PR Is Dead: Long Live PR
So what is PR anyway? A way to get a client’s name in the media. A line of print. A talking head. A sound bite? If that’s all it is, let’s give it a decent burial. Flowers and music and all, but a burial nevertheless.
To the old school (and you can be old at 25 as well as 75), PR is a Balkanized process that sits aside from sales and marketing and wins the game every time it manages to land a client in the Sacramento Bee. Whoa, let the champagne flow. Wow, what a PR coup.
Yes, nice work, but does it lead to anything? Like- forgive me for the language-”sales.” Now we’re getting in the thick of it. PR is not a noble pursuit in its own right. PR cannot live in a vacuum. PR can never be viewed as the purist form of advertising. Great PR, inspired PR, the kind that flowers in the desert, the kind that drives Apple, the form that made Norah Jones a sensation in a week-that PR recognizes it is a powerful component of a miltifaceted marketing blitz that has tight connectivity to sales. That moves ipods off the shelves and drives albums up the Billboard charts.
Long live that PR. The kind that builds actionable mechanisms into its hits. That knows the ink means little or nothing without a means of driving the reader to a URL, a phone, a store. The kind that can be measured with the right tools, such as web analytics, and that generates leads and drives sales.
Do I want my firm’s PR team to book me on NPR’s Marketplace to talk about my business philosophy? Sure, that would be nice. Now, raising the bar, do I want to go on the same show to discuss my book and have the host state the URL to purchase the book? How soon can I get there? Last time that happened, the book’s Amazon ranking soared 700 points. That led to book sales and clients and wow, that PR is worth its weight in platinum.
on July 16th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
PR is not dead. However, the folks who spend their client’s valuable time and money measuring outputs rather than outcomes very likely lead many people to believe the profession is dead or deserves to be.
The key to successful PR is delivering relevant, honest, concise, consistent, and timely communication to the the right audiences using trusted communication channels.
It must begin with defined, measurable outcomes. Column inches, web hits, and print distribution numbers mean little if they don’t generate leads, enhance sales, reduce costs, change public opinion or behavior, etc.
on July 16th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
My biggest PR triumphs have not been related to moving ipods of shelves or getting albums up the charts, although I’ve done my bit in marcoms-land. My biggest triumphs over the last 20 years have been, when through using really creative PR (usually on low budgets) in NFPs or for government agenices, I’ve managed to turn around declining organ donation consents, inspire a nation to complete the national census, get older people out of isolated home situations, recruit minorities into the fire service and nurses into hospitals. New media and digital PR offer so many opportunities but let’s not throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water. Good PR has never been about just getting ink and practitioners who having been playing just that game to my mind have never been “doing” PR. Bury what you obviously think is PR – but let the PR Pros get on with it.
on December 1st, 2008 at 9:44 am
Bury what you obviously think is PR – but let the PR Pros get on with it.