July 2004 - Global PR Blog Week 1.0

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Day 5: Emergence of Ideas

July 16, 2004

On the last day of Global PR Blog Week, we tackled the topic of the State of the PR Profession. As one might expect, this generated an incredibly wide variety of posts, including interviews with luminaries like Seth Godin, Jack O'Dwyer and Richard Edelman. The state of the profession was examined from multiple angles, including ethics, professionalization/need for accreditation, the role of PR in facilitating the learning process inside organizations, and from the results of a survey of PR professionals ourselves.

Some highlights:

1) Constantin issues a challenge to the Global PR Blog Week and the wider communities of PR professionals and academics worldwide to create a code of online PR conduct.

2) The idea that constantly evolving online content, i.e., content that is new and current, is viewed as [therefore?] credible. This in the discussion of dynamic communications.

3) With the internet becoming the preferred news source for millions, how does the PR industry have to change (a theme that has been pervasive throughout this week)?

4) How do PR agencies, from the large international conglomerates to boutiques and networks, view their practices in today's economic climate? Here.

5) Most corporations view customer feedback as a cost and threat vs. an opportunity. Here.

6) PR people in the US care about being ethical to society. Here.

Day 5 Stats

Global PR Blog Week was Feedster's Feed of the Day!

Technorati: Global PR Blog Week 1.0 has 268 Links from 80 Sources

VISITS

Total: 7,020
Average Per Day: 678
Average Visit Length: 6:14
Last Hour: 35
July 16: 1,135
This Week: 4,747

PAGE VIEWS

Total: 22,609
Average Per Day: 2,375
Average Per Visit: 3.5
Last Hour: 58
July 16: 3,325
This Week: 16,625

Author: Elizabeth Albrycht | Jul 16, 04 | Permalink | 0 comments
Category: Announcements

The New PR - A Call to Action

The signs are here: Bill Gates pitches CEOs on bottom-up communication and empowerment, RSS, and "a thing called blogging," Business Week reports on the visible extinction of mass marketing, and the New York Times's editorialists tremble with anticipation at the thought that bloggers covering the Democratic Convention will "lace the proceedings with fresh insight and even some Menckenian impertinence." As the saying goes, we're living in interesting times.

The future - as always - seems bright. But we're not there yet.

There's a huge gap between the promises of tomorrow and the daily reality of Public Relations practice, and we can do something to fill this gap.

What do we need?

1. A reconsideration of the role played by PR professionals

The increased public pressure for transparency is met by the businesses' concern that, instead of building trust, this will expose organizations to further harsh scrutiny. But organizations will have to change in order to survive, and PR professionals can have a leading role in this process. Pitching blogs, monitoring micro media outlets, and offering RSS feeds are all fine endeavours (if done well) - but probably the most challenging task for PR pros will be to make the case for dialogic public relations and address the implications of such an approach in terms that will make sense for management. Employees' expectations for freedom of speech and opinion will grow, fuelled by the social and media habits of the internet generation, and by the constant pressure of having to deal with the daily conflict between online freedom (outside the workplace) and workplace restrictions. How to reconcile these expectations with the organizational culture and regulatory environment will be an important task for PR pros (for more about speech rights for corporate bloggers, see Jay Rosen: PR Needs to Stand for Real Transparency, Letter to Bill Gates, Soon to be a Weblogger).

2. A code of conduct for online communicators. Two starting points:

The Arthur W. Page Society: Establishing Principles for Public Relations on the Internet
Pete Snyder: Wanted: Standards for Viral Marketing

3. New tools

We need new ways of facilitating relationships (hint: see "relationship portals"), as well as tools for capturing, analyzing and understanding in real time the skyrocketing volume of conversation happening on the web. The use of RSS feeds and blog search engines is extremely useful, but we'll have to see if, and how, it will scale. Soon, notifications - as lists of headlines (or long pages of full text postings) - will be not enough; the next step is to have them analyzed in their context, grouped by various criteria, and represented in a compelling visual form.

4. New paradigms, players, and resources

With the rise of personal publishing, the whole process of public opinion formation is changing and we'll have to understand how various socio-technical shifts are factoring in.

We need to be willing to learn from other disciplines (Knowledge Management comes first in mind) and to start a dialogue with the academic world, that's a largely untapped resource of knowledge, expertise, and research skills and capabilities. There's a growing lack of communication between the academic and the professional world, and this is likely to affect both of them, and public relation as a field of knowledge. As the scholar publishing starts to change its business model under the influence of the open access movement, more and more academic articles will be available online, for free, if professionals will ask for them (notable, Reed Elsevier, the world's largest publisher of scientific and scholarly journals, including Public Relations Review, announced recently that allows authors to offer open access to their article, if they are posted on personal or institutional websites).

But that's not enough; we have to encourage the academic community to open itself and join the conversation. 15,000 new weblogs are created everyday, but we still have to found an American public relations professor who's blogging.

Also, we need to find a solution that will allow PR students and practitioners to learn about the changing landscape of the PR practice in real time - as changes are happening. The internet is still presented in PR textbooks as a "new technology" that offers "interesting opportunities". We past that point a long time ago, and we need internet-based learning materials and methods to capture the freshest knowledge in the field.

So, here's the challenge:

Let's create a community that will make all - or most - of these things happened.

The Global PR Blog Week has already coalesced a group a bloggers, most of them PR professionals and academics. We can expand this community, and start working at The New PR:

We can continue to build on the resource created by this event.
We can start to draft a code of conduct for online communicators.
We can help PR and communication professors to start blogging, by offering them help and advice.
We can start asking authors to make their articles available for the larger community of PR practitioners.
We can start writing a collaborative, online PR textbook that it will be available online for free.

And that's just the beginning.

This is what I'd like to do - how about you?

Author: Constantin Basturea | Jul 16, 04 | Permalink | 3 comments
Category: @ Constantin Basturea | Topic 5 State of PR Profession

The Battle Over PR

Public relations is at a crossroads. The industry has weathered the bad times - downturn in economy, dot-com bubble bursting, title inflation, junior staffing to save costs - and is now ready to enter into a new era, one where public relations is going to either take the lead, or just become part of the advertising and marketing mix.

It really depends on who takes the lead, and what will bear out in the coming year. Is public relations going to be driven by the boutiques, by the seasoned practioners that branched out on their own? Or are the large independents going to continue to grow and provide better counsel and strategy - and the sense of safety of a large corporation - and beat out both the multinationals and the boutiques. Or, as The Economist recently noted, the face of advertising is changing, and the multinationals could be better positioned to serve with "below-the-line" advertising, like public relations and guerilla tactics.

For this article, instead of presenting just my views on boutiques vs large corporations, I went out to interview the pillars and pundits of public relations: Jack O'Dwyer of O'Dwyer Publications; Richard Edelman of Edelman Worldwide for a view from the big seat; Matthew Podboy from the boutique angle as a cofounder of Voce Communications; Jonathan Zaleski for the view of the small boutiques forming their own group at The PR Collective; and then Ben Silverman of PR Fuel fame from the pundit and journalist perspective and Lindsay Olson from the recruiting views at Paradigm Staffing.

While the rest of the participants responded to emailed questions, O'Dwyer was on vacation and was gracious enough to be interviewed over the phone. While he deviated from the questions, or characterized some as idiotic, he provided some good insight into the state of public relations. The rest of the participants will be presented as a Q&A for the post.

JACK O'DWYER, O'DWYER PUBLICATIONS
O'Dwyer went to the University of Connecticut, and was the former business reporter for the Journal American, then marketing columnist for the Chicago Tribune, then founded O'Dwyer Company 36 years ago. The O’Dwyer Company has been recognized as the leading publisher about the public relations industry, and provides the latest news and information about public relations firms and professionals, the media, corporations, legal issues, jobs, technology, and much more through its website, newsletters, directories, and guides (O'Dwyer Publications).

________________________________________

With the $13B debt hanging over the heads of the multinational conglomerates, all that the large agencies care about is tracking the time to the second, squeezing out as much money from the clients as possible.

But, for a corporation, if the choice is between a large independent or multinational and a boutique, the corporation would be better off going to a larger firm. By going with the large firms, the company gets worldwide presence. Right now, 48 countries are being served by the large agencies.

With the smaller boutiques, corporation has to worry about "virtual particles" - the problem is that the boutique can be here today, but gone tomorrow. With the boutique, there is a higher risk factor.

In regards to measuring public relations, it is just idiotic. Public relations is about winning good will, it's an honest job that is not measurable because you cannot price the truth. Public relations is not about marketing, public relations should not be sold by time as it's not measurable by time. How can you measure good will with the public? How can you measure creativity?

The biggest problem with the conglomerates is that it has become about time measurement, a stopwatch mentality, which has translated into public relations becoming research-focused, which takes an immense amount of time and can be immensely billed.

An agency can come in with reams of research, but there's no creativity there, and public relations is about creativity, about the spin. Public relations is about hits, it's about getting ink and notorierty and targeting the public. Our job is to get the message across, effectively, and there is no measurement for beyond clips and being on message.

Right now, there are very bad forces affecting public relations. We are supposed to be a bridge for the press to get to CEOs, not a barrier, but the industry has fallen into the trap of blocking access for the press. There is this tremendous force that is trying to convert public relations into advertising, especially at the conglomerates, and that will be the downfall of public relations.

(Breaking News Part ...) To help combat such thinking, O'Dwyer Publications is going to begin the O'Dwyer Awards, which will focus on the quality and quantity of press and the press' access to the CEO. The O'Dwyer Awards will be for firms that get press, and are a bridge for the company, not an impediment.

RICHARD EDELMAN, EDELMAN WORDLDWIDE
Richard Edelman is the president and CEO of the world’s largest public relations firm with 1800 employees in 39 offices worldwide. Edelman, named 2003 Agency of the Year by The Holmes Group, has been a leader in public relations since it was founded in 1952.

Richard Edelman was named president and CEO in September 1996. Prior to that, he served as president of Edelman’s U.S. operations, regional manager of Europe and manager of the firm’s New York office.

Richard won the Silver Anvil, the highest award in the public relations industry, in 1981. He was named ‘Best Manager of the Year’ by Inside PR magazine in 1995. He serves on the board of directors of the New York Historical Society and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is also a member of the World Economic Forum, the Arthur Page Society, PR Seminar, the International Council of the Field Museum, and the World Corporate Ethics’ Council. He has worked on several political campaigns including “Jim Thompson for Governor” and “Ed Koch for Mayor.”

With the current state of public relations – with purchasing departments coming into the equation, influencing the agency choice – how does your firm position itself and its costs to the client?

We need to provide a cost effective, cost justified solution to clients. We can be transparent on our cost structure, and build in suitable profit on top of cost and suggest some means of sharing in the success, such as bonuses or more fees.

What accounts and situations do you feel are better suited for a boutique? For a large multinational agency?

Clients best for Edelman are those with complex problems, cross border, requiring multiple practices skills or those requiring immediate scale with lots of resources applied.

How is your agency able to justify the costs of a multinational conglomerate to the clients – paying for all levels of talent, and offices?

We justify our prices on basis of excellence of personnel, unique products such as brand care, great intellectual capital such as our trust barometer, and of course, great results. We also try to be reasonably priced.

What differentiates your agency and experience?

Our 52 year heritage in marketing to consumers. Our global reach. Our creatvity and our independence of ad agency ownership. Our specialist abilities in public affairs, financial PR and crisis communications.

Are corporations demanding more return on their public relations dollars? Are you seeing a push for less money, but more results?

Companies are demanding more ROI statistics. We have developed a relationship index to measure quality of connection to stakeholders, and now have an advertising equivalent called PR GRP that can be adopted by all agencies to help measure public relations. Edelman is encouraging other agencies to use PR GRP, to use the metrics and language, to help corporations relate to the measurement. More information will be forthcoming on the Edelman Web site, and we are meeting with various organizations to bring them on board.

Money is definitely coming our way out of advertising. Examples include Unilever campaigns on Dove and Axe. Technology and health have been big spenders on public relations for years, and consumer products are beginning to transfer monies from advertising to public relations. And, Edelman is very nimble on guerrilla tactics with such examples as the KFC promotion with The Apprentice and Donald Trump.

One of the complaints against large, multi-national conglomerates is that accounts are being used to teach junior staff – how do you respond to this?

Yes, we have junior staff. And, that is a good thing. They live in the fast changing real world with different media choices, are more open to new ideas, more tolerant of new ideas. They are less reliant on establishment media and bring more creativity to the accounts. For our work, we have mix of junior and senior folks. Now that I am 50, I am in latter group. But, we don't put untrained folks forward. We take training very seriously to provide for our clients.

During the technology boom, the industry saw the large conglomerates either start boutique shops or buy them – such examples are PR21, Red Whistle, Simon/McGarry. Do we see that trend returning, with more skilled and targeted teams able to provide more counsel and work for clients? Will we see the boutiques again being acquired by the large agencies?

I do not see another crop of boutiques springing up. Those that survived the recession did so on basis of specialization, a clear focus on a given business area and great service. Clients are moving to firms that have scale, depth of resource, and are priced competitively.

Essentially, Edelman started out as a boutique, and has expanded since then. How has the culture changed since the founding of the firm, and is there still elements of the boutique mindset?

We still operate mentally as if we are a small business. My dad does not take the wins for granted, and beats himself up on each account or pitch lost. Happily, I celebrate the wins but suffer in defeat.

We are still private, family owned business, so we take it all pretty seriously. Come to a family dinner some time. The main topic is usually business. I love being an entrepreneur, and we are now moving into India

The Edelman family built this business with our own hands, and can appreciate what each boutique owner is going through daily. We are a success story, but we never take anything for granted.

The Edelman motto is "relentless pursuit of excellence" and "never surrender."

Do you have any closing thoughts for the readers on your views on the state of public relations?

PR has to get beyond the perception that we are simply media relations. We are also counsel. We can do promotions. In short, we need to compete with both ad agencies and mangement consultants for budget, not simply our fellow PR firms.

MATTHEW PODBOY, VOCE COMMUNICATIONS
Matthew Podboy co-founded Voce Communications with Richard Cline and David Black in June 1999, coming from Miller/Shandwick Technologies (now Weber Shandwick). The three set out to build an agency incorporating the best of the large PR conglomerates into a consultant model. Before Miller/Shandwick Technologies, he worked in-house for several non-tech companies in Santa Barbara, California.

Voce Communications is a mid-size firm with 31 employees in Palo Alto and Boston. We focus on five communication disciplines: public relations (including micro media/influencer campaigns), analyst relations, investor relations, customer acquisition and public affairs. Our largest footprint is PR and within PR, our present focus is on the technology market. The other disciplines are growing and diversifying our client portfolio.

PR programs seem to be in a good corporate position - meaning the budgets are appearing if they were cut or growing if they were cut down. Your question does bring up an interesting point. We've seen the finance departments and CFOs much more involved in the selection process. Voce offers modest billable rates for some of the best tech PR consultants in the industry so we are rarely challenged on cost.

So how do we differentiate the firm? To put it frankly - we offer a healthy alternative to the multi-national conglomerates. We're hungry. We're fast and lean. When we engage in a dialogue with a new prospect, it's because we want the business and we believe in the story. We aren't winning "accounts" and staffing them with "bodies." We are PR consultants. When we find the right match with a new client, we believe that our counsel will help the organization meets its communication goals. It sounds cliché but focusing on doing a lot of little things differently, in the end, will create a new model for PR.

What accounts and situations do you feel are better suited for a boutique? For a large multinational agency?

Maybe this should be answered by ruling out some of the common opinions. In my experience, the size of the vendor has no bearing on whether or not a large or boutique firm should assist the PR program. We can all list large and small companies that have various "size" PR firms. How about the need to have an "international" program. We challenge that notion at Voce quite often. I don't think the industry is quite ready to concede that international PR programs have nothing to do with international firms - but we are getting close.

For one particular client, Voce manages international coordination responsibilities for the entire Asia Pacific region consisting of: Australia and New Zealand, Greater China (PRC/HKSAR), Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, and India. Voce managed the agency RFI process for the selection of each agency and manages the contract and budget process for each along with local country management. Each agency directly reports to Voce for day-to-day tactical items as well as long term strategic objectives. Voce, in turn, reports the worldwide corporate PR team. Voce also held international coordination responsibilities for other South America and Mexico. One thing we have learned is that there are terrific boutique and mid-size PR firms all over the world. Can we take all the credit? No. Our client has built a terrific model to make it work. The point is, the need for an international program does not require an international agency. Those are the common situations. In the end, it depends on the internal team working with the agency. Past experience and personal/professional relationships will push many vendors to one side or the other. Some folks are going to take a long time to trust a hungry boutique or mid-size firm because of a bad past experience. The same is true for the large conglomerates.

My point here is that the old opinions that big vendors should have big firms or that firms wanting an international presence should hire an international firm should not factor into the equation. Let the firm's expertise and the value of their counsel drive the decision. Factor team chemistry into the equation. Don't look at the number of cities listed on the business card - look at the team across the table.

How is your agency able to qualm fears of your small size, limited localities to prospective clients?

Our experience, our team and our clients have to smash those misconceptions. If they can't be torn - or if it doesn't look like they can be torn down - it's best if we don't work with that firm. More often that not, however, the vendors we meet give us a fair chance to explain why our model for PR supercedes size and location.

What differentiates your agency or experience?

Our people. That is the only true currency for a PR firm. Great people build a great culture. A good culture keeps people happy and excited about their job and their career path. A good culture creates opportunity and growth for everyone. And the result is great client service. The people have to come first. We believe this to the core and our clients benefit from it each day.

Are corporations demanding more return on their public relations dollars? Are you seeing a push for less money, but more results?

This is a good question. On one hand I tend to believe that everyone should try and get the most out of their vendors - be it PR firms, mortgage brokers, appliance vendors or copy machine technicians. The PR industry should not be immune to pressure for results. Can it go too far and exploit good PR consultants? Sure - and I'm sure it happens in every industry. There was certainly more pressure on PR firms to perform during the downtown. Budgets came down and expectations stayed high. For the most part I think that situation has been corrected and things are “normal” again – you can define that for yourself….

According to a recent article in the Economist, advertising budgets are being shifted away from advertising to public relations, and other “below-the-line” efforts. Have you seen your clients transfer budgets away from advertising into public relations?

Not nearly enough! All joking aside, we have seen some instances where advertising budgets are being redirected to PR but I don’t have the data to confirm if it’s an industry wide trend. What I assume from the term “below-the-line” is that micro media and influencer campaigns conducted by PR firms are pulling advertising budgets. If that’s the case, it’ll be important to measure below-the-line programs or they’ll quickly turn into advertising dollars again.

The industry seems to be moving away from strict press relations to more integrated relations, with guerilla marketing, event marketing, and community relations. How is your agency nimble enough to handle the new demands from clients?

This is precisely why our consultant model works. We have the experts in place to handle emerging communication trends. Our model is built upon being nimble. We must be at the forefront of the PR industry if we are to effectively counsel our clients. Our consultant-minded culture breeds this type of integrated marketing expertise. Our people are empowered to develop their counsel for the benefit of their colleagues and clients.

One of the complaints against large, multi-national conglomerates is that accounts are being used to teach junior staff – how do you respond to this?

I tend to believe that this is an eroding stereotype similar to the notion that smaller agencies can’t handle large, international brands. I began my career at a large firm and learned a lot from my colleagues. My teammates became mentors – and a few became business partners in addition to mentors. There are good PR consultants in large firms - young and old.

One of the complaints against boutiques is that low-level task work is being performed by senior level people, using precious account time. How do boutiques address such an issue?

We believe that there is a room for strategic value at every “level” of the account. Smaller firms do require a bit more scale from their employees and that offers terrific upside potential too. A properly structured account team should have folks performing work that meets their ability and challenges them to improve. The small to mid-size firms I’m familiar with provide this opportunity as well as the large agencies.

During the technology boom, the industry saw the large conglomerates either start boutique shops or buy them – such examples are PR21, Red Whistle, Simon/McGarry. Do we see that trend returning, with more skilled and targeted teams able to provide more counsel and work for clients? Will we see the boutiques being acquired by the large agencies?

Is there room for consolidation in the PR market? Perhaps, but that should not be the focus of small and mid-size firms. It’s a byproduct of building great teams and providing outstanding client service.

When pitching against a boutique / large agency, how do you position the company as better-suited to serve the client’s interests?

If we enter into a discussion with a prospect due diligence has already suggested that the relationship could work. From there, we focus on their objectives and our strengths. We certainly put our team in a position to communicate their experience and recommendations – we want the team to be tested. We present the account team – not a cloak of senior advisors that’ll drift away over time. By exposing the team, the client is in a better position to appreciate our strengths and make a decision.

Currently, Voce has two offices. Do you see Voce as one day being the next Ruder Finn or Edelman, growing into a national or international presence?

We are shooting a bit higher than yet. We’d like to take down Omnicom or IPG. I’m kidding…We are looking at new markets to establish a presence and some of those markets are oversees. My vote is for an Olive Oil PR office on Italy’s Amalfi Coast but I haven’t found the right business model to pull it off – yet. We are committed to no more than 25-30 employees in one office. If we have enough business in a particular region to justify a larger team, we will start another office. We are fanatics about people and culture and believe that it can be lost in offices with more than 30 employees.

In what sense or instances do you feel that clients would be better served by a large, multinational firm?

Small to mid-size firms will have a tough time with companies that have limited internal resources and limitless egos. Internal folks with limited experience may gravitate toward a large firm – to find a false sense of security. It’s similar to what some of our technology clients face – “Nobody ever got fired for buying Cisco or IBM.” Savvy PR professionals will evaluate agencies with a set of criteria that tests small, medium and large firms on their level of counsel.

In what types of accounts do you think that boutique firms are better suited for?

I’m painting with a broad brush here, but typically, internal folks who have experienced diverse PR relationships – in house teams, agencies, contractors – will appreciate the fact that they are hiring counsel and experience that can be found at a variety of firms. The key is equal opportunity.

How has the request for international (or region specific, i.e. Asia, Europe) affected your firm's odds of receiving an RFP?

We have relationships with the best firms in each of the top international regions. In many cases we have helped our clients conduct the RFPs in those regions. We thrive on the request for regional specific programs and our experience in this area has kept the pipeline full of prospects.

If you have global capabilities, how do you market that? Or are you content in working within only the North American market?

Our global capabilities are based on a network of experts in the top international markets. We work with these folks daily and often serve as the North American point of contact for our clients. International programs are exciting and teach PR consultants important lessons about how to spin messages to serve a specific culture or region. Over time, we plan to have our own presence in some of these regions but we will always have a network of experts to best serve our clients.

Do you have any closing thoughts for the readers on your views on the state of public relations?

I think PR people have to be optimists. I’m certainly a glass is half-full type when it comes to PR and I’m inclined to say that the PR industry (read: the technology PR industry) looks great. New companies are being funded with the promise of exciting new technology. That also forces the established players to become more agile and focus on innovation. These are all good indicators for PR. Raising it up a notch, we do believe the PR model is changing. We must gravitate toward a consultant model. I don’t mean that everyone should venture out and become a lone practitioner. The focus is on counsel and expertise. The trick for the industry is that counsel and expertise is the result of hard work and dedication to the profession. It requires us to be “students” of the profession. Learning from one another and taking the best ideas, experiences and tactics to elevate the profession as a whole. This is the path we walk with a focus on the journey and not the destination.

JONATHAN ZALESKI, THE PR COLLECTIVE
The PR Collective is a national public relations company based in Santa Monica, California, with 40 Affiliate offices comprised of boutique agencies. The innovative company can connect clients with the best matched executive for their communications needs or create a centrally-coordinated team of communications experts handpicked from multiple offices. The PR Collective crafts and implements expert public relations campaigns for clients in all industries. The company's president, Jonathan Zaleski, is a PR veteran and former Director at Weber Shandwick's Rogers & Cowan.

With the current state of public relations – with purchasing departments coming into the equation, influencing the agency choice – how does the PR Collective position itself and its costs to the client?

Boutique agencies are small businesses and few entities on the economic landscape are more cost conscious that small businesses. I am always happy to point out the our Affiliate offices are run by publicists who are also entrepreneurs. They know about keeping costs down and understand that every dollar spent as on PR was hard earned by the client. It is our mission to control costs as much as possible without impinging on the effectiveness of the outreach.

On a more obvious level, boutique agencies operate with way less overhead. This makes it that much easier to avoid having to keep retainer fees high to support overhead and other costs completely unrelated to the outreach.

How is your agency able to qualm fears of your small size, limited localities to prospective clients?

The PR Collective has a unique business model that negates these fears. Since we are a centrally coordinated network of hand-picked boutique agencies located all over the country, we can build a team of any size and can craft an outreach targeting a single region or the entire country. We can also combine areas of expertise to handle companies with even the broadest focus.

Are corporations demanding more return on their public relations dollars? Are you seeing a push for less money, but more results?

The phrase I hear most often from potential clients is something along the lines of "we are idea rich but cash poor." These companies want more results from all dollars they spend whether it is for PR or not. With a rough economy, increased competition and scars still showing from the dot-com crash, every expenditure can be a make or break decision.

According to a recent article in the Economist, advertising budgets are being shifted away from advertising to public relations, and other “below-the-line” efforts. Have you seen your clients transfer budgets away from advertising into public relations?

Not only have we seen budgets in established companies move away from advertising, we are seeing start-ups passing up advertising and going straight to PR. Advertising has become so pervasive that the amount of money to make a dent with an ad campaign can be crippling.

We received a call the other day from a company that had been manufacturing designer clothes for years for other labels, and now was interested in launching their own label. They were quoted $880,000 for the first year by an ad agency. After that they simply crossed advertising off their list and turned to PR. Just about any PR agency would gladly get results for small portion of that. Public relations, when executed properly, is just too cost effective to not be considered an option.

The industry seems to be moving away from strict press relations to more integrated relations, with guerilla marketing, event marketing, and community relations. How is the PR Collective nimble enough to handle the new demands from clients?

Many of our Affiliates go beyond PR to be "marketing communications" agencies that can also build websites, create and implement direct marketing campaigns, handle events, and create advertising. The best part about this approach is that the client's message is integrated literally into all of their communications with the public. There is no interference or mixed messages to worry about.

One of the complaints against boutiques is that low-level taskwork is being performed by senior level people, using precious account time. How do boutiques address such an issue?

When I was in the large agency environment, I was expected to hold down six or more clients myself to help contribute to the overhead. Most boutique agencies can pull the same profit from three accounts. So if you were a company, how would you prefer your PR rep to be dividing their time? I would prefer mine was working on only two other accounts and taking a few hours a week to handle some administrative tasks as opposed to fighting with five other accounts for attention.

Plus I believe the best executives are the ones who participate in an account down to the nitty gritty details. The same person should be developing your message points, building your press kit, selecting your target media, crafting the pitch, writing your releases and bringing it to the media. That is the boutique approach in a nutshell. In larger companies, the person working on your account is often not the same senior executive you met with during the pitch. In a boutique you meet with the person who will be on the front lines with you, and you have constant access to them through the length of your outreach.

I hope not. A big word on the business landscape used to be "corporate culture." It was often applied to large companies but it exists in small companies too. In a small PR shop, corporate culture is a creative essence that gives the firm its character and fuels unique and effective approached to getting the word out on behalf of their clients. Getting gobbled up by a larger company, no matter how well intentioned, is going to trample some flowers in the garden. Small agencies come from a completely different mindset..one that rarely meshes well with the overhead-driven mindset of large PR entities. It is for that reason that we coordinate our Affiliate Offices, but we do not mettle with their formulas.

When pitching against a boutique / large agency, how do you position the company as better-suited to serve the client’s interests?

The PR Collective's business model, and approach to PR, is a blending of boutique and large agency boutique We really did stumble onto the perfect formula that is flexible enough to bring the creative pizzazz and small client fees of a smaller shop but with the resources and reach of a large conglomerate.

Currently, the PR Collective has a group of approximately 40 offices. Do you see the Collective as one day being the next Ruder Finn or Edelman, growing into a national or international presence?

The PR Collective already has a national presence. We have gaps in some of the less populated states that we are planning on filling over the next 12 months or so. However, we feel that somewhere around 80 Affiliates is the most we would want domestically. This is a comfortable number that allows us to cover all markets and all industries without having to push up our administrative costs or lose touch with our executives in the field. This is how we differ from a standard agency network. We all really do keep in touch with each other and the central office.

Synergy is not a buzzword over here, but a promise fulfilled. When a client calls and says they need some PR support for an educational product with an adventure angle, I know one of my two Connecticut Affiliate Offices is headed up by a pro who not only specializes in educational PR, but also is an explorer at heart who has traveled the world. He is a perfect match, but would I have known that if I was tracking 150 offices at once?

On the international side, we do plan on developing an International component of The PR Collective, but we are more focused on developing our domestic strategy and services first before we look in that direction. We would want a dedicated staff working with those Affiliates, so we again could develop strong relationships with our executives to best apply those resources to the right clients.

In what sense or instances do you feel that clients would be better served by a large, multinational firm?

If a company needs an outreach that truly requires different approaches in different countries, then a large multinational firm MAY be the way to go. However I would warn companies not to be lured in by overhyped promises of synergy between the PR agencies' various offices. Is the account being overseen by someone who has directly coordinated the offices in the various countries the potential client operates in? Maybe, but probably not. What these clients are paying for is the local cultural knowledge each office can apply to crafting a campaign in their home country, but the value really comes if someone who has a strong understanding of all pieces of the puzzle is bringing it all together into a cohesive cost-effective strategy.

In what types of accounts do you think that boutique firms are better suited for?

I think small to midsized companies in growth positions are best suited for boutique agencies because the mindset of the agency and client are usually the same. These type of companies also are stretched thin and are not often very sure exactly what they need from their PR company. They can really benefit from the self-starting approach that boutique agencies bring to the mix.

In a way, you have started a collective to mirror the conglomerates reach with the skill-set of boutiques. How do you ensure the PR Collective clients that the quality of work stays the same across the board?

We provide consistant service by centrally coordinating the accounts. When we build a Collective Team, the central office stays on board to administrate or participate in the team. This not only ensures a cohesive strategy, but also facilitates communications with the client by providing a senior executive as a point person who is involved and available.

Also, we built The PR Collective by gathering up some superb boutique PR shops then providing them access to resources that make them even stronger. Not any boutique agency can be an Affiliate. We limit the number of Affiliate Offices we have so we make sure we bring only strong PR talent into The PR Collective.

How has the request for international (or region specific, i.e. Asia, Europe) affected your firm's odds of receiving an RFP?

Until we expand into international markets we are not interested in receiving these types of RFPs. There is enough business to go around here domestically. Despite what you see in FedEx commercials, not every company has to target the entire world to be successful. A chain of restaurants in the northeast does not need to be big in Croatia. We do not feel the need to over extend ourselves or go after accounts we are not a strong candidate to perform well for.

Do you have any closing thoughts for the readers on your views on the state of public relations?

I believe that PR companies really have to look at what they are promising their clients, and start sorting out what is rhetoric and what is reality. It is a very competitive environment and agencies almost have to overpromise results in order to land a client these days. This is a dangerous practice that can sour the way the business community views our industry in a very short period of time. If a client has an aspect or strategy to their business that is going to make the PR effort difficult to sell the press, I would like to see agencies point out those challenges and suggest how the client can change that aspect to be more media friendly instead of promising them the world. It demonstrates that the agency cares more about seeing the outreach and the business succeed as opposed to juicing them for the length of the contract then moving on when the client is unsatisfied. A stronger company is a stronger client. This appraoch benefits the client, the agency, and our industry.

BEN SILVERMAN, PR FUEL / FINDPROFIT.COM
Silverman is a Contributing Editor for FindProfit.com, an investment research firm. He also handles public/media relations for the company. In his spare time, he writes PR Fuel, a weekly email newsletter aimed at public relations professional and PRFuel.com, a weblog covering PR-related topics. These are both products of eReleases.com, a press release distribution service. Previously, Silverman was a business news columnist for The New York Post and the publisher of DotcomScoop.com, an independent business news service. Prior to this, he was an executive at two privately-held online media and technology companies and he spent about five years working in the music business as an artist manager, independent record label owner and consultant for major recording labels.

You have worked as a reporter at the NY Post, as a Web journalist with Dotcomscoop.com, and now are working internal PR and as a columnist for FindProfit.com and have dealt with many PR people. When working with the large agency versus the boutique, which practitioners did you feel provided better access and help for you?

I've always felt more comfortable dealing with boutique agencies for one simple reason; I feel that the people at boutiques are more involved with the client and have a better understanding of the needs of the client. By and large, my dealings with boutiques were much smoother than my dealings with large agencies. I felt the boutiques offered better and faster access to client sources, information and material. When it came to writing about a company that employed a large agency, I always tried to side-step the agency and deal directly with someone at the company. If a company employed a boutique agency, I had no qualms about going through the outside PR firm to help accomplish my task.

What accounts and situations do you feel are better suited for a boutique? For a large multinational agency?

I think multinational agencies are obviously appropriate for multinational companies such as Microsoft and General Electric. For small companies, obviously a boutique is the way to go. A boutique will generally be more cost-effective and a small business does not have to compete with larger companies for the time and resources of the agency. I've found that large companies often employ boutique agencies for special products, certain units or simply specific public relations campaign. I think this is effective and is a good way to break up the staleness that comes from large agencies. There will be times when a company simply needs the power of a large agency - be it resources, "muscle," or contacts - but by and large, I see no reason why a well-staffed boutique agency couldn't be able to handle all but the largest accounts.

With that said, I think it's also important for all companies, once they reach a certain scale, to have in-house public relations people who can work with outside agencies to maximize the total PR effort.

During the technology boom, the industry saw the large conglomerates either start boutique shops or buy them - such examples are PR21, Red Whistle, Simon/McGarry. Do we see that trend returning, with more skilled and targeted teams able to provide more counsel and work for clients? Will we see the boutiques being acquired by the large agencies?

I'll be honest, I'm not that familiar with the consolidation trends that have taken place in the PR industry. However, I do believe that if the economy can reach a point of sustained recovery, that we will see consolidation across most industries. I do know that a lot of good PR firms have been ruined after being acquired. This is just a fact of businesslife when a larger company acquires a smaller company that has established itself as a niche player. My hope is that, like with the tech boom, people have learned their lesson and realize that if you're going to acquire a company to help your top- or bottomline, you'll take advantage of the inherent strengths of that company.

Are you seeing an improvement in the overall state of public relations?

The improvement I've seen from the industry has come through the eyes of a former journalist, so you'll have to take what I say with a grain of salt. But I did notice a somewhat quiet shift over the past few years in the industry and I've wondered if it had to the with the weak economy weeding out some people who simply should not be working in the industry. I should note that I feel this has also taken place in the media and many other industries and I certainly don't mean to say that anyone who has lost a job deserved to do so. Nonetheless, I think the public relations industry improves everyday because of new communication channels and more public scrutiny of the industry.

Events like The Global PR Week Blog are very important because they bring PR professionals together via a learning experience - and it's one that can extend to the general public. I think more improvement will come in the industry through two things: better training and a better understand within the business community of the role that public relations can and should play for a business.

Do you have any closing thoughts for the readers on your views on the state of public relations?

There are a lot of unfortunate misperceptions about public relations, the role of public relations and the media, and, public relations professionals in general. The media has, obviously, had a hand in perpetrating these misperceptions, but the industry itself hasn't helped much. I think most people equate public relations professionals to publicists, and we know there's a huge difference between the two. I think the focus on the industry now should be in coming up with better ways to quantify the work that public relations professionals do and working with the other cogs in the business machine so there's a clear understanding of the need for public relations beyond "getting some ink."

Oh, and if you still have me on your media list, please remove me.

LINDSAY OLSON, PARADIGM STAFFING
Paradigm Staffing Solutions was founded in 2001 to service the Public Relations and Marketing industries nationwide. Paradigm Staffing Solutions currently operates offices in California and New York City. Lindsay Olson is Founder and Executive Search Consultant and has been recruiting in the public relations and marketing industry since 1997. She currently manages the New York office and business development efforts nationwide. Jolie Downs, Director of Recruiting Services, manages our Bay area office and supports the search efforts for all of our customers requirements. Both Lindsay and Jolie are award winning executive recruiters who have been recognized in the top 25 executive recruiters in United States in a MRI network of over 1000 offices.

What accounts and situations do you feel are better suited for a boutique? For a large multinational agency?

We typically see the boutique agencies better suited to service and retain the smaller early stage startup and public companies. Not to say they don't service larger accounts well, but generally it seems earlier stage companies are more satisfied with the level of service and coverage that a boutique agency can provide. A boutique agency also seems to have less employee turnover allowing the client to build a long-term relationship with the account team members.

In business, conglomerates will always swallow smaller firms to acquire clients, skilled team members, more market share, etc. - however, there is a place for boutiques in the PR field, especially when it comes to the intimate attention a client may need.

During your recruiting efforts, do you see a preference from your placements to be either at a boutique or at a large multinational? Or, a large-sized independent?

In the current market, a large sized independent seems to be preferred. Between a boutique and large multinational it truly varies from candidate to candidate in what specifically they are looking for in their next position. With the downturn of the tech boom more people are concerned with the environment and candidates choosing the boutique route are generally more concerned about their day to day environment, working with less bureaucracy, more autonomy, and a wider variety of responsibilities. Candidates looking to build their resume and gain international exposure with Fortune 100 accounts tend to market themselves to the large multinational conglomerates. Preference is individual.

Does your agency get most of its work from the independent shops?

Yes, independent shops tend to retain our services more often, especially recently. A current client with a very small office in the Bay area recently mentioned how before using us to fill their Sr. Account Executive role, they were losing a majority of the candidates for this position on offers to the larger firms. I attribute this to the difference between interviewing and hiring passive candidates vs. active candidates. Passive candidates are not actively seeking employment, responding to the newest job advertisement, or shopping themselves around. They are only open to making a change when approached with the right opportunity. Sourcing these candidates and matching with the right company typically takes a recruiters touch.

Are you seeing an improvement in the overall state of public relations?
Absolutely. Agency and corporate opportunities are steadily on the rise. 2004 has been the busiest year we've had since late 2001.

Closing thoughts: As the founder of my own boutique, POP! Public Relations, I have an interesting seat to view all that is going on. The firm is located in a non-traditional PR city, I have worked at the large multinational, the boutique and in-house, and I have seen both the positives and negatives of all three. With the recent news of Fleishman Hillard in the Los Angeles Times on overbilling, and then the Los Angeles Daily News about the impending fraud lawsuit, our industry really needs to make the right decision for the future of our profession.

By providing the best possible public relations strategy and then execution (whether the boutique, the conglomerate or the independent), we can only hope that we prove our worth to a corporate world that just doesn't get public relations.

NB: if you are not registered with any of the news sites within the article, visit BugMeNot.

Author: Jeremy Pepper | Jul 16, 04 | Permalink | 3 comments
Category: @ Jeremy Pepper | Topic 5 State of PR Profession

Dynamic Communications and the case for speeding adoption of technology in PR

Since the Internet is becoming the default news source for millions, that means we, as communicators, increasingly need the ability to easily create, manage, distribute, and measure our messages in order to contribute directly, without intermediaries, to building, influencing and perhaps controlling our reputation - or our clients’ reputations - online.

Hence, all the interest here in blogs and Internet PR Tools. But as an industry, many people in PR are still behind the times in their use of technology to support their objectives.

Many practitioners still fax or even mail press materials. Of course, in certain cases this can’t be avoided. True - blogs and Internet-based PR tools do not serve every objective. But they are valuable in many cases. In fact, as others have mentioned this week this evolution is potentially reshaping the communications landscape. On a more practical level, appropriately applied technology has the potential to help us become more efficient, productive and effective PR practitioners.

I was quoted (apologies for the self-promotion - it's just a good example) in a recent issue of PRWEEK (log in required – sorry) in response to the question, “Can an Internet Pressroom increase my agency’s revenue per employee?”, in which I replied;

“The web can be used not just to provide access to press materials, publicity stills, VNRs, and b-roll on both a controlled and self-service basis, but also to facilitate distribution, build communities, manage blogs, and register and credential press contacts. You can even track the results.

“Consider the amount of billable time your employees spend responding to incoming requests for information manually via email. How many hours a day per employee do you think you could free up if you could automate the administrative side of PR campaign management?”

Of course I realize I may be “preaching to the choir” here, but I wrote the following article in order to attempt to educate and encourage those practitioners that are not fully taking advantage of the tools that are available today. It is my hope that all of us on the forefront of Internet PR will continue to evangelize the benefits of communicating online – what I call dynamic communications. Hence my question to the industry and communicators everywhere:

Are You Communicating Dynamically?

It took only a few years for the Internet to fundamentally change the way we communicate, and marketers have learned to take advantage of this new medium by creating innovative ways to reach their audiences; from banner ads and interactive pop-ups to talking email messages. But corporate communicators, for the most part, have not. With all the choices for news and information, it’s harder and harder to cut through the noise of the competition, keep audiences engaged and influence them to move in the right direction.

Static vs. dynamic communication:

Typically, the places on the Internet that draw the most visitors are always changing their content – weekly, daily, or even hourly. That content is dynamic, not static. The fresh, often personalized, information continually engages us and makes us want to return. Think of the Internet as a dynamic communications tool that gives us the ability to target, focus, and change our messages constantly in order to influence diverse sets of audiences. But too often online communications remain static, unchanged, and even out-of-date. Consider the benefits of dynamic communications:

Dynamic communications build credibility.

Think about the sources you trust and why you trust them. You’ll probably find some common themes: frequently updated content; comprehensive information; noted sources; clean, simple navigation; information in a variety of formats (photos, video, audio, PDFs, etc.); targeted, even personalized, content, all peppered with easy-to-use feedback and response mechanisms, such as registration forms and surveys.

This constantly evolving content, displayed in engaging formats using methods that fully exploit the Internet’s audio/visual capabilities, tells audiences that what they are viewing is new, it’s current, it’s credible. Note that most Reuters stories aggregated on Yahoo! for example, always have a date and a time and some even say, “2 hours and 8 minutes ago”. A simple notation tells us that this is the latest news; it’s up-to-date; it’s current; it’s credible.

Dynamic communications influences action.

Dynamic communications enables us to provide the content that will engage our audiences and encourage them to act. If our audiences don’t invest in our firm, write an article about us, buy more products or services, or do anything else we want them to do, then we haven’t done our job.

Journalists, as most of us know, have very specific requirements for the content they use. Their ability or inability to get the information they need affects the way they will write a story and usually determines whether or not they will write one at all.

The latest Neilson Norman Group study on, “Designing Websites to Maximize Press Relations” states, “If journalists cannot find what they are looking for on a website, they may exclude or limit information about that company in the story. According to our users, some test sites were so unusable that the journalists would have given the companies little or no press coverage.”

Ecast, Inc. is a San Francisco firm that runs a network of almost 2000 coin-operated, broadband-enabled digital downloading jukeboxes in North America. The company has seen its media coverage spike, according to Bob Cooney, V.P. of Marketing, since it began using a dynamic content management system for its Internet pressroom. (Read the Case Study for More)

In order to interest journalists in your company, you must provide them with more than just a press release. Consider creating a “speakers’ bureau” staffed by experts in various subjects within your organization, or perhaps a “hot topics,” “story ideas,” “trends” or “statistics” section to offer journalists ideas for stories that will pique their interest and make their job easier. When you become a better resource for factual, relevant and up-to-date information, you are more likely to get media coverage for your firm.

Some guidelines:

Look beyond the text

Dynamic communications should go beyond mere text. As communicators we usually have a variety of audiences that we need to reach. Even when the communication is internal to our organization we are usually addressing different types of employees and executives. Are we delivering our message in a format that will interest all of them? Some people respond to images, others to audio, still others to audio and video, or audio and text. Unless it’s really fresh, text alone is often not enough. How many times has a journalist asked you if you had any art to provide along with your release?

Avoid Dependence on IT

In order to keep your key audiences engaged, you need to keep your content alive – and you need to be able to do it easily from anywhere, at any time – without relying on a team of developers.

Learn From Savvy Communicators

There are many tools at our disposal, among them e-mail, eNewsletters and even interactive online press kits. Blogs (or web logs) have become a hot topic of late (though they have been around for some years) – mostly due to their effective use by U.S. politicians in the current presidential campaign. Former U.S. presidential candidate Howard Dean launched the trend by using a blog to shape his image and keep in daily touch with his supporters.

In a February, 2004, Wall Street Journal article titled, “Blogs Have Become Part Of The Media Machine That Shapes Politics,” (requires log in and payment – sorry) columnist Lee Gomes wrote, “These blogs are becoming an alternative-news universe, giving everyone with a PC and a Web connection access to the sorts of gossip that was once available only to reporters on the press bus.”

Don’t Forget the Power of the Moving Image

Multimedia tools are also effective. There are a number of firms which offer online conferencing and “webcasts” that enable communicators to make presentations with audio, and sometimes video, and even allow white-boarding (for drawing onscreen) with live online chat features. Many public companies use these tools to announce their quarterly earnings. Private companies should consider using similar multimedia to deliver their messages. Streaming media (video or audio on demand) is an effective and low cost tool that can be employed to display B-roll (company or product footage available for journalists), pitch a video news release, feature a spokesperson, communicate with employees, or educate partners and affiliates.

Leverage the Expertise of Your Peers

Use tools that have been built specifically for marketing and communications professionals employing “best practices” – based on experiences with leading corporations. Make sure you have the ability to create content-rich communications vehicles that include photos, video, and even audio, and link those to response and measurement mechanisms.

Avoid Maintaining Your Own Hardware

Look for services and software that can be delivered on demand – when you need them – over the Internet. No software to install. No long ramp-up times. Pay as you use. Look for a provider whose service can expand or contract according to your needs. Think about what makes sense for your organization and quantify the value and potential cost-savings by leveraging someone else’s existing assets.

Finally - Tap the Potential, Reap the Benefits

The Internet is no longer in its infancy – yet its potential is still highly underutilized. Take a step back and assess your current position. Follow the examples set by other savvy communicators and determine your goals (and your clients' goals) by considering the benefits, in terms of productivity and results that a truly dynamic communications platform can deliver to you and your organization.

Blogs are just one component in the overall mix of communications vehicles. They may make sense for your needs, they may not – either way, you can still blog for fun :)

Author: Chris Bechtel | Jul 16, 04 | Permalink | 0 comments
Category: @ Chris Bechtel | Topic 5 State of PR Profession

On the use of puppets

It was encouraging to read about transparency, public relations ethics and the insidiousness of spin at various points of this PR Blog Week. On this forum as in others, public relations professionals are trying to get the industry moving toward new paradigms and values.

The calls for change are coming not a moment too soon.

Ninety years after Ivy Lee was labelled a “professional liar” for saving the Rockefeller’s reputation following the Ludlow Massacre, public relations professionals are still being seen as one of the less trustworthy categories of human beings. The fact that famous entertainers and talk radio hosts score even lower on the Public relation Society of America’s National Credibility Index does little to make our 42nd (on 44!) place look better.

So after the first century of modern PR, our clients and employers recognize us as valuable members of the team, but the public thinks we’re despicable liars. How about starting the second century with a little public awareness campaign to correct public perceptions and clean up our image a little, as some proposed in other forums? Wouldn’t that improve our professional prospects, or at least our social life?

Perhaps, but we have to clean up our act a little if that fragile veneer of respectability is to stick. If not, we’ll have to continue avoiding the words “public relations” when future in-laws ask: “So, what it is that you do?”

The ever-present “spin”, mostly the look-at-the-bright-side variety, is probably what most people would complain about. As Jim Horton mentioned earlier this week, there’s “too damn much of it.” Cutting down on spin won’t be easy though, in part because the line between “a good pitch” and a bad spin can be tricky at times, and being recognized as a good spin doctor is a point of pride in some sectors of the profession.

I’m actually more concerned with the increasing awareness among the public that PR operations make massive use of seemingly independent groups or experts to bolster the credibility of dubious claims. The practice of putting together front groups as part of “astroturf” campaigns and buying the services of researchers with scientific credentials is now so widespread that it’s entirely possible most people interviewed as experts by the media are being fed their lines by a major PR firm.

Fairly few PR outfits and departments can summon the resources and ruthlessness necessary to use these tactics, but they’re having a large impact. On a global level, examples include climate change issues, genetically altered foods and foreign policy.

If they are allowed to continue, these practices might have lasting negative effects on academics and legitimate NGOs when large segments of the public realize the media makes little efforts to separate independent voices from PR puppets. Part of the blame will be placed at the door of some of the world’s largest communications firms, especially those that associate themselves with a controversial message for a long period. When people get sick, or global temperatures rise, or the earth doesn’t stop turning, inquiries will be made to learn why so many experts said were so sure about something that turned out being false. In some cases, the link between the faulty message, PR firms and their clients will be easy to follow.

Something to keep in mind in the ongoing discussions on establishing standards for public relations.

Note: I’m not involved in any way in the issues mentioned as examples, in case anyone’s wondering.

Author: Montag | Jul 16, 04 | Permalink | 1 comments
Category: @ Montag | Topic 5 State of PR Profession

PR: our role of facilitating the learning

Public Relations: Our role of facilitating the learning process inside the organizations

When finding us with new forms to be and to make organizations, it is imperative for us, professional and directors of corporative communication, to facilitate and to lead learning processes to find the keys that open the door of the success shared in the implementation of innovating practices in communication.

This affirmation receives sense when we interpreted to the organization like a network of conversations, and operating from the thesis that maintains that to the capacity and quality of the communications that arise from the organization towards the fan his stakeholders, define what it is possible to him to reach in terms, as much of economic growth, as of maximization of assets nonfinanciers.

The following article was conceived to be published within the frame of Global PR Blog Week, therefore, the content of the same one puts to consideration questions critics, from of the professional scope of Public Relations like coach within the new paradigm that supposes the tool.

The Blog Company

At the time of implementing this very good idea that is the corporative Blog, is important to analyze the same one from a social system methodology: observing and identifying tactically important points to adopt this new practice of communication in the organizations.

I consider that from the privilege place that has a professional of public relations in the corporative communications link, it is imperative to be leader of the change and to orient efforts in two-way traffic strategic that requires in this novel form to open communication channels: the people and the processes. This means to create learning spaces, taking part in the networks of conversations of the organization, being responsible for the effective development in terms of the confidence and the commitments that are generated of the same ones.

The theories (in permanent transformation) and first experiences that we are observing in the corporative world, do not leave doubts on the benefits and attributes of this innovator practice, nevertheless is necessary to implement this type of tools, to review three important axes of management: the competitions and abilities of the organization, the model of business, and our capacity like communication directors to lead, to teach and to train to all the people involved in this tool.

Before developing this technology, many organizations must consider if their shared culture and mental models have the attributes and characteristics necessary to implement this modality successfully. Let us remember that this tool proposes a new paradigm in communication and at the moment is put in practice by organizations who orient their efforts, in greater or smaller measurement, to the innovation of its processes of business; but not all the organizations, are proactive and many have enormous and heavy chains to implement these changes.

Before taking weblogs within strategies of external communications, many organizations they need to be observed if same verifying if they are really prepared for the challenges of this transformation in the way to talk with his stakeholders. Of course this affirmation is a great call to the action to do of this, a fact before implementation.

The collective reflection is precise, to unite the flow of different opinions of managers, to visualize indeed blogs like an excellent opportunity to construct bridges golden with its public. This forces to think about this change from the interior towards the outside, is to say to orient the efforts to the internal transformation that the organization needs to take ahead this practices in her communications, this way to approach the idea system considering as I detail myself previously, the people and involved processes of business.

This can take to the corporative conclusion that the use of weblogs is an opportunity to develop and to train equipment under the participation directives, collaboration and takes independent from decisions to agglutinate sinergye in networks of conversations. This is an important mission for the new status of the professional public relations.

This technology is a great handle of action for the construction of an organization with participative and reflective conversations of its points of view and mental models, and from our roll of director of communications or external consultants, it is imperative to give direction him to obtain the multiplicity condition that on the flow of communications that this tool supposes in the virtual world. The capacities of leadership and the competitions of coaching to accompany this process in this aspect acquire a critical relevance.

Consequently, implement corporative blogs, as much for internal communications as external, requires much more that the same technology. I maintain that the ideas, the values and the imagination are the three components that make of the technology a competitive advantage and a value in if same. As anything it will serve the attempt to implement and to obtain the benefits of weblogs in an organization where sinergye equipment does not exist and low a vision that hangs of a pretty poster, but not this in the commitment of the people.

To operate from the own language of the organizations is a great departure point to take part in processes more intense than it requires the effective implementation of weblogs. It is important to remember that the value or competitive advantage of this tool does not make the technology, but well the commitment of the people who useit. The language besides to conform the own essence of the organization, conforms the own conversational competitions that limit or expand the possibilities and opportunities of growth of if same.

The Blog company demands to happen of a emotional of the fear, very present in the organizations, to a emotional of confidence, where its participants, by means of the opening of I engage in a dialog reflective, initiate the possibility of opening and of sharing different points of view towards the freedom to investigate, to engage in a dialog and to reflect the involved hypotheses of certainty of each person or equipment. It is important to put emphasis in the construction of a shared vision to specify the values, aims and speeches of identity of the organization in the reach of this tool.

It is therefore that it practices it of the modern Public Relations require to work with in convergence of different disciplines, among them I emphasize the competitions of coaching and the importance of thinking this tool from a “systemic perspective”.

Matias Fernandez (Argentina)

Author: Matias Fernandez | Jul 16, 04 | Permalink | 1 comments
Category: @ Matias Fernandez | Topic 5 State of PR Profession

RP: Su rol de Facilitar Aprendizajes

Relaciones Púlblicas: nuestro rol de facilitar procesos de aprendizaje en las organizaciones.

Al encontrarnos con nuevas formas de ser y hacer organizaciones, es imperativo para nosotros, profesionales y directores de comunicación corporativa, facilitar y liderar procesos de aprendizaje para encontrar las llaves que abren la puerta del éxito compartido en la implementación de prácticas en comunicación innovadoras.

Esta afirmación cobra sentido cuando interpretamos a la organización como una red de conversaciones, y operando desde la tesis que sostiene que la capacidad y calidad de las comunicaciones que surgen de la organización hacia el abanico sus stakeholders, definen lo que le es posible alcanzar en términos, tanto de crecimiento económico, como de maximización de activos no financieros.

El siguiente artículo fue concebido para ser publicado dentro del marco de Global PR Blog Week, por esta razón, el contenido del mismo pone a consideración cuestiones críticas, desde del ámbito profesional de Relaciones Públicas como facilitador de aprendizajes, dentro del nuevo paradigma que supone la herramienta.

La Empresa Blog

A la hora de implementar esta muy buena idea que es el Blog corporativo, es importante analizar la misma desde una metodología sistémica: observando e identificando puntos claves, para adoptar esta nueva práctica de comunicación en las organizaciones.

Considero que desde el lugar de privilegio que tiene un profesional de relaciones públicas en la dirección de las comunicaciones corporativas, es imperativo ser líder del cambio y orientar esfuerzos en dos direcciones estratégicas que requiere en esta novedosa forma de abrir canales de comunicación: las personas y los procesos. Esto significa crear espacios de aprendizaje, interviniendo en las redes de conversaciones de la organización, siendo responsables del desarrollo efectivo en términos de la confianza y los compromisos que se generan de las mismas.

Las teorías (en permanente transformación) y primeras experiencias que estamos observando en el mundo corporativo, no dejan dudas sobre los beneficios y atributos de esta innovadora practica, sin embargo es necesario para implementar este tipo de herramientas, revisar tres importantes ejes de gestión: las competencias y habilidades (implícitas/explicitas) de la organización, el modelo de negocio, y nuestra capacidad como directores de comunicación de liderar, enseñar y entrenar a todas las personas involucradas en esta herramienta.

Por esta razón, antes de desarrollar precipitadamente esta tecnología, muchas organizaciones tienen que plantearse si su cultura y modelos mentales compartidos tienen los atributos y características necesarias para implementar con éxito esta modalidad. Recordemos que esta herramienta propone un nuevo paradigma en comunicación y actualmente es puesta en práctica por organizaciones que orientan sus esfuerzos, en mayor o menor medida, a la innovación de sus procesos de negocio; pero no todas las organizaciones, son proactivas y muchas tienen enormes y pesadas cadenas para implementar estos cambios.

Antes de llevar weblogs dentro de estrategias de comunicaciones externas, muchas organizaciones necesitan observarse a si mismas para comprobar si realmente están preparadas para los desafíos de esta transformación en el modo de conversar con sus stakeholders. Por supuesto esta afirmación es una gran llamada a la acción para hacer de esta, un hecho antes de su implementación.

Es precisa la reflexión colectiva, unir el flujo de opiniones de distintos managers, para que efectivamente, se visualize en conjunto los weblogs como una excelente oportunidad de construir puentes dorados con sus públicos. Esto obliga pensar en este cambio desde el interior hacia el exterior, es decir orientar los esfuerzos a la transformación interna que necesita la organización para llevar adelante esta práctica en sus comunicaciones, de esta manera abordar sistemicamente la idea teniendo en cuenta como se detallo anteriormente, las personas y procesos de negocio involucrados.

Esto nos puede llevar a la conclusión de que el uso de weblogs corporativos es una oportunidad para desarrollar y entrenar equipos bajo las directrices de participación, colaboración y toma autónoma de decisiones para aglutinar sinergias en redes de conversaciones. Esta es una importante misión para el nuevo rol del profesional de relaciones públicas

Esta tecnología es una gran palanca de acción para la construcción de una organización con conversaciones participativas y reflexivas de sus puntos de vista y modelos mentales, y desde nuestro rol de director de comunicaciones o consultores externos, es imperativo darle dirección para lograr la condición heterarquica sobre el flujo de comunicaciones que esta herramienta supone en el mundo virtual. Las capacidades de liderazgo y las competencias de coaching para acompañar este proceso en este aspecto adquieren una relevancia crítica.

En consecuencia, implementar blogs corporativos tanto para comunicaciones internas como externas requiere mucho más que la misma tecnología. Sostengo que las ideas, los valores y la imaginación son los tres componentes que hacen de la tecnología una ventaja competitiva y un valor en si misma. De nada servirá el intento de implementar y obtener los beneficios de los weblogs en una organización donde no existen equipos sinérgicos y bajo una visión que cuelga de un bonito cartel, pero no esta en el corazon de las personas.

Operar desde el lenguaje propio de las organizaciones es un gran punto de partida para intervenir en procesos más intensos que requiere la implementación efectiva de los weblogs. Es importante recordar que el valor o ventaja competitiva de esta herramienta no la hace la tecnología, sino mas bien el compromiso de las personas que la utilizan. El lenguaje además de conformar la propia esencia de la organización, conforma las propias competencias conversacionales que limitan o expanden las posibilidades y oportunidades de crecimiento de si misma.

La empresa Blog exige pasar de una emocionalidad del miedo, muy actual en las organizaciones, a una emocionalidad de confianza, donde sus participantes, mediante la apertura de un dialogo reflexivo, inician la posibilidad de abrir y compartir distintos puntos de vista hacia la libertad de indagar, dialogar y reflexionar las hipótesis de certidumbre de cada persona o equipos involucrados. Es importante poner énfasis en la construcción de una visión compartida para explicitar los valores, fines y discursos de identidad de la organización en el alcance de esta herramienta.

Es por esta razón que la practica de las modernas Relaciones Públicas requieren trabajar con en convergencia de distintas disciplinas, entre ellas destaco las competencias de coaching y la importancia de pensar esta herramienta desde una perspectiva sistémica.

Matias Fernandez (Argentina)

Author: Matias Fernandez | Jul 16, 04 | Permalink | 0 comments
Category: @ Matias Fernandez | Topic 5 State of PR Profession

Tomorrow's PR Today

Where PR is Going and How to Make Sure You Get There First

To predict the future of PR it's first important to assess the forces that are shaping the media today:

1. The Internet is becoming the default news source for millions

People are turning not only to direct sources like CNN, The Drudge Report and targeted niche operations like BusinessKnowledgeSource.com; but to indirect news sources like Google News, Yahoo News, and Topix.net which aggregate news from other sources. Increasingly, people are choosing to view the stories (and frankly to get the entertainment) they choose to receive on their schedule, rather than reading a paper or watching / listening to news.

2. This trend has already and will increasingly cut into media revenues and profits

3. Media sources will make cuts in the news gathering and reporting process

4. Editors and reporters will be even more time-crunched and stressed than they are today (hard to imagine)

5. It will be harder for those seeking free publicity to get the attention they need and to generate the results they desire

6. Editors and reporters will increasingly turn to
a. sources that save them time
b. trusted sources that consistently generate powerful information, stories and leads

7. Media sources, with declining audiences and news resources will focus on
a. Preserving local audiences by localizing and personalizing national stories
b. Taking quality information provided by trusted sources and delivering it almost as is
c. Generating fresh stories that will draw the attention of local and possibly national audiences (local scandals, local business becoming big, local disasters, etc.)
d. Providing entertainment as part of the news process

Doesn't this list sound familiar? Isn't this exactly what's happening today? What's key to realize is that the Internet has increased the media's pain, accelerating this process to an even higher rate.

Given these changes, bright PR seekers will carefully consider their public relations tactics and change them to fit the trends.

Implications for PR practitioners:

1. Relationships are key

Gone are the days of achieving success by appearing on a reporter's radar screen twice a year when you've got some news. Now you need to be carefully creating and cultivating relationships with key media sources who have the interest and the power to run your stories.

This means that you need to constantly give what they really need - real news, stories, leads, impactful quotes, even if these don't build your business in any way. Think of it this way - who will a reporter turn to in question - the source that exclusively pitches their company, or the one who gives them a consistent set of great leads that turn into powerful stories, only occasionally pitching a story that involves his company?

2. You NEED an active, powerful, online presence

Reporters, producers and editors increasingly turn to the Internet for research, rather than the telephone or the directories of the past. You need an online media room; a powerful, frequently updated blog; and most importantly, a search engine presence so that media people will repeatedly encounter your name in their research.

He who has the best search engine presence and the most links, wins.

Isn't it interesting how the net has changed our world?

By the way, you can get those links both through natural search engine positioning and through buying pay per click advertising, (which can place you on the first page of the search engine listings.) At least 50% of the media calls I receive come from my pay per click advertising. For more information on how pay per click works, check out The Pay Per Click Money Machine

3. You should regularly produce excellent articles of journalistic quality

If a reporter with 5 stories on his docket stumbles upon your story that's just as good as he would write himself, he's likely to save his time and simply run your story. plus bookmarking your story archive for future story needs.

Create a schedule and system to create a never-ending series of articles.

A great way to do this is with tip sheets, quizzes and surveys - which not only make interesting reading, but great filler material for that last remaining 6 column inches of space.

4. You need to have your name and stories showing up consistently in GoogleNews and Yahoo! News

These tools have become powerful story archives and story generating sources for the media. You need to be included.

Unfortunately, doing so is tough, because both of these outlets carefully screen the news outlets they include. However, if you deliver great articles that carry bylines and get run by major and even local media, you too can have your stories showing up in these sources.

Google and Yahoo news can also be a source to identify journalists who cover your topic area, to generate news story ideas and to increase your targeted media relationships. Two articles that cover this in more detail are How To Use Google News To Get More PR and Competitive Drafting: Getting Effortless PR By Letting Your Competitors Do The Work!

5. Recognize the power of video and audio in helping media sources to choose to call you rather than your competition

Besides your writing, video and audio can be great tools to help expand your impact with the media. Journalists and producers want to know whether you'll be a good interview - let them see or hear you do it. Add video and audio clips to your site, add presentations that illustrate your story, and create video news releases where appropriate. Give them the tools to recognize you as the great information source that you truly are.

6. Learn to wisely use email to pitch stories

Email's both a powerful tool and a curse for the media. Most hate the huge amount of unwanted email (note - if you send a press release or even a story pitch to someone who doesn't want it, you've just spammed them - think about it, and make sure that you carefully target your emails) but most love the ease of obtaining and developing story pitches through email.

Email (and RSS, by the way) will be powerful tools in the future of PR. Learn to use it well by writing powerful subject lines, great lead sentences, pithy pitches, and leaving them wanting more. Hang something out there that sparks curiosity and forces them to contact you for closure. By learning these skills, you can turn email into one of your most powerful PR tools.

7. Learn to stand out

Journalists see hundreds, often thousands of pitches a day. What are you doing to stand out? How are you different than everyone else?

Different doesn't mean a box of pink feathers carefully cradling your latest media release, it means providing great leads and stories that are better than everyone else's.

Once again, content rules. Standing out does no good if your content (the quality, news or entertainment value of the story that you are pitching) is weak. When in doubt, create great content, that will always win.

One other factor to consider is the entertainment value of your pitches. How can you make your stories fun, funny, or thought-provoking. These won't always win, but definitely have a place in tomorrow's media world.

All of this involves work, and it certainly steps beyond the traditional press release blasts, phone pitching stories, and backslapping journalists. It takes recognition of change, ability to quickly learn and adopt new technologies, and a willingness to take risk.

But as you do so, you'll become that trusted source who not only makes the media's job easier, but who helps them to build their careers by giving them great news and entertaining pieces that gather them praise, awards and promotions.

So it's all up to you. Are you going to continue the old ways which are rapidly becoming dinosaurs, or are you going to make the mind- and skill-set changes that will make you a powerful public relations practitioner for the next decade?

Let me know your results!

Author: Don Crowther | Jul 16, 04 | Permalink | 1 comments
Category: @ Don Crowther | Topic 5 State of PR Profession

The Seth Godin Interview

Global PR Blog Week Day 5: The Seth Godin Interview

As PR Machine's producer, Robb Hecht, evangelizes the technological integration of blogs and RSS with brand advancement within the public relations practice, we were overjoyed during Global PR Blog Week 1.0 to get the opportunity to interview Seth Godin, former Yahoo! VP of Marketing, named "the Ultimate Entrepreneur for the Information Age" by Business Week and author of five best-selling marketing books including Free Prize Inside, Permission Marketing, Unleashing the Ideavirus, Big Red Fez, Survival is Not Enough and Purple Cow.

Given Godin's expertise in permission marketing and the online space (not particularly PR), PR Machine solicited Seth Godin, the famed marketing guru, to comment on the integration of blogging, branding and PR based on his blog posting dated June 19, 2004 entitled Brand Journalism.

QUESTIONS FOR SETH GODIN

PR MACHINE: Does the Seth Godin brand have any particular advice to the PR industry in terms of effectively and ethically using the Internet medium via blogging?

SETH GODIN: Two moms are talking. One mom says, "Oy vey! My son is going to become a lawyer! He's so smart and so good and I don't know where we went wrong." The other mother consoles her... "at least he's not going into PR."

The giant upheaval for marketers is that the 'channels' of media (newspaper, radio, TV, net) are exploding in number while simultaneously imploding in impact. As a result, a plug on Oprah or in the New York Times (the survivors) is priceless, while just about all the rest doesn't matter as much as it used to. So... blogging looks tempting. Blogging looks like an easy way to get ink, an easy way to get your message out there. Bloggers, after all, are amateurs, right.

The problem is that this medium is amateur at its best. Amateur which means that bloggers aren't bored, bloggers aren't lazy and bloggers aren't just trying to fill space. The traditional PR approach isn't going to work (at least for now). What works is bringing actual news and actual remarkable stuff to people who care.

PR MACHINE: McDonald’s vp of marketing, Larry Light, introduced a new marketing strategy which entails using many stories rather than employing one message to reach everyone. He called this new strategy “Brand Journalism.” How do you think this will affect McDonald’s public relations outreach and media management...will the company tell different stories to different media outlets if it wants?

SETH GODIN: I think the vision is just fine, IF McDonald's also changes the product. Spin isn't going to be enough. The challenge is going to be to make stuff worth talking about, and then giving the PR people the freedom to follow through.

PR MACHINE: You recently implied on your blog on June 19th, 2004 (Seth’s Blog) that marketers don’t really get to run the conversation that McDonald’s marketing vp, Larry Light, is inviting...via his term, “Brand Journalism,” because, as you said, “It’s not really brand journalism that’s happening…it’s Brand Cocktail Party! You get to set the table and invite the first batch of guests, but after that the conversation is going to happen with or without you.” If you say that the brand journalism conversation is going to happen with or "without you” don’t you think PR folks should attempt to manage it [the conversation] by continually staying involved with it (by interacting with it and perhaps attempting to proactively direct it)?

SETH GODIN: I think (but what do I know) that PR pros can add a huge amount of value by focusing on P, not R. By working with the company as the voice of the public, helping them understand how to make stuff worth talking about. Moving upstream ever closer to the core of the factory.

PR MACHINE: Do you believe that blogs pose a “threat of true interactivity” and that rapid online dialogue is challenging the power of corporate branding?

SETH GODIN: Blogs help formalize and record conversations, but they're not the whole conversation. I do believe that blogs make it harder than ever to snow the public.

PR MACHINE: Given your expert status in the online arena, and familiarity with online media measurement services, do you think PR will come to mirror the measurements of interactive marketing and online advertising by focusing more on ROI (e.g. each link and each piece of content that is moved in the blogosphere will be studied for its contribution to the overarching corporate brand goal of customer messaging, acquisition, lifetime value retention and reputation management)?

SETH GODIN: If you're [PR professionals] not using Technorati to watch what people are saying, I'm not sure you're [PR professionals] doing your job!

PR MACHINE: When PR people pitch yourself and media professionals, it certainly isn’t permission marketing (your mantra). What is your take on RSS feeds as the newfound ‘reach channel’ for PR professionals to use?

SETH GODIN: RSS is a huge step forward. It lets you talk (in an unfiltered, time effective way) to the people who want to hear from you. Imagine how much more effective you'd be if you had an RSS slot on the desktop of 100 or 1000 key influencers!

PR MACHINE: How will RSS feeds affect your argument for permission marketing? Do you believe that RSS feed are the ultimate form of permission marketing? How will the strategies you recommend to marketers change? Do you feel then that corporate America will fully adopt them for marketing purposes? Why or why not?

SETH GODIN: I don't know if it's the ultimate, but it's a lot better than email! If you [PR professionals] don't know what RSS is, go to Google and take a look. You need to be on top of this.

PR MACHINE: In Business Week’s article, "The Vanishing Mass Market" they wrote that "mass media is fragmenting at an accelerating rate" and that "a heterogeneous marketplace requires much more one-to-one communication, instead of one-to-many communication, like advertising." Do you think that blogging can be one of the ways PR meets this one-to-one communication need and do you think that blogging can be an effective PR tool? If so, how?

SETH GODIN: No, stop seeing it as a solution. It's a tactic that leads to an overhaul to what you do. If all you do is view this as a new way to do your old job, you will fail. Fail! I hope that the PR community doesn't wreck this medium, but I'm not optimistic.

PR MACHINE: In your view can brands benefit, as the Cluetrain Manifesto said, from the openness that blogs provide by tapping the credibility that comes through dialogue and honest conversation vs. the old black-boxed credibility of the “expert’?

SETH GODIN: Sure, if they don't manipulate it. Am I a broken record, yet? Imagine someone in high school trying to game the gossip networks, trying to "tap the credibility" of the jocks. What a failure that would be. The way to live in a community is to live there.

PR MACHINE: Are companies really prepared for their customers to talk back? And if they aren’t prepared, what will happen to their brands? Will those brands lose control and die? Or, do you think they will open up and address these “threats”?

SETH GODIN: Companies have no clue. They view customer feedback as a cost and a threat, not an opportunity.

PR MACHINE: Your views of email and online political advertising were well known back in 1999 and paved the way for people like Howard Dean. What was your opinion of Howard Dean’s approach to interactive marketing by blogging and email and how do you view John Kerry’s outreach in comparison?

SETH GODIN: I think Dean appeared to do so many things right. At many levels, though, the community picked him, not the other way around. Dean was smart enough not to stop it. He lost the election when his actual "product" didn't match the expectations the online early adopters had established for him. Not his fault... but he went much much farther than he would without it. I think this might be the last presidential election where the Kerry/Bush/Big politics money machine (half a billion dollars this time) is going to be the key to winning.

PR MACHINE: What do you think the impact of bloggers at the upcoming national political conventions (Republican vs. Democratic) will be?

SETH GODIN: Almost zero.

Author: Robb Hecht | Jul 16, 04 | Permalink | 4 comments
Category: @ Robb Hecht | Topic 5 State of PR Profession

The PR Lessons of A Clueless Blog Pitch

The majority of the PR industry continues to log behind in the blogosphere, seemingly unconvinced that the influential new medium is worth learning about. Those who are looking at blogs are also pitching them and, from what I've seen, their approach is disastrous. But not surprising. Sigh.

Here's a sample e-mail PR agency pitch, with names changed to protect the guilty, that a blogger associate of mine and I got the other day. It began:

Time to kick off with online advergame specialist [JoeBlow's] latest game for [phone company.] See if you can connect up and down field for a few TDs with QB [John Doe.]

It pointed to a URL where the game could be played and went on to give the usual formulaic PR detritus about the company. To its credit, it was short and it had no attachments.

However, this is exactly the kind of pitch traditional journalists complain about, so why, oh why, would bloggers, who tend to be snarky and often downright rude about PR, want to see this pitch?

Certainly, some bloggers fall for press releases and even gush about new products described in them. But influential bloggers are more likely to ridicule PR people than run their pitch. Mike Massick in TechDirt recently ran a headline that railed: Sneaky PR People Discover Blogs." You think he likes PR people?

Bloggers are ripe for pitching
Lest publicists think blogs are a mere blip in the PR landscape, consider this: There are a growing number of influential blogs that have a huge number of readers (Boing Boing, for example, has in excess of 350,000 unique readers per month) and offer many opportunities for promoting clients.

Like any other journalists, bloggers need to attract readers. Because writing about anything on a daily basis is actually a lot of work, many blogs have faded away. But some writers bloomed and eventually turned their blogs into a lively form of journalism that continues to evolve.

Bloggers delight in scooping traditional media outlets with news, rumors and opinions. PR people have the opportunity to become sources, but not by spewing out the same kind of tired pitches they been sending to traditional media for years. Examples of bloggers making fun of PR pitches abound, so beware of your clueless pitch backfiring.

Original reporting in blogs is still fairly rare, because most bloggers comment on other bloggers' posts and items in traditional media. But many bloggers are experts in their disciplines and bring perspective from the trenches of business, law, education, programming, design and other fields that traditional journalists observe rather than practice.

They don't want to be blasted with press releases. Show me a blogger (or a traditional journalist) who swears he/she never reads press releases or PR pitches and I'll show you one who's lying. So it's worth your while to learn to pitch bloggers who are often closely followed by traditional journalists and opinion leaders alike.

The much-blogged-about case of the Dr. Pepper "Raging Cow" campaign (What's Next Online Issue 83) is another example of a PR firm that blew its pitch to bloggers by being overly commercial, is one of many that has bloggers tittering about the cluelessness of PR people.

Tips for effective PR pitching
Pitching to bloggers (or any journalist!) requires a short, smart, striking e-mail. Nobody wants to get a pitch that everyone and his dog has also received. And no journalist wants to be sold.

Keys to a great pitch include:
• Address the blogger by his/her name, or just say "hi." Never say "dear editor" or "dear sir/madam" (honest, I get pitches addressed that way.)
• Don't tell anyone they "must" or "should" write a story or book a guest. Instead, explain why the topic is of interest and why this person an expert worth knowing. Don't be cute.
• Reporters and bloggers all follow headlines. Explain how the idea or person you are pitching ties into a current news item or a trend.
• Let the blogger know you've at least looked at the publication and see if you can find something to praise. For God's sake though, don't say "Loved your great post the other day" unless you read it and you mean it. People who look at dozens of releases and pitches a day can pick up on baloney faster than a hungry hound.
• Don't whine if you don't get coverage by saying you "can't believe" the blogger didn’t include, won't write about, haven't heard of XYZ company.
• Bloggers aim to provide a personal view of the news. They write in conversational style as an antidote to the canned news of traditional media. Why would you send a canned PR-speak pitch?
• Run your content through Bullfighter or similar software to be sure it is bullshit and jargon-free before you send it out.

Author: B.L. Ochman | Jul 16, 04 | Permalink | 4 comments
Category: @ B.L. Ochman | Topic 5 State of PR Profession

The State of PR - A Tale of Two Professions

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness . . . it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair . . . in short, the period was so far like the present period .”
Charles Dickens, Tale of Two Cities

Dickens could have been thinking about the current state of Public Relations when he penned those lines nearly 150 years ago. Public Relations is an industry with schizophrenic tendencies. On the one hand, PR has enjoyed a prolonged period of prosperity both in terms of fiscal growth and its transition from the periphery to become a pivotal component of the marketing discipline. In short, PR has succeeded in obtaining greater influence, value and awareness. But that’s not the whole story.

Public Relations is still widely misunderstood. The popular perception of PR is driven by high profile “practitioners” whose professional conduct often bears no resemblance to the daily working lives of most PR professionals. PR is also faced with a range of challenges from the significant changes taking place in how people receive and use information. While the traditional media and PR tools continue to play an important role, practitioners are faced with new technologies and new audiences that require new thinking and some brave decisions.

Public Relations in 2004 is indeed, a tale of two professions.

Any attempt to analyze the State of Public Relations is fraught with difficulty. The sheer diversity and scale of a profession that operates in every industry, in practically every country, language and culture, is acute and complex. When you factor in the diverse daily challenges facing agency and in-house practitioners, and the different issues faced by professionals in different PR disciplines from media relations to community relations, the disparate nature of the profession becomes even more acute – and any analysis more difficult.

While it’s tempting to look at well–established Public Relations industry metrics such as “Agency income” I will avoid it in this analysis. These measures do not, in my opinion, provide a qualitative analysis of the opportunities and threats facing Public Relations

Instead I propose to try and identify some common themes, which should be applicable to the majority of practitioners, regardless of their employment, location, language or industry. By focusing on these themes, I hope a better overall picture of the profession and its health, will emerge.

Public Relations – back to basics
So what are these common threads that hold our profession together?

At its most basic, I think we can define Public Relations as the effective management or practice of communication between an organization and its audience(s) via the most appropriate media whether that is going direct or via third parties such as the press.

If we can agree on that definition (and given I’m writing this alone we have!) then it seems to me that there are three common factors that apply to the majority of practitioners:

> Audience – The people who we try and communicate
> Tools – How we communicate with those people
> PR Professionals – How practitioners see the industry developing

The Audience

Let us begin with the sole reason for the existence of Public Relations. The audience.

Regardless of whether you market to senior business decision makers in the Fortune 100 or local residents beside a pharmaceutical plant, you can’t help but notice the significant behavioral changes taking place in how individuals and groups receive, search, share and digest the information they receive every day.

These changes can be categorized under a number of headings.

Information Overload
Our progress over the past few centuries has been staggering. When you think that it’s estimated that a single issue of a daily national newspaper today (maybe excluding USA Today!) contains more information than someone living in the seventeenth century would have seen in a lifetime, you begin to realize how much information we are now assimilating (and ignoring) on a daily basis.

The term “Information Overload” first appeared in common usage in 1985. People were concerned about all the information and noise they were faced with in a personal and professional capacity. Of course since then, the problems surrounding information glut have become far more acute. The number of marketing messages continues to grow each year and now we also have to content with websites, e-mail, cell phones, instant messaging, blogs, spam, text messages etc.

People’s response to this deluge of information has been to develop advanced filters - irrelevant information is often ignored. Effectively communicating with all this ambient noise requires that PR practitioners have a clear understanding of the desires and preferences of their audience. In summary, reaching people is getting harder. In the past, a story in a national newspaper may have helped to achieve your client’s business objective, but today it’s likely you’ll need additional placements, you’ll need additional online support and you’ll need to get in front of your audience again and again and again.

Networked Communication
Alongside the growth in information, the Internet has introduced radical changes in how people receive information and how organizations share information online.

The advent of the Internet is fundamentally changing many of the mechanics of how we communicate.

In the past, PR has followed a mostly linear process. The client briefed an agency or in-house practitioner, who in turn crafted that brief into an applicable set of messages, controlled that message and decided on the best media to communicate the message to the right audience and then controlled how, when and where the message was released.

Today this simple, linear model is gone and gone with it is the mythical concept of control over information – though some would disagree with that sentiment. I personally believe that organizations today have less control over information than at any time in the past. E-mail has created an environment where mini-crises occur more frequently. Sites such as Internalmemos.com highlight how any digital information can freely move from inside the organization to the general public with the click of a button.

Furthermore, the way people receive information has changed. E-mail, websites and Weblogs publish information directly and indirectly making the entire communication process far more complex and convoluted.

Unfortunately, it falls to us as communicators, to understand these changes and how they impact the delivery and receipt of your message. Furthermore, we need to understand new approaches to delivering information, finding information, and new ways of reaching out and communicating with our audiences.

Are we doing that today? I think we’ve begun, but it’s not an exact science and we’ve a long way to go.

Goal-Oriented Consumers
One of the major differences in how people use the Internet, is the emergence of goal-oriented behavior. In other words, whereas people traditionally sit passively in front of the TV channel surfing, or casually browse a magazine or newspaper, when a person goes online, they typically have a number of tasks they want to perform. These could include collecting e-mail, checking news, researching products etc.

The impact of this more aggressive approach to using the online medium, means that to communicate effectively you need to understand why, where and when they’re going online. Furthermore, you need to understand the best means of communicating with them and in a format they’ll accept.

The Informal Network
The Internet also offers the perfect medium for enabling like-minded individuals to find one another, share advice, information and guidance.

These groups present PR with a double-edged opportunity. On the one hand, it provides marketers with a great opportunity to tightly target a specific segment of the market. After all, if you can communicate effectively with this group then you are directly touching a real target market. However, finding these individuals can be difficult and the downside is that should a member of this group have a bad experience with your product or service, then just one e-mail could have disastrous repercussions for your success with the group.

The other characteristic of these groups is that they typically have a small number of key influential participants who hold disproportionate influence over the group. Identifying these individuals simplifies communication with this group – and potentially other groups.

The Rise of the Educated Consumer
When you put all these elements together I think we begin to get a picture of a new type of individual. By developing strategies to deal with information overload, by becoming more sophisticated at ignoring or deconstructing marketing messages, a new breed of consumer is emerging. I call them the “educated consumers”.

These people make purchase decisions on their own terms. They understand and discount marketing messages. They won’t believe the organization without specific third party validation of their choosing. They typically undertake a lot of personal research in their purchasing process, which may encompass organizations’ websites, marketing collateral, competitors as well as traditional media outlets and the new groups available online.

The result is a longer and more in-depth sales cycle, which challenges companies to engage consumers on multiple levels, to engage not only media outlets, but individuals and influencers. It’s a far more complex environment than the traditional one and it places a lot more emphasis on understanding your audience, their behavior and their preferences.

The Tools

Rather than spend a lot of time discussing the new and existing tools open to PR professionals, I instead want to share my thoughts on how new developments may or may not change the practice of Public Relations.

First and foremost, I firmly believe that the traditional PR skills, such as writing, oral communication, media relations etc. are as relevant today as they have ever been. In the past couple of years some new tools have emerged. The most obvious of these are things such as search engine optimization, Weblogs (or blogs) and RSS (really simple syndication). I don’t intend to go into a lot of depth on the pros and cons of these tools, as there’s already a wealth of information on the Internet that’s readily accessible.

No everyone agrees with me on my next point. In fact many of the contributors to the Global PR Blog Week, vehemently disagree with my view on these tools. My personal belief is that these new technologies provide a number of fantastic opportunities for the PR profession, particular in communicating more effectively with your target audience.

However, I believe that we need to strike a balance between the old and the new. I believe these tools will become a fundamental part of the PR toolbox, however I do not believe they will replace the tried and tested techniques we already use. I believe we need to be pragmatic and heed the lessons of history.

Here’s why.

If you accept my thesis on the “educated consumer” then we have a situation where your audience undertakes sophisticated analysis of the products and services that are available. This means that they will probably read standard corporate websites, traditional brochures, consumer websites, magazines, mailing lists, Weblogs and they may even go to a physical location to see and use the product. The reality is the Internet is being integrated with the traditional media – with all our computers, digital devices and the Internet, we still are printing more information on paper than ever before.

Personally speaking, whilst blogs influence my thoughts and decision-making, I will never make a complete purchase decision on a weblog post. Rather it will encourage me to find out more. This is why traditional corporate and product communications remain important. If I want hard and fast facts about a product, the best (and most obvious) place to find that information is in a product brochure. That’s the reality and it’s certainly true of the visitors to our websites.

I believe the most important thing is for PR professionals is to understand which of the old and new tools are useful in achieving your client’s business objectives. Rather than losing ourselves in the “new new thing”. We need to pragmatically analyze what works and more importantly what doesn’t.

The first step is to find out your audiences’ preferences and use them. Start talking with your client’s customers and potential customers. That is a really valuable way of getting a better understanding of their behavior, where you can reach them and what they are looking for.

One final point. I am a fervent believer that there is a need for organizations to “open the kimono”, so to speak. People increasingly value an organization’s human face. We still like to talk with a customer service rep rather than a “robot”. Blogs provide a real opportunity to show your audience a third dimension to your organization which was previously hidden behind corporate speak and press releases. But remember this, use it wisely.

"From an end-user perspective, RSS fits unobtrusively into the mix of information services available. As with all advancements, public relations professionals need to stay abreast of changes, embrace them, and use them to their benefit. While the technology may be new, the story is not." Keith O’Brien, PR Week, July 2004

Public Relations Industry

The last element of this review is a look at what our fellow PR practitioners believe are the opportunities and challenges facing Public Relations. To provide a sample of their views, I recently conducted an online survey and 52 people kindly responded. The survey results are interesting and conflictive. They highlight the state of flux that currently affects Public Relations as we try to hold onto the hard earned gains we have made, while we keep an eye on how the changing world of communications will affect us.

These survey results are not scientific. They were exclusively conducted via my Blog and therefore the results are weighted in favor of the more technological savvy practitioners. Nonetheless they provide an interesting insight into the state of our industry in 2004.

Profile
The majority of survey respondents (59.1%) work in PR agencies with in-house and independent practitioners ranking as the joint second most popular categories with 13.6% of respondents each.

Audience
When respondents were asked to highlight their top three audiences, the overwhelming primary audience was traditional print journalists (77.3%). Online journalists were the second most popular category (68.2%) with customers third (36.4%). Less that 5% of respondents mentioned bloggers as a primary audience, though the survey didn’t actually name bloggers as an option, all votes for bloggers were entered in the “other” category.

Public Relations Indicators
The survey attempted to gauge how PR practitioners feel about their roles and the health of Public Relations by asking them to rate their agreement with a number of statements. The findings were interesting:

> PR is more important than ever before (90% Agreement)

> The Benefits of PR are not understood (68% Agreement)

> PR has image problems (77% Agreement)

> There are huge opportunities for the PR profession (91% Agreement)

> PR is not getting any easier (64% Agreement)

> PR is not easily measured (64% Agreement)

> There is disagreement whether PR budgets are growing (45% Neutral, 32% No, 23% Yes)

> There is disagreement about whether PR’s relationships with journalists are improving or not (45% Neutral, 36% No, 18% Yes)

> Media relations continues to be the most important element of PR (77% Agreement)

> There is more to PR than media relations (68% Agreement)

> Blogs are becoming an essential PR tool (73% Agreement)

> The PR business is definitely changing (95% Agreement)

> Mixed feelings on whether PR Standards are high enough (55% 45% Neutral)

> The Internet isn’t making PR any easier (50% Agreement, 40% Neutral)

> PR still isn’t taking advantage of technology (55% Agreement, 27% neutral)

Where are the opportunities for Public Relations?
The survey was designed to encourage people to provide their own opinions on the potential opportunities for PR, rather than forcing them to conform to some pre-canned options.

As a result, the answers were varied. For the purposes of clarity, I have grouped them into common categories.

The greatest opportunity for Public Relations according to respondents is the emergence of new online tools (31%) primarily blogs, RSS and search engines.

“To use new communications tools like blogs, wikis, social networks etc. To help organizations gain credibility through conversation and interaction vs. from "expert" commentary. To wrench open the black box of communications so all can see and participate.” Elizabeth Albrycht, Albrycht McClure & Partners (A.M.P.) Communications

“Weblogs present the biggest opportunity for PR professionals. By launching blogs, marketers can join the community and share thoughts and ideas at eye level. It's an entirely new, but different communication channel that PR people haven't fully explored.” Steve Rubel CooperKatz & Co. Micro Persuasion

“Blogs and disruptive messages are threatening the strengths of corporate brands. PR practitioners must step up to the plate, react to these threats and proactively engage customers online by developing strong online corporate voices for clients.” Robb Hecht, Hecht Consulting

“I think corporate Weblogs are still in their infancy, however, I'm convinced that as marketing dept.'s get behind this medium, blogs will offer organizations with one of the strongest emerging platforms for communicating with media, investors, analysts, etc. -- since the advent of the press release.” Mike Manuel, Voce Communications

The second most popular opportunity for Public Relations surprised me. 18% of respondents felt that PR professionals taking an active role in adopting a more ethical approach to communication and guiding organizations to ethically deal with their audience was a great opportunity.

“One of the greatest opportunities for PR is to gently guide corporate and organizational policy to make our clients better -- read more responsible, kind and compassionate -- members of their communities. Powerful PR practice is not about helping our clients look good. It is about guiding them to be good.” Mike Simms, JSPR

“The future of PR is not in the tools of the trade (media relations, events, newsletters, blogs etc) but in our ability to manage reputations. Improving corporate behavior leading to better outcomes (be they sales, share price, legislative changes or whatever) is where we should be concentrating our efforts. One discipline that will and should grow is corporate social responsibility. But our challenge is making sure that we are the professionals leading CSR - because lawyers, accountants and management consultants all want a slice of the cake. In reality CSR needs all of these professions and more, but PR professionals should be at the centre of it.” Stuart Bruce, NetworxPR

The emergence of new media channels was the third most popular opportunity for PR accounting for 15%. In essence, it concerns the ability of PR people to use new and innovative channels to reach out to audiences that may not have been available before.

“Since technology can enable the PR professional to directly access consumers, there is a greater opportunity for PR to bypass the media gatekeepers and interact directly with their key publics. Ultimately, it will help PR get much closer to finally achieving a 2-way symmetrical model.” Heather Carle Director of Communications Afilias

The other most popular opportunities for PR according to the respondents are building online communities (14%), PR getting a bigger share of the traditional marketing budget (10%), better measurement (6%) and a greater executive role for PR practitioners (6%).

“The declining importance placed on traditional advertising presents the greatest opportunity for PR.” Nathan Schock, Breukelman, Kubista Group

“It’s an exciting time to be in PR. The rules of engagement for both Big Media and Micro Media are changing, which is forcing PR pros to re-think and re-work how to best communicate with their target audiences.” Anonymous

Where are the threats for Public Relations?
The question on threats also provided a free-form style of response and again the results were very interesting.

The number one threat identified by participants in the survey is also the number one opportunity -that provides an interesting symmetry.

31% of respondents believe that PR practitioners’ inability to understand, use and utilize the new PR tools (namely blogs, RSS etc.) is one of the greatest threats for the profession. Many added that it’s vital that PR professionals get trained up as quickly as possible.

“Mastering the ever changing technologies that are transforming communications, then convincing organizations to change their strategies. And once that is accomplished, understanding that you are already late on the next wave. Simply keeping up with change is often overwhelming.” Elizabeth Albrycht, Albrycht McClure & Partners (A.M.P.) Communications

The second biggest threat at 18% was the continued “ignorance” of clients when it comes to understanding the value of Public Relations and the potential offered by new tools and techniques. Many of the respondents quoted specific meetings where clients dismissed new tools as irrelevant.

Joint third in the major challenges facing Public Relations, with 15% of the survey, were professional integrity, and better measurement. In particular, respondents pointed out that if PR people do not work by the highest possible standards then the profession as a whole is in danger of being discredited. Measurement is a constant theme. There is continued frustration at the lack of clear measurement being used in PR, though the ability to offer better measurement of online media was cited as a potential bright spot.

“We need to be far more open about what we do as PR practitioners and encourage the broader community to see what we do as positive.” Anonymous

“Today, PR practitioners face huge challenges of integrity not only to their clients, but to themselves and the entire PR industry. Journalists, the traditionally perceived keepers of truth and integrity in information dissemination, have seen their position eroded substantially in the morass of public opinion. More and more it is up to PR practitioners to pick up the standard of truth and bear it with integrity against the overwhelming cacophony of millions of voices with millions of individual agendas. It's not clear yet if we are up to the task, but the challenge is there nonetheless.” Mike Simms JSPR

The other challenges cited included, PR’s lethargy in embracingnew communication channels (7%), Information overload (6%), Competition for marketing budget (5%) and PR not identifying new audiences, primarily online (3%).

“We're at a huge turning point in the profession. Either we move to where most consumers of information get their news or we run the risk of being obsolete.” Anonymous

Conclusions

So what does all this tell us about the state of the PR profession?

My personal conclusions are as follows:

> PR is in a stronger position today than it ever has been

> PR practitioners are very aware of the weaknesses and limitations of the profession and the issues created by a small number of sectors whose practices vary from the majority but tarnish the entire business

> There is still widespread skepticism on the ability of practitioners to adapt to the changing demands of the present time

> Practitioners believe there are huge opportunities from the growth in online communication and PR’s suitability to manage that communication – if we get our act together

> Traditional audiences such as print journalists continue to play a vital role in today’s PR activity for most practitioners.

> The lack of formal measurement techniques continue to cause major problems

I hope at the very least, you have found this article interesting. Whether you agree or disagree with its tone or findings, the fact that you have taken the time to read this article and the fantastic array of other articles in the Global PR Blog Week 1.0 is a good sign for our profession. We have our problems but I believe Public Relations has the opportunity to become an even more important part of business life.

The growth in the online community and their changing behavior may prove to be the greatest opportunity of all – if we get it right.

Author: Tom Murphy | Jul 16, 04 | Permalink | 4 comments
Category: @ Tom Murphy | Topic 5 State of PR Profession

Global ethics?

In my piece, Are Ethics Good Business? I highlighted research that suggested PR practitioners saw themselves as more ethical than the clients or organisations that employed them

Here's an update based on responses from Blog Week visitors:

In the original survey, conducted in the North East of England, I got this response
Some would say ethics is good business. Would you personally…agree strongly (47pc) agree (49pc) no opinion (2pc) disagree (2pc) disagree strongly (0pc)

How about your clients/ internal contacts? Would they mostly
agree strongly (17pc) agree (68pc) no opinion (12pc) disagree (2pc) disagree strongly (0pc)

So the majority of PRs ‘agree strongly’ but say their clients, or their in house colleague would only ‘agree’. The survey of Global PR Blog Week visitors shows a similar trend with 68pc of practitioners agreeing strongly, compared to a perception that only 20pc of clients would agree strongly.

I also noted an interesting difference appeared to arise when I asked English practitioners
My prime ethical loyalty is to:
no-one (0pc ) me (41pc) organisation (34pc) client (5pc) society (20pc)

I think this is a key question - one that underpins a lot of other assumptions on ethics. When I posted a small survey of attitides among 12 Global Blog participants, most from the US, they said:
no-one (0pc ) me (16.7pc) organisation (0pc) client (25pc) society (58.3pc)

When I widened it to visiors to the Global Blog, they answered
no-one (0pc ) me (20.8pc) organisation (29.2pc) client (4.2pc) society (54.2pc)
Again the majority of respondents were from the USA, and they were the ones shifting the emphasis to PR practitioners believing themselves to be ethically responsible to society.

Thanks for taking part

Author: Philip Young | Jul 16, 04 | Permalink | 0 comments
Category: @ Philip Young | Topic 5 State of PR Profession

Royal Charter or spiv's charter?

As my main contribution to Global PR Blog Week 1.0, I have chosen to write about the state of PR professionalism in the UK. I'm hoping this experience will resonate with others around the world. Is public relations a profession? Should it be? What are the risks and rewards of professionalisation?

In summary, we fall short of meeting most attributes of a profession, yet we have professional aspirations and we are beginning to pull in the right direction. This Global PR Blog Week 1.0 is an example of the growing confidence among a diverse group of PR practitioners, commentators and academics to push forward and challenge our understanding of what we do.

The professionalism debate has also taken a step forward in the UK in recent weeks with members of the Institute of Public Relations (IPR) voting at its recent AGM to pursue chartered status.

This will involve the granting of a royal charter, complete with archaic language, conferring some rights and responsibilities on the IPR. It will bring PR's professional body in line with the marketing industry's Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM). Yet is marketing notably more professional than PR? And is the archaic granting of a charter an appropriate step for a forward-looking industry?

Seeking parallel perspectives

Rather than tackle these questions directly, I thought it would to helpful to look at the experience of another industry that has its chartered (ie professional) side, and its unchartered (ie cowboy) world.

Welcome to the weird world of house buying in England and Wales (different laws apply in Scotland).

Though there has been some enthusiasm for selling houses directly on the internet, most people enlist the support of an estate agency (realtor) to handle the sale on their behalf. The estate agent will be selected from several who will have been offered the chance to view the house and advise on its value and 'marketability'.

In estate agency as in PR consultancy, the winner is often the one who pitches highest. The estate agent who sounds most bullish about the price to be asked for the house (remembering that agents work on commission) will often be given the chance to sell it. In consultancy, this is the equivalent of overpromising results.

The estate agency (like the overpromising PR consultancy) then has to deal with the realities of the market (ie number of affordable houses and availability of willing buyers; or strength of news stories in a competitive media market). These realities almost always act as a damper on the initial expectations, leaving the agent/consultant to manage expectations. Either the expectations (and the price) get lowered, or the relationship falls at its first hurdle.

The seller (or the client) often feels disappointed and let down by this experience. But their only recourse is to take their business to a competitor. Not all estate agents are members of the National Assocation of Estate Agents; not all consultancies are Public Relations Consultants Association (PRCA) members. So there's usually no third party to take a complaint to. And no sanctions to impose against those who fail to meet the standards expected.

In other words, both are constrained by operating in competitive free markets - but both do not fully meet the definition of a profession. Barriers to entry are low: anyone will the knowledge and the nerve can set up an estate agency or a PR consultancy. Many provide a great local service. Some do not. How is the buyer to choose between them?

Yet some estate agents also act as buildings surveyors. This is the professional wing of the business. As part of the house buying process, it is usual to commission a building inspection. This report is prepared by a building surveyor and is an important part of buying as it allows you to assess whether the house has major structural problems. If it has, you have the chance to withdraw from the purchase before it's legally binding - or to renegotiate the price.

Though some buyers invite an experienced builder to offer an opinion on a house, the surveyor's report offers greater reassurance because it comes from a professional - you would not rely on a surveyor who was not registered with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). Should your surveyor fail to point out serious structural defects, then you would have the possibility of taking legal action against them.

About PR professionalism

Where does this leave PR? Are we, like chartered surveyors, trusted professionals? Or are we like the unloved estate agents, running hard to succeed in business and resistant to external controls?

One problem is that we want both, simultaneously. We want the respect that comes from professional status, without wanting the inevitable restraints and restrictions, and without seeking the external scrutiny this implies. We have, like the estate agents and chartered surveyors outlined above, elements of the commercial and the professional. (But so do lawyers, and those doctors who work partly in private healthcare. They have resolved these paradoxes, and so must we).

The other problem, it seems to me, is one of definitions. It's possible to define the role of a medical practioner or a solicitor. But public relations practitioners work across all industry sectors and in activities as specific and as diverse as investor relations and internal communications. This centrifugal force has already led to one damaging split in our industry, with the PRCA breaking away from the IPR the better to represent the interests of its consultancy members.

By extension, we could end up with professional bodies awarding membership for practitioners in public affairs, investor relations, community relations, motor industry public relations etc. etc. This could happen - but it would weaken not strengthen the external image of public relations.

The alternative is to go the way of medical practice, with everyone achieving a generic qualification before going on to specialise in a particular area of practice.

Education, education, education

However you define a profession, certain concepts always appear. There should be a 'body of knowledge' and some form of training and professional development. As my colleagues Ralph Tench and Johanna Fawkes argued in a recent paper (in PDF format) presented at Bledcom, 'the majority of employers [surveyed] consider that public relations education makes a positive contribution to the industry, and is an essential component of the drive to achieve professional recognition, as it is for most professions.'

They identified resistance among employers to an over-theoretical public relations curriculum, but recognised the contribution PR graduates can make to the workplace.

I have also seen the adoption of a more flexible balance between work and study with many senior PR practitioners taking time out for block-release study to complete their IPR Diploma qualification - a theoretical course that yet has immediate payback in terms of better understanding of the role and potential of public relations within their organisations.

Practitioner and employer support for PR qualifications and continuous professional development is a necessary prerequisite in the move to professionalisation.

Another is the adoption of a code of conduct and the acceptance of the need for ethical practice. This week has seen the case for ethics in PR being well argued by Philip Young.

There are other problems to resolve, and the pursuit of chartered status by the UK's PR professional body will not be an end in itself. But I welcome it as a milestone on a journey that we need to make collectively.

We need to do this for the sake of current practitioners, their employers and clients. And for the sake of future graduates who will enter the workplace with high hopes only to realise with horror that our generation of practitioners and thinkers had done nothing to progress the professionalism and the esteem of the industry as a whole.

Author: Richard Bailey | Jul 16, 04 | Permalink | 2 comments
Category: @ Richard Bailey | Topic 5 State of PR Profession

The Martha Stewart Crisis

Whether you consider Martha Stewart a criminal, hero or victim, her sentencing signals the end of a long, punishing crisis. This analysis will focus on what Stewart did right and wrong from a public relations perspective; and how the scandal was shaped by the media and corporate reform.

Weighing in on this topic are authors Eric Dezenhall and Al Ries.

Dezenhall is an oft-quoted expert in damage control and the author of "Nail 'Em: Confronting High-Profile Attacks on Celebrities and Businesses."

Ries is the best-selling author/co-author of 12 marketing books including our favorite “The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR.”

But before we dive in, two points to make:

Some simply stellar content on blogs and public relations have been posted here over the last four days. As this post does not focus on blogs, I am hoping it offers Global PR Blog Week a timely, refreshing change of pace. You be the judge and let everyone know in the comments section.

The basic history of Stewart’s crisis will not be covered here. If you need a refresher, check out this timeline. Or just follow today’s news.

Every Meal Starts with a Salad
The media feeding frenzy around Stewart’s fall from grace began after her now infamous appearance on CBS' The Early Show. During her then weekly cooking segment, she was asked about the ImClone issue.

Stewart tried to dodge the question and noted she wanted to focus on her salad. Media training executives around the globe quickly added the footage to their training tapes of how not to handle direct questions.

“This interview took place too soon after the ImClone story broke,” says Dezenhall. “She was too flip and hadn't endured the crucible long enough to show human depth. When you live by personality you can die by personality. There are acute limits to what you can do with someone with Martha's personality.

“The same doggedness that served her well on the way up, served her poorly on the way down. Avoiding the CBS salad interview would have been a good place to start. But you can't tell divas that diva behavior is wrong. After all, until now it was effective.”

Silence isn’t Golden, it’s Guilty
Stewart’s first public appearance during the scandal was the most damaging of all. We could note this snafu proves out the importance of media training, but lets consider the bigger issue of brand strategy. Crisis communications’ and media training's role in a brand strategy is to preserve and reinforce the brand—when used proactively. Far too often, they're used reactively with mixed results.

Stewart fell silent after the CBS spot turned bad into worse, canceling public appearances. She hired The Brunswick Group to handle damage control and help create a crisis strategy (Citigate Sard Verbinnen now handles this work).

She should have engaged a crisis team the day the scandal broke. Especially during a crisis, silence isn’t golden, it’s guilty. Until Martha Talks was unveiled, the media had no comment from Stewart and they were left to assume, and assign, guilt.

Web Page As Spokesperson
Martha Talks proved the effectiveness of the Web in crisis communications. And as we’ve discussed, a blog could also support crisis communications.

Martha Talks tells Stewart’s side of the story. It generates support and presents her as a normal person—not the uber-perfect home heroine her shows and the media make her out to be. The site is humble, subtle and presented in a way that communicates, while Stewart maintains her innocence, that she realizes the serious nature of her legal issues.

Timely trial updates, statements from Stewart’s legal team and a library of different op/eds written on her behalf populate the site. It’s become a news source, getting Stewart’s point across without her having to field interviews. Of course, she did conduct strategically-timed interviews with Larry King and Barbara Walters.

Traffic Shows Support
Stewart also translated traffic stats into a show of support. The site has received more than 34 million hits and more than 170,000 supportive emails since it was launched in June, 2003. This information is brought to your attention on first view.

Personally, I think she could have employed a blog or comparable comments/bulletin board section to build on the e-mail support base the site developed. The danger is that anti-Stewart fans can also post, but I think the pros of pushing her site further to tap into this audience outweigh the cons.

“Stewart's Internet campaign was quite good,” says Dezenhall. “It allowed her to mobilize and to communicate with supporters. In the end, it didn't turn the jury, but it was a good move to establish the Web site.

“I am a skeptic about too many TV interviews, especially with a personality like hers. When I have a legal defendant I've been conservative about press, but because Martha had a publicly-traded company there was reason to do it. In the end, the killers were bad facts against Martha, the hostile Marie Antoinette climate and Martha's persona.”

Brand Personification
Can the brand survive without Martha Stewart? Wharton School offers up an interesting article on this entitled: “When the CEO is the Brand, But Falls from Grace, What's Next?” (login now required – sorry!)

The article explores brand personification—when the brand is tied to an individual. The main point is to strike a balance when you rely on the CEO as your brand.

"Strike a balance, where the company benefits from an appealing public personality like Martha Stewart and Donald Trump or Ralph Lauren and Michael Dell, while it builds a strong identity that doesn't rely on the individual.
“Like Stewart, Trump places his name on everything he gets involved in. He is a visible, vocal brand voice. Lauren and Dell, however, have cleverly created a separate, institutional identity that doesn't make them so vulnerable if they have a personal problem.”

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSLO) is moving in that direction with products and projects that do not bear Martha's name. It will be interesting to see how much more they will need to change at MSLO to strike a balance.

“It's a long road, to differentiate your company from your personality,” says Dezenhall. “But it's do-able.”

Ries disagrees.

“The Martha Stewart brand can’t survive without her,” says Ries. “But we do think that brand personification is a good idea. For every failure there are many successes. Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger and George Foreman to name three.”

MSLO and Martha Stewart have been very inconsistent on how much MSLO’s house of brands relies on Stewart. MSLO is quick to point out that Stewart is one employee of a large company. How could one person possibly account for the bulk of the brand?

Then after the guilty verdict, the lawyers had everyone saying that MSLO could not survive if Stewart were in prison. There was lots of waffling here. And not the Belgian kind, made from scratch for your next Sunday brunch (you KNEW there would be a domestic reference in here sooner or later).

What's in a Name?
“Eventually the goal will be to make Martha Stewart a Betty Crocker-type figure,” says Dezenhall. “This is someone who we know as a symbol, but do not know personally. I'm not even sure if Betty Crocker was a real person. [she’s not]

“In a less radioactive climate, the name Martha Stewart still has equity. I'd be throttling back on her personality but not necessarily doing away with her image. There is no singular strategy here, and much will depend on the business and cultural climate after Stewart's sentence is served.”

The New York Times brings us an interesting fact: "Since last June, when Stewart was indicted on charges of conspiracy and obstruction of justice, MSLO has applied for 12 trademarks—none of which include her name."

The article notes, "trademarks are a capital asset—property a company can own to enhance a brand, product or service. An exclusive name or image often increases a product's value."

Based on how the sentencing goes Friday morning, I'm predicting that MSLO might even start referring themselves as just that...MSLO, or their ticker symbol MSO. I call it pulling a KFC. Unfortunately, this is no longer an accurate statement as KFC tries to distract us from the sizzle and crackle of the deep fryer by evolving from Kentucky Fried Chicken to KFC and now to Kitchen Fresh Chicken? They should have stopped at KFC.

CEOs & Corporate Reform
Personally, I think Stewart is a victim of much needed corporate reform.

Keep in mind, she’s not being convicted of insider trading, rather lying during the insider trading investigation. Her worth has plummeted from billions to millions and she lost the helm of a diverse company she built all by herself. Hopefully U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum will hand down a sentence fitting the crime.

So why the need to incarcerate her? Well, I’ll argue it’s because most folks cannot match these executives:

Rigas, Ebbers, Kozlowski, Fastow, Nacchio

to their respective companies

Enron, Tyco, WorldCom, Qwest, Adelphia

The Justice Department has charged more than 700 people in the two years since the Corporate Fraud Task Force was formed. But Stewart is the celebrity CEO everyone recognizes. This sentence sends a message to corporate America.

Dezenhall notes, “Legally, Martha isn't a victim because she was convicted of breaking the law. Her career and her business certainly have been victimized. There is a witch hunt component to this on top of the legal violations. Her celebrity and her success played a role in the intensity of the scrutiny and the harshness of the punishment.

“We are living in a Marie Antoinette period right now. The savaging of success is considered universally good. Americans enjoy playing a role in building someone up, but once they rise out of our reach, they must be torn down. How it's done, in a court, in the media, is academic.”

The Big House or Stewart’s Farmhouse?
August 3rd is Stewart’s birthday. Will she spend it in the big house or at her farmhouse? We’ll find out, but legal experts estimate the prison sentence could be 16 months or more. Will a prison sentence spell the end of Stewart? Of course not.

“Stewart will be back,” says Dezenhall. “Americans enjoy the whole process of crucifixion and resurrection. A wounded Martha may be a lovable Martha. We do love to see the mighty suffer. A Martha comeback would be a story the media would love to do and that may dictate things.

“There are simply too many examples out there to tell us that scandal is not only temporary, but it could be the best thing that ever happened to someone.”

--
In addition to comments here, feel free to drop me an e-mail: prblog@yahoo.com

Author: Kevin Dugan | Jul 16, 04 | Permalink | 4 comments
Category: @ Kevin Dugan | Topic 4 Crisis Management

Chat schedule for July 16

Matias Fernandez will be available for chat from 5 pm to 7 pm EST via MSN Messenger (matiasdelmar[at]hotmail[dot]com).
Jeremy Pepper will be available for chat from 6 pm to 8 pm (Eastern Daylight Time) via MSN Messenger (jspepper[at]hotmail[dot]com) and Skype (jspepper).
Robb Hecht will be available for chat from 9 am to 3 pm (Eastern Daylight Time), via AOL IM (prmachineblog), Yahoo! Messenger (prmachineblog), or MSN Messenger (prmachineblog[at]aol[dot]com)
Chris Bechtel will be available for chat from 1 pm to 5 pm EST via Yahoo! Messenger (cab_la).

Also, B.L. Ochman will be available to answer questions on the blog, through comments, from 10 am to noon and from 2 pm to 4 pm.

Before starting a conversation, please reach an agreement on the discussion's degree of confidentiality: is it confidential, is it blogable, would you agree to be identified by name, etc.

All the authors will respond to comments and questions throughout the day.

[Updated and reposted - July 16]

Author: Constantin Basturea | Jul 16, 04 | Permalink | 0 comments
Category: Announcements | Topic 5 State of PR Profession

About: The Global PR Blog Week 1.0 is an online event that will engage PR, marketing and business bloggers from around the globe in a discussion about blogging and communications. The event is scheduled for July 12 - 16, 2004.

Links: The New PR Wiki

Recent Entries: Day 5: Emergence of Ideas; Day 5 Stats; The New PR - A Call to Action; The Battle Over PR; Dynamic Communications and the case for speeding adoption of technology in PR

Recent Comments: Dan Forbush on The New PR - A Call to Action; George Mc Quade on The Battle Over PR; Trevor Cook on On the use of puppets; MARIO on PR: our role of facilitating the learning; Tara Hall - Weber Shandwick - Web Relations on Tomorrow's PR Today; David St Lawrence on The Seth Godin Interview; B.L. Ochman on The PR Lessons of A Clueless Blog Pitch; Tom Murphy on The State of PR - A Tale of Two Professions; Neville Hobson, ABC on Royal Charter or spiv's charter?; Kevin Dugan on The Martha Stewart Crisis