerated a profound reshaping of how we work, and more importantly, how we understand people and value.
For our generation of PR consultants, this is not just a challenge — it's a test of relevance, and a chance to prove our enduring value.
In the past, PR consultants were often seen merely as executors who “facilitated communication.”But today, the production and dissemination of information is no longer scarce. What's truly scarce is this:
Who can interpret the trends behind the noise?
Who can make choices and design strategies among competing stakeholder interests?
This is precisely the foundation of VOCAL MIDDLE's I.M.P.U.L.S.E. strategy-first methodology:
In a world of overflow, it's decision-making that drives impact.
In the process of transformation, PR consultants are evolving into strategic architects and transformation enablers. No longer simply responding to corporate needs, they are now engaging earlier and deeper in strategic decision-making—playing a critical role in shaping everything from business models and brand values to talent strategies.
Positive Impact:
Consultants are now involved earlier and more deeply in corporate decision-making processes.
AI Copilot tools enhance content production efficiency, accelerating innovation and value creation.
The role of the consultant is evolving into that of a system architect and strategic designer.
Key Challenges:
Traditional PR models that rely heavily on media contacts and personal networks are becoming marginalized.
Consultants lacking systemic thinking and deep insight capabilities will struggle to adapt to the new landscape.
Without demonstrating "human touch" and strategic depth, PR consultants risk being replaced.
Over the past three years, VOCAL MIDDLE has launched a comprehensive “Consultant Elevation Initiative,” transforming the consultant's role from a PR executor to a Trust Architecture Strategist. By building proprietary AI knowledge modules and integrating generative AI applications (Prompt Engineering), we are redefining the value and positioning of the modern consultant.
The next chapter for the public relations industry is no longer just about PR itself.
At VOCAL MIDDLE, we've never seen ourselves as merely a PR agency. Instead, we've long defined our role as architects of a new era—a position that demands both foresight and responsibility.
During Episode IV (2023–2025), we completed several key milestones as part of our Consultant Elevation Initiative, which redefined both our core capabilities and our place within the industry:
Strategic Elevation: Evolving from PR execution to becoming architects of trust-based systems
Tool Elevation: Developing proprietary AI knowledge modules and embedding generative applications through Prompt Engineering
Value Elevation: Moving from reactive roles to strategic enablers and system orchestrators
These weren't surface-level changes. They restructured how we operate and deliver value:
PR becomes a service: We launched PRaaS—a one-stop consulting solution tailored for the AI era
Consultants become platforms: Shifting our value proposition to focus on reputation assets as strategic capital
Services become products: In collaboration with AisEdge, we co-developed the AIGC product line ADGo
Markets become ecosystems: Evolving from five core sectors into eight interconnected industry clusters
We're not simply executing strategies or delivering comms plans. We're helping clients make better choices. We shape market conversations. We define new standards.
VOCAL MIDDLE firmly believes: "Talent is the only true asset of a PR firm."
Starting from organizational design, we've elevated our service positioning and expanded market influence, following a core operational framework of Define Three, Break Four, Establish Five — to build a next-generation PR platform rooted in strategic leadership, communication as the core, and platform-driven integration.
Define Three Principles:
Foster mutual benefit, mutual respect, and mutual trust among internal and external partners, and build a Performance-Based Organization. Through initiatives like the Shine Your VOCAL recruitment program and Become the VOCAL talent development plan, we continue to invest in the industry's “next generation of voices.”
Break Four Traditions:
Reposition core capabilities around market insight, rather than client or media relationships.
Replace a product/service mindset with a platform mindset.
Move from traditional elite-led teams to process- and system-driven exponential teams.
Shift from asymmetric information-based competition to a decentralized, programmable, collaborative, and transparent communication ecosystem.
Establish Five Innovations:
Develop new vision, new models, new media, new standards, and a new ecosystem, fully integrating consulting acumen with data science as twin engines of a modern operational model.
VOCAL MIDDLE has always believed that the true value of a PR consultant lies not just in solving a client's problem, but in helping them face the right problems.
What we offer is not just transmission, but definition — not just voicing, but agenda-setting.
VOCAL MIDDLE is advancing three core transformations to lay the foundation for the next decade:
PRaaS (PR as a Solution) — a one-stop public relations consultancy solution platform, positioning PR as a core tool for solving business challenges.
Asia-Pacific Impact Exchange — a cross-regional platform integrating expert resources and agenda-setting capabilities across Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mainland China, and Japan.
Standardizing Trust Building — redefining content exposure and value creation through a Consultant-as-Media model.
At its core, the value of public relations lies in generating enduring impact — and VOCAL MIDDLE relentlessly drives that impact through creativity and transformation, shaping new narratives and perspectives for the market.
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