Digital Media: Yes! and No!
By Marcia Silverman, CEO
Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide

A lot of PR practitioners have expended time and energy asking if the rise of digital media has irrevocably transformed our industry. To those individuals, I will give an unqualified “yes”—and an equally assertive “no.”

That’s not fence straddling—it is simply the truth. For while digital media have had an enormous effect on the way we serve our clients, our core mission—getting the right message for the client in front of the right audience—remains the same. I think that those in our business who remain fearful of, or puzzled by, digital media should take at least some comfort in knowing that ours is scarcely the only industry to be affected by the revolutionary impact of digitization

Last year, the Tower Records chain, long a power in retailing, went out of business, in large part because digital downloading of music, driven by the iPod phenomenon, superseded the compact disc. (A digital medium which itself had superseded the LP in the 1980s.) Daily newspapers see circulation declining yearly, even as the number of visits to their web sites increases—sites that have yet to be turned into real revenue generators. TV networks now routinely pull new series with weak viewership numbers after only three or four episodes have aired. In the 500 channel universe of digital cable and satellite TV, network executives can’t put their jobs on the line to nurture a new program.

That all sounds pretty gloomy, I will grant you. But digital downloading of music has given niche performers, who can’t land seven figure recording contracts, the opportunity to connect directly with their audiences. Newspapers such as the Washington Post have worked on extending their brand by forming content alliances with the likes of MSNBC (that MS stands for Microsoft, of course). And digital cable and satellite broadcasting have brought us BBC-America, the Independent Film Channel and the gay-oriented channel Logo, greatly enriching viewer choice.

So if you are in any communications business in 2007, you have long since adapted to—and become adept with—digital tools and media or you have not survived.

It is simply impossible to do the business of public relations without engaging with the blogosphere or with all the forms of social media that have sprouted like mushrooms after a spring rain—all created because of the little black box on my desk that’s turning 0s and 1s into words as it hit the keyboard. Therefore, wrestling with the issue of whether digitization is good or bad for public relations is so much wasted energy, because digitization is simply a fact.

And, most importantly, our clients know it’s a fact because the rise of the Web and the universality of the PC and other digital devices profoundly changed the way they conduct their own businesses. UPS and FedEx can now tell customers the precise moment a package left any shipping point. Automakers engage car buyers early in the process by letting them make color and options selections online. The federal government greatly simplified its hiring process by creating USA Jobs, an online centralized resource for applicants and managers.

All of this started, of course, with the tech industry itself, which early on harnessed the power of the Web to create a dialog through user groups and to streamline the sales process for hardware and software.

Quite simply, to be taken seriously by major corporations and government agencies, a PR firm must demonstrate a facility with the entire spectrum of contemporary communication channels, including applying social media to word of mouth programs and influencer marketing. That’s my “unqualified ‘yes’ ” to the issue I raised in the first paragraph.

Now for the equally assertive “no.” And I am offering this “no” even as the company I head makes its 360 Degree Digital Influence offering a key differentiator in the pursuit of business on a global basis—a differentiator that has been key to winning, serving and expanding multinational accounts in the past few years.

The fact remains, however, that the client’s message always comes first. The rise of digital media has not displaced messaging as the key PR discipline—if anything, it has made us more focused in our approach to messaging.

Prior to digitization, communication was a “top down” process. Think back to those days of a handful of recording companies and three TV networks that decided what Americans heard and saw. Similarly, in the pre-digital age, public relations involved disseminating a client’s message through a limited number of channels and media, such as daily papers, weekly and monthly magazines, trade publications.

But today, from the first moment of a client’s messaging session, we must be conscious of the fact that the message will be disseminated in dozens of different ways by not just hundreds or thousands of people—but potentially by tens of thousands of people. If you represent, for example, a company whose products are marketed to mothers of young children, you had better be prepared to reach out to all the “Mom bloggers” out there—bloggers who can have enormous impact, for good or ill, on your client’s product in the marketplace.

So in this world where communication has been made so diffuse and democratic through digitization, the discipline of messaging becomes more important than ever. You must be sure that the messages you are sending out into the ever-expanding communications universe are relevant to your target audience, expressed in clear, precise language and absolutely truthful. If you misfire on any of those, you aren’t giving your clients what they need today.

Ultimately, the rise of digital media, which are communication tools, has not rendered messaging, or media relations or any other of PR’s traditional disciplines obsolete.

Digital media have, however, made it harder, if not impossible, to justify fuzziness and puffery. It’s hard to see that as a bad thing.

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