Every once and a while, a colleague gets all fired up and starts emailing me media clippings about the public relations industry. This usually lasts for three or four days before his efforts, without notice, come to a grinding halt. I can only assume that he’s exhausted himself, the media has moved on to better things (leaving him devoid of content) or he’s returned to his family for the weekend. Either way, it’s a welcome respite.
It’s not the fact that I receive this steady stream of industry news that daunts me. Quite the contrary. In our business, as is the case in any consulting organisation, knowledge sharing is central to our ability to be able to consult within context. Let’s face it, if your client is better informed than you about communication issues, you tend to look a little silly.
No, what really frustrates me about these monthly flurries is the contrary nature of the content itself. According to the content providers, herein known as journalists, one day the public relations industry is on its knees, the next it’s pulled off a Darth Vader moment and looks set to rule the Universe. I can only assume we’re a victim of our own professional insight – he who provides the greater prospect of conflict as the substance of his information, will score the most brownie points with his select media.
Somewhere between the Doomsday theories and promise of the Holy Grail (you shalt inherit the entire marketing budget), sits one point of consistency though. A demand for heightened integration. Nothing new here perhaps, but the fact is integration is coming to an agency near you, like it or not.
I’ve never really understood why advertising and PR have sat so far away from each other in the marketing spectrum. Whilst it happens less and less nowadays, it wasn’t that long ago when the gargantuan ad spend was knocked out with the client over a vintage bottle of Chateau Neuf de Pape, leaving the PR folks to lick the cork at the end of the meal.
Digital changed all that. And 9/11. And Enron. Oh, and global warming. In a scarily short time-frame consumer trust in organisations took a mighty nose-dive whilst those who had managed to hang on to a hint of corporate belief began to wonder if the human race would make it past 2010 anyway, let alone the next generation. So they found a whole new group of buddies they’d never met (and probably never would) to talk about it online. Valid demographics shattered and communicating effectively with the masses went all gooey.
Bizarrely it was about this time that any PR firm worth its salt had to add an extra receptionist. Smart marketeers acknowledged the fact that we’re all in the business of shaping opinion and that isolating one part of the marketing mix was probably not the best way to do things.
Of course, we PR people still have a way to go in making people feel comfortable about what we actually do for a living. This weekend’s Financial Times’ editorial page touches on the fact that PRs really aren’t very good at doing their own PR (let’s leave that debate for another day). And the end of “10 years of (apparent) Spin” at Number 10 Downing Street in the past fortnight hasn’t helped our professional cause too much either. But (and I know I’m biased here) effective public relations has the ability to defend, enhance and establish a person’s or organisation’s reputation like no other discipline in the marketing mix. Weave it through a broader marketing campaign and you have a pretty formidable opportunity to move the needle of opinion.
So what better testament then to the power of integration than to spend this particular Lost Weekend on a long haul flight to Malaysia, via Singapore, all in the name of Big I.
The fact is I’m fortunate enough to work with a bunch of people at Weber Shandwick who jump on the opportunity to collaborate across markets before you can say, well, “collaborate”. I’m equally fortunate to be part of a larger Communications group that not only sees the value of inter-discipline integration, but goes out and does something about it. Not for the sake of doing it but, ultimately, because it’s what is going to work for the client. So it’s off to the McCann WorldGroup development meeting in Malaysia I go, along with 50 other souls who have a similar mindset. And that’s liberating.
The Prophets of Doom will continue to mount their case for the pending death of some poor, unsuspecting marketing discipline, of that we can be certain. Sod it, they say, it makes for great reading. But to suggest the PR industry could buckle as other disciplines fight for a more central ground is a nonsense. As long as organisations recognise the fact that the relationship between their reputation, brand equity, market share and market value is irrevocably connected, they’ll always be a significant role for PR firms in shifting the needle of opinion.
