PR in Kazakhstan: How It Differs from the West and What Business Can Expect – Interview with Assel Karaulova

Western PR standards gave the Kazakh market a great deal, but they cannot simply be lifted and dropped into place. Assel Karaulova began her career in 1994 at Burson-Marsteller, on the mass privatisation programme in Kazakhstan. Today she takes companies to IPO.

She founded the Kazakhstan Press Club and the agency PG Communications, co-founded the PR Club «PR-shy» and the National Public Relations Association NASO RK, and was among the founders of the PR Forum. Over the years her view of the profession has shifted. Today she describes PR as a management function.

We asked Assel how PR in Kazakhstan differs from the Western model, what business wants from communications now, why paid-for articles damage journalism and PR alike, and how the market got started.

How does PR as a management function differ from media relations?

Media relations means press conferences, press releases, coverage and relationships with journalists. PR as a management function is broader. It covers reputation, trust and stakeholder relationships, the assessment of communication risks, the adoption of corporate governance best practice, and engagement with top management and the board.

Assel Karaulova says this understanding did not arrive overnight. It evolved along with the market and her own experience. In the 1990s PR was seen first and foremost as working with the media. Yet even her first project with Burson-Marsteller contained elements of strategic communications: a government mandate, several target audiences and the need to change public attitudes towards economic reform. Later, working with international companies, the team realised that PR does not exist apart from the business. A communications strategy has to be tied to the company's goals, its market position and its relationships with the state, partners, employees and society. As she puts it:

“You can stage a superb press conference and land dozens of articles, yet make no difference whatsoever to the real business problem. Conversely, a single well-built communication with an audience that matters to the company can sometimes be worth far more than a hundred articles.”

At what stage should a PR specialist join the decision-making?

What matters most is the stage at which the communications specialist is brought in. In Assel's words:

“If they are invited in after everything has been decided and asked to tell the story nicely, that is one role. If they take part in discussing the decision itself and help weigh the public reaction, the reputational consequences and the possible risks, that is an entirely different level.”

Hence her conclusion about the PR specialist's role:

“Ideally, a PR specialist should be an adviser to management rather than just an executor. And sometimes their professional duty is not to back a proposed initiative, but to explain why it is better not to implement it in that particular form.”

What does business ask of PR today, and what lies behind those requests?

What business asks of PR has grown more complex, but the most common wording has not changed. As Assel Karaulova notes, the same requests are heard today as twenty or thirty years ago: «We need more media coverage», «We need positive posts on social media», «We want to get on television», «We need to raise awareness», «We need to take that article down».

In the 1990s demand came from international companies. The first serious PR departments appeared in oil and gas companies, tobacco corporations and large foreign organisations, and that is where many of the market's future professionals started out. For local business, PR remained a vague concept for a long time.

What has changed in thirty years, and what has stayed the same?

Aspect	1990s and early 2000s	Today
What local business asks for	Getting the company written up in the papers or shown on TV	Reputational risk, relationships with government bodies, partners, investors and consumers
Speed of a crisis	A negative newspaper article was discussed for several days	A reputational crisis can unfold in minutes
Channels and tools	Newspapers, television, radio, press conferences	Digital platforms, social media, bloggers, influencers
Intermediaries	Companies spoke to their audiences through the media	Companies work with their audiences directly

With fake news everywhere, Karaulova observes, crisis has become the new normal, while polarisation and life inside information «bubbles» make audiences harder to reach. How we handle such situations is described on our crisis communications page. The consultant's job, Assel says, is to work out what lies behind the request: why the company needs awareness, what problem has to be solved and how that ties into business goals. Her conclusion:

“The main change over these thirty years is that PR now has far more tools, technologies and opportunities, and the calibre of in-house PR specialists has risen. But the essence of the profession is unchanged: helping organisations build relationships with society and earn trust. And trust, just as thirty years ago, cannot be secured with one good article or post. It has to be earned through real actions, consistency and a readiness for open dialogue.”

How do paid-for articles do harm, and how do you tell advertising from journalism?

Unlabelled paid-for articles, known locally as «dzhinsa», are passed off as independent journalism. The audience loses track of what is journalism, what is advertising and what is a paid information campaign. Assel Karaulova has argued for years that the practice damages journalism and PR alike.

The 1990s and early 2000s were different. Independent media were only just emerging, and many newsrooms published interesting material for free if they saw a story in it. Later, paid content became ubiquitous. One of the biggest buyers, she says, was the state, through its system of government information contracts, followed by commercial companies. Today paid-for content has migrated to social media, bloggers and Telegram channels.

As a result, newsrooms have less incentive to produce independent content, and PR specialists have less incentive to come up with substantive solutions. Why build a strategy when you can simply buy an article? Assel has nothing against commercial advertising as such:

“I am not at all opposed to commercial advertising or paid information projects. Media need to make money; that is a normal business. The issue is transparency. If a piece is paid for, the audience should know.”

For her this is a question of the profession's future: professional PR is impossible without strong independent journalism. The job of PR is not to secure a «polished» article but to build trust, including by answering awkward questions. And trust, in her words, «cannot be bought off a price list».

How do you earn coverage without paying for it?

The way the team learned to work at the Kazakhstan Press Club:

• Find a timely news hook that interests the newsroom;

• prepare the content and a competent spokesperson in two languages;

• convince the journalist that the topic matters;

• build long-term, win-win relationships with newsrooms.

When to pay for placement and when not to is covered in our article Sponsored projects vs earned media.

Can Western PR practices be transplanted to Kazakhstan?

Many of the principles taught in the 1990s still hold, but Western standards cannot be copied mechanically. The best example, Assel Karaulova says, is the relationship between companies and the media.

In the classic Western model, a company creates a solid news hook, prepares its spokespeople and counts on editorial interest, though nobody guarantees the story will run, let alone run favourably. Kazakhstan developed a different practice. Many newsrooms came to see corporate information primarily as a source of advertising revenue, so even a genuinely interesting story could prompt the question: «And what is your placement budget?» Foreign companies were taken aback, and the familiar media relations playbook did not always work. Other approaches had to be found.

What should a foreign company consider when launching PR in Kazakhstan?

Beyond long-term work with newsrooms, a foreign company launching PR in Kazakhstan should build the following into its plan:

• market analysis

• research into the needs of the media and other stakeholders;

• face-to-face meetings to explain your position and hear the other side;

• knowledge of local specifics: mentality, language use, cultural traditions and audience sentiment;

• readiness for the placement budget question.

The market runs largely on personal relationships and trust, so sending an official letter or press release and expecting the process to run itself is not enough. And as audiences grow more polarised and phenomena such as cancel culture spread, local specifics need even closer study.

“International standards are essential, but a good consultant must understand the local context.”

What questions to ask before launching communications, and what skills does a PR specialist need?

Choosing tools should start with questions, not content. Today's generation of specialists, Assel notes, has strong digital skills, but in the rush to produce content the understanding of why it is needed sometimes gets lost. Being good at SMM and AI does not in itself make someone a strategist. Strategic thinking starts with analysis and the right questions:

1. What problem do we see?

2. How does solving it relate to the organisation's business objectives?

3. Who are our audiences and stakeholders?

4. What do we want to tell them?

5. What are the short-term and long-term risks?

6. Why should people believe us?

7. What could go wrong?

8. How will we know we have achieved the result?

The second skill is a broad outlook: economics, politics, social processes, the psychology of human behaviour. In her view, it helps you see the bigger picture behind a specific task and understand how different audiences will read the company's actions. The third is a willingness to ask management uncomfortable questions. A good PR specialist does not nod along but proposes a reasoned solution, even when it differs from the CEO's vision.

How did PR begin in Kazakhstan, and what counted as public relations?

In the early 1990s PR barely existed as a distinct profession in Kazakhstan. There were press offices, journalism and the Soviet system of agitation, but no education, no standards and no services market. Assel first encountered the term PR in the summer of 1993, when, as an MBA student at KIMEP, she interned in the press office of the President of Kazakhstan. A well-thumbed copy of Public Relations, translated from English, was circulating among the staff, and Assel read it cover to cover. What appealed to her was that PR meant managing public opinion, not propaganda.

In 1994, after KIMEP, she interviewed for a public relations specialist position at Burson-Marsteller. The agency was working under a USAID programme, advising the Government of Kazakhstan on communications for mass privatisation. According to Assel Karaulova, that project effectively kick-started the PR market in the country. Today it would be called a large-scale national communications campaign. Back then, the team was meeting the concepts of target audiences, key messages and reputation for the first time.

The campaign's symbol was a blue winged tulpar bearing the word «Zhekeshelendіru» (privatisation), and the toolkit ran to millions of stickers, TV and radio spots, articles, press conferences and seminars for journalists. There was no internet. Press releases went out by fax or courier, and media monitoring was done by hand: articles were cut out of newspapers with scissors and TV reports recorded onto VHS tapes. Today monitoring is done with dedicated tools, and communication results are measured through monitoring and analytics.

“For us it was a real school. The American consultants were roughly our age, but they already had a completely different professional education and experience. They taught us not only press techniques but also planning, process organisation and audience understanding.”

Why pay for a press conference when a phone call will do?

A professional press conference is paid for as an organised communication process. The room and the journalist invitations are only part of it. That is how the Kazakhstan Press Club explained the value of the service to clients. The club opened in August 1994 in the House of Scientists in Almaty. The idea of an independent club came from American colleagues who had seen it work in other countries, and the first press conference was held by the US Embassy for a visiting delegation of American business leaders.

At first the club was part of the privatisation project. Other clients followed, but many could not see why they should pay when they could call a journalist they knew and arrange an article. Burson-Marsteller taught the team that a good press conference has dozens of components: an objective, prepared spokespeople and messages, a press release, answers to tough questions, and work with journalists before and after the event. At the time even a press kit, a professional moderator or a Q&A session were novelties. The club had an unwritten rule:

“The Press Club has two clients: the one holding the press conference and the journalist. And the journalist matters more to us. Because clients come and go, but we work with journalists all the time.”

The journalist had to leave with an interesting story, quality information and the chance to ask questions. That, she believes, is what won the trust of journalists and clients alike.

How did the Kazakhstan Press Club stand on its own after USAID left?

In 1996, after two years of USAID support, the Kazakhstan Press Club was registered as an independent non-governmental organisation. Working inside a large international project is one thing. Finding your own clients, paying salaries and explaining to customers what they are paying for is quite another, especially when a PR services market in the usual sense barely existed.

Assel calls the decision itself, to carry on without donor funding, the biggest risk. Confidence came from how fast the country was changing. International companies were arriving, private banks, new enterprises and independent media were appearing, and all of them needed to talk to journalists and build trust.

One project the team was especially proud of was the communications support for pension reform, delivered together with the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection. The team grew from four people at the start to a staff of fifteen. Assel Karaulova herself won an Edmund Muskie fellowship and completed a master's degree in communications and public affairs in the United States. Nobody was making grand thirty-year forecasts back then. They simply saw that the work was in demand and clients kept coming back.

How is the professional PR infrastructure in Kazakhstan organised?

Kazakhstan's professional PR infrastructure consists of an informal club of practitioners, an industry association, annual forums, awards and a national certification programme. It all began, Karaulova says, with a need for professional exchange. In the early 2000s the community was small but active, and there was practically no formal PR education. In international companies, the first PR specialists were often translators and assistants with language skills.

That is how the club «PR-shy» came about: an informal association of individuals with no charter or reporting, its name combining the English PR with the Kazakh suffix «-shy». At almost the same time the National Public Relations Association NASO RK was created, bringing together the industry's key agencies. Questions were piling up that small organisations could not resolve on their own: how to grow the market, fight paid-for journalism, explain the value of PR to business and train talent. That gave rise to the idea of an annual PR Forum. The first forum was a small affair. Today it is the largest industry event, gathering market players in Almaty and Astana.

The forum was followed by the «Aq Mergen» PR project awards, the student competition «Lilac Breakthrough», a corporate media competition, educational programmes with universities, and a three-tier national certification programme for PR specialists, launched this year by NASO RK, which three cohorts have already completed. The motivation, Assel says, is pragmatic: you cannot build a successful professional business in a weak, underdeveloped industry.

What advice would Assel Karaulova give herself at the start of her career?

Asked what she would tell herself in the 1990s, Assel answers briefly: «Don't be afraid, it will all work out, never stop learning, and don't be so serious.» When they started, nobody imagined what it would all grow into. They were doing interesting work, learning as they went and enjoying their first successes. Looking back, she says there were moments when she could have been bolder, moments when she should have trusted people less, and opportunities she should not have let slip.

She has no regrets about her choice of profession. The work has let her meet remarkable people, take part in fascinating projects and keep learning. Over thirty years, technology, media, business and society have all changed, yet communications remain just as interesting, now at a different level, for instance when taking companies to IPO.

Frequently asked questions

When should a PR specialist be brought into company decision-making?

While the decision is being discussed, not afterwards. That way they can help assess the public reaction, the reputational consequences and the possible risks. If they are invited in only to announce what has already been decided, they remain an executor.

What should you do when management asks for «more coverage» or «higher awareness»?

First establish what business problem the request is meant to solve: why the company needs awareness, what issue needs fixing and how it relates to business goals. Only then choose the tools.

Do you have to pay for coverage in Kazakhstan?

You do not need to pay for everything, but you should be ready for the placement budget question: many newsrooms treat corporate information as a source of advertising revenue. The foundations remain a strong news hook, a prepared spokesperson, face-to-face meetings and long-term relationships with newsrooms.

Is there a certification for PR specialists in Kazakhstan?

Yes. NASO RK has launched a three-tier national certification programme for PR specialists, which three cohorts have already completed.

Conclusion

In thirty years almost everything about PR in Kazakhstan has changed, except two things. First, trust can neither be bought nor won with a single article. It is built through consistent action and a readiness to answer uncomfortable questions. Second, the outcome depends on when communications join the decision. Before it, you can assess reactions and risks. After it, all that is left is to tell the story.

Have a project in mind? Let's discuss it. Get in touch.

Further reading

We have examined the digital landscapes of Central Asian countries in separate articles: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Translated with an AI translator