If you don’t have a Scottish PR person, does that mean you don’t care about the brands?

As has been reported here and here, InBev PR supremo Rob Bruce has moved on from the drinks giant and while the reasons for it are being kept confidential, the fact that there isn’t someone in place right away suggests that it wasn’t a planned move and for a large brand like that – especially as T in the Park is just around the corner and there’s a lot of pressure on the booze industry – that’s dangerous and for a company the size of Tennents it seems incredible that their PR team was just one man.

Now no doubt the agency who work with Tennents, the incredibly talented Burt Greener, will keep the ship on an even keel, but an agency still needs guidance from in-house. 

And it does raise an interesting question: do multinationals like InBev need a PR team in countries like Scotland or can they rule from elsewhere and leave the local work to agencies?

There are those who may think that for InBev it would be a PR disaster if they didn’t appoint a Scottish person as you’d have concerns that the Scottish brand didn’t matter and that it was being ruled from a foreign country at a time when everyone else in Scotland is talking about more independence or increased devolution, but there is also the point of view that as long as you have a good agency, then all is well.

I suspect the truth lies somewhere in the middle – that you can have smaller staff press/marketing teams as long as you have one or two staff in-house backed by an excellent agency (I can think of at least one off the top of my head.)

As for Rob, there’s not a lot of senior posts at his level in the country, but someone with more than a decade of experience of large-scale sporting and public events, political astuteness, crisis skills and a fantastic reputation amongst journalists like him should be able to find something soon.

If only there was an international event needing a head of PR…