DISQUS

James · 7 months ago

so uninteresting. yeah, you know what 4As and PR council, the people who have to see and read the stuff PR and ad shops pitch and sell and produce really don't give a shit about your title and where it came from. talk about a completely useless pissing contest. advertising, PR and entertainment are all going to get mashed together eventually anyway - and already are. have an idea, get it done, who cares how. much like how CAA is structured already. so get over yourselves.

Steve Winston · 7 months ago

Dear AgencySpy,

We could probably debate all day (and well into the night) about the merits of PR vs. advertising. But, as a twenty-year PR practitioner - and, as you pointed out in your article, owner of a PR/Marketing consultancy - I do have to agree with you about the quality of "the practice" by many PR people today. (The quality of practice by ad people is a topic for another time.)

I constantly find myself trying to hammer home the same lessons to PR people:

1) Target your pitches! No shotgun approaches!
2) If you want to piss off a journalist (who, these days, is probably doing the job of three people), send him a ptich totally unrelated to his beat.
3) LEARN HOW TO WRITE! LEARN HOW TO WRITE! LEARN HOW TO WRITE!
4) Next step: Learn how to write effective business communications...which is a lot different than just learning how to write.
5) Learn the concept of a pitch (strategy, tactic, campaign, etc.) that benefits the person to whom you're pitching as well as your client (internal or external).
6) Effective public "relations" is all about establishing relationships. And nurturing them.
7) Read...everything!
8) Become a resource for the media...not only a pitchman.
9) Realize that your client's (or company's) story may seem "great" to them...but that it might not seem that way to the media. And - this is a huge challenge, I know - try to get them to understand that.
10) Try to get your client (or company) to understand that effective public relations takes a long-term approach, not a short-term, shotgun, toss-mud-against-the-wall-and-see-how-much-of-it-sticks approach.

I could go on and on...but (no cheers, folks!) I'll stop here. But I'll add one thing...and this is liable to piss off people in my own (PR/Marketing) community. Perhaps, if public relations people had had the guts to tell their clients or companies the truth, a year or two ago, about what their behavior was doing to the public trust, we wouldn't be in quite as bad a situation as we are today.

Steve Winston
President, WINSTON COMMUNICATIONS
(954) 575-4089
steve@winstoncommunications.com
www.winstoncommunications.com

Dana Todd · 7 months ago

I don't think it's a useless dialogue to have, but I agree that it's not being a productive discussion right now if we have to keep separating into camps. I agree that silo-ing is not the answer, and if digital has taught us anything it's that silos only occur internally - externally, in the consumer mind, it's all one brand and everything you do affects it collectively.

The problem with ad agencies attempting PR is that they're generally limited in their understanding of the depth of what *good* PR strategists can do. They boil it down to "pitches & press releases", which is ultimately limiting to customers if that's all they ever get. Sadly, there are a number of PR professionals who provide only that level of strategy and creativity, which doesn't help the credibility or the general impression that marketing people have of the PR offering.

And yes - I think that ad agencies are justified in their criticism of PR as it pertains to digital. But the irony here is that traditional agencies themselves are only a few years into grasping digital/interactive, and so it's funny to hear them sitting on their high horse talking about integration as if they've got it down pat.

It wasn't until the traditionals started getting their lunches handed to them by the interactive shops that they paid attention. That and the falling investment by advertisers who were increasingly enamored of all things Web. Now, the PR industry is in serious trouble because they've tied themselves too long to the value proposition of "earned media" and traditional media, which is dying faster than anyone can even predict. PR is scrambling to reinvent itself, to find legitimacy in a space it barely knows (many struggle with even simple technical issues), and to have to interact directly with consumers for the first time in their careers (instead of interacting with consumers via 3rd-party media voices).

It's not going to be pretty, but I figure the best people will ultimately survive. And, they really do have a lot to teach the digital whippersnappers about content strategy, crisis management, communication policies and community influence. I just hope we have a chance to integrate all the good stuff before we lose the baby with the bathwater.

Dana Todd, CMO
Newsforce Network