For Steve Cody, it was back to school -- in more ways than one.
Cody, co-founder of New York City-based Peppercom, held court earlier this year with corporate executives for two days as part of a four-week professional development course
offered by the University of North Carolina.
Cody's presentation was twofold: teaching fast-track executives best practices for crisis management -- including dealing with a crisis simulation -- as well as how each
individual attending the confab could differentiate himself in their own division; how the division can distinguish itself within the entire company (read: winning bigger budgets)
and how the company can distinguish itself against competitors.
"It's a whole new opportunity and role for PR and is very much business consulting," says Cody, who has conducted similar PR-driven brainstorming sessions with C-level
executives from a division of a Fortune 50 company he could not name. "This was not about teaching how to pitch the Wall Street Journal, but how you can be a
brand within your company, ways in which to break out and grow and any possible threats to the business."
Cody was careful not to fall into PR-speak and was also quick to point out that Peppercom has partnerships with a northern California-based sales training company (Harte
Associates) and a Florida-based security-consulting firm (Tequest). "You're going to get a lot of pushback if you're just talking about PR," he says. "Showing you work directly
with other business disciplines disarms executives, who then feel, 'I'm not just listening to PR spiel, but someone who understands sales.'"
By branching out Peppercom has been able to show these clients how PR isn't just necessarily about banging about press releases, babysitting pampered executives who are
suspicious of the media or putting out fires (after the damage has been done).
Similar opportunities abound for PR execs to demonstrate the power of PR, but they first have to fundamentally alter their thinking. "This is not media by the pound," Cody
says, "but connecting PR to a higher level and making it more relevant. For smart firms comfortable working in a non-media environment, there are a lot of areas to exploit."
Michael Kempner, president-CEO of MWW Group (East Rutherford, N.J.), says part of the problem in selling PR is that many firms obsess on tactics without first understanding
the client's ultimate business goals.
Another stumbling block: being able to distinguish PR from advertising, which offers much more of a comfort zone for C-level execs. "In advertising you can guarantee a
placement but you can't guarantee success, you can control the message but can't control consumer response," Kempner says. "In PR, you don't necessarily control the message, but
there's much more control than people believe."
He adds: "PR people are notoriously bad in merchandising their success. It's a matter of making sure the CEO or COO understand what happened -- and its value and doing so
immediately. The CMO knows immediately if an ad hit; he shouldn't have to wait a week to find out if he got exposure through PR. We can either leave them in the dark or better
sell the value."
Farm9, (Emeryville, Calif.), a small company that provides computer security for 5% of community banks in the Western region, was looking to make inroads in the market but
wasn't getting its message out through traditional advertising.
Elizabeth Breslin, vp/sales and marketing, was able to convince her CEO about the value of hiring a PR firm rather than sticking with ads. After a brief Marian Rosales,
principal and founder of Activa PR (San Francisco), who Breslin had worked with before joining farm9, eventually won the business.
"The key element was that she brought an understanding of the business," Breslin says. "We're in a very unusual space, which is monitoring computer services, which she able
to express the marketplace."
PR had such a positive effect on farm9's media presence -- via gaining more coverage in the trades vis-a-vis rivals -- that the company has shifted practically its entire
marketing budget to PR from advertising and traditional marketing. "In terms of ROI, PR has given a much more tangible results," Breslin says. "I can take an article and send to a
potential client or existing client and they'll know we're in business and moving forward. That's more than 100 ads could ever do."
Rosales says PR has to sell more on value and not just products and services. "You need to think like a manager and what keeps them up at night," she says. "It's also an
educational process, because a lot of people think PR is just hype."
Contacts: Elizabeth Breslin, 510.883.3276 x26, [email protected]; Steve Cody, 212.931.6114, [email protected]; Michael Kempner, 201.307.9500, [email protected]; Marina Rosales, 415.776.5350, [email protected]