When almost two years ago I sat in on a PR trade association planning meeting at the annual Counselor's Academy conference in Florida, the notion that such an organization would get off the ground before 2000 seemed noble.
But two years shy of the new millennium, it's been rather surprising what this new-sprung association has so far set in motion.
Already in the plans are Socratic dialogues, precedent-setting surveys and business sponsorships to build top-level corporate support for PR.
Positioning an entire industry for growth is a giant task, however. It requires something some PR professionals and agencies still shun: transparency. Executives in high-profile industries and professions such as telecommunications, aviation, utilities, medicine, law and politics know that recognition and respect doesn't come without some sort of scrutiny.
While I applaud all that the Council of Public Relations Firms is doing, I'm skeptical about the ability of the industry as a whole to endure these watershed years without a couple of hard knocks. In addressing the quality of client services, financial accountability and ethics by establishing membership eligibility requirements, the Council could just as easily trigger dialogue about which companies don't meet these standards as those that do.
Who's Saying What?
Part of why I anticipate that the Council will face some real challenges in promoting PR is that the profession has lacked a central voice for so long. The Public Relations Society of America wasn't set up to represent the industry as much as it was individual PR professionals.
Historically, PR has operated behind a veil of mystery rather than transparency. It is a profession greatly misunderstood, first and foremost by the press, which still by and large considers PR to be flackery and a far cry from rocket science.
In addition, the profession has never had one clearinghouse for standards, statistics, measurement models, recruitment practices, "best practices" or benchmarking - much less one organization which can track and publicize even the simplest of details. No PR entity, for example, can reel off how many PR firms there are in the world, a fairly basic statistic.
In addition, the Council has to be ready to accept some obvious criticism. Realistically, much of what PR professionals still do is tactical, and not all of the strategies agencies sell to clients are novel or creative. If the press consistently paid an agency to tell it to "do the right thing and tell the truth," the media would probably be bankrupt, although our reputation ROI might be more impressive.
Then again, PR professionals are at the table during the most vulnerable corporate times - amid crisis, financial problems, earnings releases, M&As, product launches, takeovers and the like.
The folks heading the new Council of PR Firms know this and they realize how valuable the preservation of reputation is to clients. In fact, it's smart that this is one of the routes they're taking to bolster PR to external audiences (PRN, 01/11/99)
"Oh, You're Right"
The complexity of leveraging PR's worth in the business arena is compounded by the confidentiality agreements that govern much of the work shouldered by those in PR, and sadly by the spin still in play by many agencies and clients.
PR NEWS recently encountered a situation where a little transparency would have been welcome.
Several months ago, one of our reporters was slipped the word that Shandwick was no longer working for Microsoft. But when another reporter called the Seattle Shandwick office which handles the software company account, Shandwick denied the report and said that its relationship with Microsoft was still intact.
The same rumor surfaced again last month, so we called another executive at the same office to press the question. That executive assured us that the Shandwick was still the PR agency for Microsoft. Why was the story persisting? The exec claimed to be as puzzled as we were.
It took persistent questioning of that PR exec before he revealed that, in fact, Shandwick had lost (as of 12/31/98) the Microsoft gaming or kids reference mapping accounts. The rumor persisted because it was in part true and Shandwick's denial was only part true.
The exec also admitted that Shandwick had known in September, when our reporter first called, that Microsoft would switch these accounts to Edelman, but they hadn't shared that with us when we sought its side of the story.
The Council of PR Firms is employing impressive checks-and-balances in requiring principals of member firms to sign "Standards of Practice" calling for truthfulness when communicating with the media and the public, but there isn't a system in place to police this.
What kind of slap on the wrist should Shandwick face for not being completely up front and who's going to determine what industry standards are realistic? (Ethically, maybe some PR folks don't have a problem with hedging the truth.)
Despite the Council's much-needed advocacy, it may find itself faced with taking on some of these little controversies, which in the long run may mean a lot on the image map.
Debra Zimmerman Murphey is senior editor of PR NEWS. She can be reached at 301/340-7788, Ext. 2098, or by email at [email protected]. Her column appears monthly in PR NEWS. Feedback and topic suggestions can be emailed to her.