Faces and Markets of PRGN is a new series of blog posts in 2024 that puts PRGN member agencies and their markets in the spotlight.
Each week, expect to read about a market from an economic, business and communications point of view, brought to you by the very people living and working on the ground in that country, state or region.
The blog pieces illustrate the vast amount of in-depth knowledge of business, media, communications and marketing PRGN brings together having presence in more than 40 countries and 70 cities on six continents through its member agencies globally.
In this week’s blog post, Robert Bauer, Managing Partner of accelent communications in Vienna, describes the business and communications environment in Austria and offers advice to businesses navigating his home market.
Business environment in Austria
Living here is easy, but the business environment is quite restrictive. Compared to other countries, Austria has a high level of regulations and barriers for setting up a new business or expanding into new fields. As the capital city and the only true metropolitan area, Vienna holds a dominating position, and there are more truly local players than international enterprises – both facts together account for the importance of a strong and established network of local contacts with authorities, politics and other relevant players. Many decisions are made informally within trade organizations (similar to chambers of commerce) without a way to directly influence them. However, actual corruption is low. Authorities try more than ever to speed up business-friendly processes.
Vienna, Austria | By Robert Bauer
Communications, media and PR market in Austria
The local media market is highly concentrated. There are only 14 daily newspapers for almost 10 million citizens, most of these have a local focus in one of Austria’s nine provinces. A few local publishing houses account for most of the printed public interest media. Special interest media have a more varied basis. There is a very dominant public tv and radio conglomerate, besides which private broadcasters have only limited importance.
Key expertise of accelent communications
accelent communications has always been a major player in the field of classic corporate communications for clients from various industries, mainly in the b2b sector. For several years, healthcare communication (both b2b and b2c) has emerged as a new key competence for topics like pharmaceutical innovations, social security issues and general healthcare topics. Integrated campaigns, combining traditional media relationships with the full force of social media, are the main approach to a multitude of challenges. Besides this, crisis communications remains a relevant part of the agency’s expertise.
Top advice for companies seeking to navigate the communications environment in Austria
1. Do it with partners. Get an agency on board that is rooted in the local market and culture. Reach out to public institutions and interest groups in your industry sector to build trust and establish joint activities. Global companies that tried to rely solely on their own global strength (like Starbucks) have failed spectacularly here and established business successfully only after aligning with the local culture and partners.
2. Double your budget. Sooner or later, you will need to invest significantly in paid media presence. Merely relying on earned media won’t do the job – our media are very picky and demand local relevance and local news topics. As you will not have that on a daily basis, set aside budgets for paid presence.
3. Don’t forget: Austria isn’t just a smaller version of Germany. In the field of media and communications, it’s a totally different world, albeit technically, we share the same language. Never try to bring content that worked in Germany to Austria – it will not work, simply because people here want to be approached in local language and local culture.
Most influential media for consumer communication in Austria
ORF – public broadcasting station (radio, TV)
orf.at – online news portal of public broadcaster ORF (5.3 million unique users per month)
Kronenzeitung – federal tabloid newspaper (1.7 million readers daily)
Die Presse – main federal quality daily newspaper (258,000 readers)
derstandard.at – online portal of daily newspaper Der Standard (1 million unique users per month)
Most popular social media channels in Austria*
YouTube: 5.8 million users
Facebook: 5.35 million users
Instagram: 3.91 million users
X: 2.17 million users
LinkedIn: 1.35 million users
TikTok: 1.23 million users * Source: Statista
Most important international events in Austria in 2024
Donauinselfest Vienna – A public outdoor event in June, attracting approximately 2 million visitors over three days.
Vienna Christmas Market – A fairy tale Christmas market lasting for five weeks around Christmas.
Formula 1 Race in Spielberg/Styria – this year’s race is held in July 2024.
Salzburg Festival – A cultural high class event in Salzburg held every summer.
Bregenz Festival – An opera festival on the Austrian part of lake of Constance.
Austria by the Numbers*
Population
9.1 million
Languages spoken (official)
German; official minority languages Croatian and Hungarian
Religions (% of population)
Catholic (55.2%), non-religious (22.4%), Muslim (8.3%), Protestant (3.8%), other (10.3%)
GDP per capita
$72,900 (2022)
(Real) GDP growth rate
-0.7% (2023)
Inflation rate
6.78% (2023)
Unemployment rate
7.6% (February 2024)
Key sectors and industries (% of GDP)
Agriculture (1.2%), industry (28.7%), services (70.1%) – (2022)
Having graduated from the University of Vienna with a degree in communications and musicology, Robert Bauer has been in PR since 1995. Steps in his career include positions in marketing and at some of Austria’s publishing houses. In 2002, he joined Menedetter PR, then one of Austria’s most renowned PR agencies. In 2011 he co-founded accelent communications (formerly asoluto public relations) with two business partners. accelent communications now ranks among the top 10 PR agencies in Austria. Robert served as PRGN President in 2020-2021.
