ON OVERCOMING PR'S TROUBLES
I have two questions before me. First, how do we (the PR industry) overcome our own PR troubles?; and second, what advice do I have to address our troubles?
The answer to the first one is simple: “We” don’t. Individual firms do. The industry’s current problem – if there is one – has been caused by individual firms acting improperly. It is, then, up to those firms to fix it. If they don’t, the rest of us – that is, those without a problem – will move quickly to use our competitor’s weakness as an advantage.
A remark by the author of Doonesbury, reported last month in a Gene Weingarten interview, is the key to this understanding. According to Gary Trudeau, the difference between reputation and image is that “...one involves character, the other public relations.”
Character is not a collective matter. Nor is it something the communications profession as a whole exhibits. I am accountable for my and my firm’s behavior, not how all PR firms act. And I do not feel negatively affected by my competition’s bad behavior. In fact, I feel just the opposite.
So communal hand-wringing is not a solution; being responsible for yourself and making certain that your firm rises above the fray is.
Now, when it comes to our profession’s image (keeping in mind Trudeau’s differentiation), I wouldn’t worry too much about that either. Despite predictions from my peers, we’re not all going to lose business because of a few firms’ improprieties – especially any of the recent ones. And, frankly, if the image of the public relations industry cannot be defended adequately by the industry itself, then maybe there should be no industry at all – yet there is.
If you look at our history, year after year, decade after decade, our profession has carried on – through trend and tragedy – because we serve a sound and simple purpose: We help amplify and clarify our clients’ stories when they cannot do it themselves. That need is not going to go away.
I will admit that the public relations community has a great deal of angst these days. So much so it’s starting to look and sound like a Woody Allen movie. (“His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy...”) But what really is the trouble?
Most people blame it on new media – blogs, email, pod-casts, the Internet in general. I don’t necessarily agree. While these have given us new ways of doing our job – of telling stories – I wouldn’t say they’ve directly changed the nature of our business. If anything, they’ve opened our eyes to the fact that public relations can be about more than a press release. And, as a result of this realization, we’ve been forced to take a closer look at our clients’ needs. The issue at hand, then, is that the nature of the client relationship is changing, and many people in the business are holding on tightly to how it once was instead of going with the flow.
Success in our business is no longer marked by cookie cutter solutions – which were once the most cost-effective way to go. “F-5” PR people have rapidly lost value and are now, in fact, being increasingly “found and replaced” themselves. Now it is a matter of tailoring a specific approach from a variety tactics, whether that’s a viral campaign or effectively reaching out to the blogging community. We actually have to, you know, get to know our clients and really listen to them – make them like us and stuff. To borrow a line from the uber-flak-as-hero film Jerry McGuire, “The key to this job is personal relationships.”
So, you say you want a revolution (or at least some advice)? I would start here:
Dump entrenched thinkers. I’m exhausted with people glorifying some golden age of marketing and public relations like aging hipsters hanging out at a no-brand coffeehouse. Guys, it wasn’t that fun. It was boring. Write a press release. Hold a press conference. Not just boring, but conducive to the fear that you could be replaced by anyone with a pulse. In just one tiny contrast, there are a million different ways of conducting a viral marketing campaign. I can write, shoot, edit, and produce a video with a cool soundtrack in one day. These open up endless options, but they also separate the talented from the also-rans.
We have an increasingly sophisticated audience and increasingly advanced technology to reach them – so, as always, evolve or die. With that said, however, sometimes a well-executed, plane-Jane press release is still the best way to go. Simple, straightforward. But (ay, there's the rub), I personally want to know that that decision was thought out thoroughly. Good people can do this.
Kill Bill-able hours. I’ve been in this industry for more than 20 years, and I have never once seen something beneficial result from billable hours. Well, nothing beneficial for the client anyway – goodness knows they have been good to some of us who were counting them.
The billable hour model came from law firms as they helped pioneer public relations. And maybe they make sense in legal circles, but in our world they create conflict between the client and the PR firm – especially now that creativity is the work. Nobody pays an author based on how many hours they took to write the book. Why should my firm make more money by doing something slower? So charge a premium for creativity, strategy and results.
If we don’t earn it, don’t pay us. The results we produce may largely be intangible, but I don’t think for a second that they’re immeasurable. So don’t pay us if we don’t produce the results we agreed upon. Heresy! Witchcraft! But look, getting paid for “trying hard” is part of the entrenched PR thinking. There are plenty of industries where, if the car isn’t fixed or if the roof still leaks or the guy has jumped bail, you are not going to get paid – at least not this side of a court settlement.
How is that going to impact our revenue base? Who cares? If we’re not doing the job we set out to do for our clients, we’re doomed anyway. This approach not only changes the expectations of our clients but gets us really, really focused on what those expectations are.
Thus far, that’s at least what I’ve boiled it all down to. And I would also dramatically state that I’m willing to stake my company and my own professional future on these principles, but I already have.
- Michael Petruzzello, Managing Partner, Qorvis Communications
