With the new year comes the promise, of fresh starts, new beginnings and a successful start.  We all wake up on 1^st January expecting great things full of hope that this year is going to be the best year ever, but is this really realistic, or do we need to, to use that famous PR phrase ‘manage expectations’ that the new year is just that?  A new year that will bring the same challenges, triumphs, tears and laughter that the last one did.  Well considering the less than auspicious start that 2016 has enjoyed both globally and closer to home, I feel it might be time to PR new year in a more realistic light.

2016 has already brought a host of global, national and work challenges, that has proved at times testing.  Agency life is such the yearly ebb and flow of clients is always at its worst in January, and provides a challenge every year, of adapting to this change and your work schedule accordingly and with the whispers of a Chinese led recession PRs and marketers must prepare themselves for budget cuts, a word that every industry dreads.

Globally 2016 was always going to be potentially challenging, with the threat of ISIS and the very real threat of terrorism at our doors, however the devastating loss this week of two Great British Icons this week, David Bowie and Alan Rickman to cancer, is a particularly cruel start to a new year.  Depressed yet? Don’t worry it gets better…

As a PR, however I am determined not to view this not so cheery start to 2016 negatively and claim that ‘2016 is the worst year ever’ as some people have been on social media.  On the work side PR and marketers, should look on the new year challenges as a positive, yes it is sad to say goodbye to clients we have lived and breathed, but it is also exciting, the promise of new clients that bring new challenges and improve and diversify our skills.

As for the global threats and sad losses, not even Alastair Campbell could put a positive spin on a Chinese led recession or ISIS, and while it in no way takes away the grief the nation is experiencing for two British Greats, the press and social media tributes are heart-warming to read, such a coming together of the nation to mourn and celebrate these two men is when the media comes into its own, and I for one am grateful to read more about the life and works of such amazing and inspiring talent, to coin that all phrase ‘where there is darkness there is light’.

So I propose a new ‘PR Campaign’ for 2016, yes as with every year you have to take the rough with the smooth, the highs with the lows, and expect that while at times things might be bad, there is also going to be a lot of good.  So manage your expectations and enjoy what 2016 has to offer!