Global PR Blog Week 1.0

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

 

 

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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.

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