2009 could be the year in which PR's value is finally recognised.  It certainly should be.

For years, I have been to see companies that have an attractive product, but little budget.  The reason has typically been that they have frittered their marketing spend away on very expensive advertising.  Not only have they no money left, they haven't any tangible results either.  

Don't get me wrong.  Advertising works as a brand building exercise and for very easy-to-communicate messages.  BOGOFs are a great example.  A business consultant once sent me to a men's outfitters that had excess stock to shift.  My honest answer to them was to take out a few display ads.

But for many products, this isn't the case.  Messages can be so complicated that they are impossible to explain in the few words that a few column inches in a newspaper might buy.  Then you have to choose which messages to include and which to leave out, because you haven't got space.  You're probably spending around £500 or more for a decent-sized ad, but you're probably not satisfied, because that message - the one you can't fit in - is the one that's keeping you awake all night.  Put it in and omit something else and you're no better off.  You need that message to go out too.

Anyone who knows what PR is all about would tell you instantly that public relations can not only save you money, but communicate what you are all about much better.  By working with you, to produce the editorial that you would like to see written about you, or on screen, if you were in control of the paper or TV station, PR can help you achieve the type of exposure you have longed for.

The words and story that are produced with your approval can then be issued to far more media publications and stations than your budget could ever afford - even to national titles in which a presence would be beyond your wildest dreams.

OK, so there's a risk that it won't get picked up, but if it's targeted correctly, with a good message and story behind it and from a PR expert that knows what makes certain journalists tick, the chances are that it will appear in quite a few places.

How much of your story appears in print, or how it is edited, is something that you can't control, but look on the bright side.  When it does appear, it doesn't look like an advert.  People actually bother to read it.  They believe it and they usually respond to it.  To them, it appears as though the newspaper or media station has written about it.  In other words, it looks as though a third party has endorsed it and, by including it in their publication or programme, it could be said that they have.

Public relations, or PR as it's abbreviated, works wonderfully for tourism businesses and destinations, for financial services products (as long as they aren't rip offs) and in sectors such as fashion, the environment, food and motoring or motorcycling.  Not surprisingly, Catapult PR has worked with many clients in these sectors.

Why isn't everyone using PR? The reason is largely that nobody knows what it is.  It is the marketing component nobody tells you about at school.  It's hard to explain, because it's about opinion forming, awareness raising, educating and converting negative attitudes into positive support.  It's about image and brand.  It's about every facet of your product as it relates to your target audiences, whoever they may be.

Last year, I spoke to someone who I thought was interested in arranging a meeting to discuss how PR could help his tourism attraction. His response was: "We don't need that sort of thing."  I instantly knew that he didn't know what "that sort of thing" was.

On a daily basis, I issue information about my travel clients to journalists, who are desperate for PR material that will suit certain themes and slots.  They aren't scouring newspapers, looking for adverts that might put them on the scent.  What they are doing is forging relationships with the marketing intermediaries - PR people - who can give them the right material, to the right deadline.

As a PR person, I can't say that I don't shudder when I see some of the press materials issued to journalists. I also yawn like the next man at the dull as ditchwater content and approach that many PR people adopt.  I get hugely frustrated when ex-journalists turned PR people turn up their noses and say that creativity is waste of time and that the media won't be turned on by it.  Eighteen PR awards on my cabinet tell me different.

The hope is that PR comes of age amidst the economic crisis of 2009 and that people examine their marketing budgets, find out how PR can save money and deliver better results , and stop treating PR as the poor marketing relation.

No doubt it will already be too late to save those who have already committed their budget to a year's glossy lifestyle magazine advertising that will do nothing to help them, but I'm still hanging on to the rubber ring in the hope that some will stop heading down the drowning route and recognise that PR can provide the best value marketing support available, not just in 2009, but every year.