PR continues to garner growing respect among companies tapping the consumer market. The trend, documented in father-daughter PR team Al and Laura Ries' book, The Fall of
Advertising and The Rise of PR (Harper Business, 2002), shows no sign of fading. Companies that in the past relied upon advertising are abandoning expensive ad buys and jumping on
the PR bandwagon.
Corporations like Amtrak, for example, are singing the praises of PR. At the recent Business Women's Network Summit in Washington, D.C., PR NEWS Editor Peggy Stuntz moderated a
panel on the importance of communications for managing change. Barbara Richardson, VP of marketing and sales for Amtrak, and a member of the panel, spoke about how her promotional
priorities have changed. Spending advertising dollars to reach consumers with messages about Amtrak services, like the Acela train she helped to launch, is now her last choice.
Instead, she said, she prefers to reach customers through PR and branding efforts that develop lasting relationships between company and customer.
"I think we all know that the sentiment in business has really changed," says Alissa Blate, EVP and director of consumer marketing for New Jersey-based PR firm MWW Group. Blate
has seen her practice area grow by leaps and bounds - up by about 60 percent in revenues over the last 18 months. "Consumers are not as trusting of companies as they used to be,"
Blate says. One of PR's best-established benefits is its ability to build trust with target audiences, and corporations are finally coming around, Blate says.
Nikon, for example, worked with MWW Group during last year's holiday season to tout a consumer-friendly digital camera to the mass market. Most consumers perceived Nikon as a
brand that was out of their reach - a company that produced cameras for the pros with price tags for the pros. MWW Group used media placements with spokeswoman Kim Catrall (of
"Sex & The City" fame) to generate mega publicity for the camera. It ended up being the highest-selling photographic product on the market that season, beating out other
digital camera-producers like Sony and Canon, which have the budgets to flex some serious advertising muscles.
(Contacts: Richardson, richarb@amtrak.com; Blate, 201/507-9500)