These thoughts were initially prompted by Ford Kanzler’s contribution to this blog. To gain a better understanding of his thinking I read his Connecting the Mind and Voice of Business book, from first page to last. I found it interesting, full of practical knowledge and useful for any PR professional.

But I also found what really annoys me at the very start, in these few sentences: «The whole purpose of business is marketing… marketing is, or ought to be, the brains of the outfit…Public relations, an aspect of promotion, is a sophisticated and highly effective way for marketing to express its brand and products’ values to the market.» Clearly, PR is «the voice» behind «the brain».

I’ll come back to the book in a moment but I must now share some of my views.

[This is a guest post by Guy Versailles.*]

PR is NOT marketing

I’ve been in PR-related positions for many decades. There was a time not so long ago when most businesses were entirely focussed on financial profit and did not believe they had to address environmental or social issues. This is not because they were heartless or cynical; most business persons were then, as they are today, respectable citizens; at the time, it was simply the dominant world-view.

Accordingly, marketing was entirely focused on the commercial aspects of business.

The growing concerns about the environmental and social impacts of business, fuelled notably by the spread of the concept of sustainable development, brought about a remarkable change. Today, business people understand the importance for small and large businesses alike to behave as responsible corporate citizens.

During the same period, advertising gradually fell out of favor, becoming more expensive and less effective. Al and Laura Ries have describes this in their seminal book, «The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR». What they suggest is quite simple: advertising does not work any longer but PR does, so let’s use PR to sell our wares.

On a very personal basis, this angered me for two reasons. First, PR has been there all along, going back many decades with a theory and body of knowledge centered on the building of relationships with stakeholders. It has never enjoyed the same favour as marketing has with the C-suite, being seen more often than not as a necessary expense rather than as an investment. But now that the marketing people see value in it, they simply «re-brand» PR as marketing and whatever influence we might have enjoyed before, we now risk losing entirely to their benefit.

Second, the Ries’ 2002 book really got me riled up when they took direct aim at what has always been the central focus of true public relations: to establish and maintain mutual lines of communication between an organization and its publics.

They quote an eminent PR pro: «Public relations is the art of earning and leveraging the trust of an organization’s key stakeholders» and they answer the following: «Come on, guys, you’re not trying out for the part of the in-house guru. You have a job to do, perhaps the most important job in any organization. Building the brand.»

Reading this book, I had the distinct impression that what they had in mind was to roll us back to before the 1950s, when PR in fact could be summarized as «publicity» in the traditional sense of the word (i.e. unpaid advertising). If this is the case, then PR is in jeopardy.

If its primary focus becomes «the brand» instead «the relationship» and if it is under the control of the same people who assume the all-important role of selling the product, then PR in danger of losing its credibility and of being seen as just another sales tool. In other words, if the marketing people simply decide to use PR to replace advertising, then PR will go the same route advertising has and lose credibility.

I have read other books that are more nuanced and that recognize a specific role for PR, if for no other reason that the social media today requires genuine engagement that goes way beyond any traditional means of «pushing the product». Nonetheless, there is always this nagging idea which is presented almost as a self-evident truth: marketing is everything, the rest is accessory.

Acknowledged, this can be considered «radical» but in no way do I intend to be disrespectful of the marketing people. Many exchanges are required to help us better understand how to efficiently work together.

Connecting the mind and voice of business: commenting on the book

I totally agree that businesses exist to sell products and services, that good marketing is essential and that PR can contribute greatly to supporting the brand and to push the product.

But PR is not only «an aspect of promotion». It is not even primarily that, in my mind at least. It is focused primarily on relationships, on understanding the socio-political, as well as the market environments the company – or any other type of organization – must contend with. Marketing PR is a branch of PR, not all of it.

I have great respect with PR people who support the marketing effort, but I have developed other interests in my own career. I have worked in strategic planning, communications management, media relations and crisis communications, in the public affairs, or corporate affairs divisions of many large organizations, tackling problems that have nothing to do with marketing but that can put a company out of business. For instance, securing the «licence to operate» in a world where using natural resources, generating pollution and constructing any kind of new installation are subjected to public approval.

Perhaps it is a question of perspective and culture. Just as in the human brain, rational intelligence, intuition, emotions, must work together well to produce a well-balanced individual, «the brains» of a company is its management team, not any single corporate function, however important it may be. Profitability and sales are paramount, but must be rounded out with proper consideration for everything else that makes a company efficient, from good management of its employees, production and finances, to government and community relations.

This reservation put aside, Ford’s book provides very valuable insight and practical knowledge for marketing people who should understand how PR can work for the brand and for PR people who choose to work in marketing PR. Indeed, much of the advice applies to all types or PR situations and I enjoyed the refresher course:

• identify the defining characteristics of your organization (or product)
• define strategy before choosing tactics
• find the specific media and journalists that are interested and tailor your approach according to their interests.

The book also argues convincingly on the importance for all of management to understand the importance of PR and to get involved personally, as well as on the importance of sustaining the PR effort over time: «Consistency, continuity, credibility.»

As well, Ford’s advice on client-agency relationships is right on and it applies to any type of PR. And, finally, I share with him the importance of putting «PR 2.0» in perspective: technology changes much more rapidly than the human brain. We should not believe we are reinventing the discipline because the social media provides us with new ways of communicating.

Despite the general statements quoted above, Ford often argues convincingly that PR must have a brain of its own, for instance when he argues that PR must «avoid drinking marketing’s Kool-Aid…PR pros have a responsibility to maintain a healthy dose of skepticism and ask hard questions.»

As I read on into the book, my original misgivings were overcome by the recognition that we indeed do share the same craft: public relations. But we need to further explore our relationship with marketing.

What is your reaction to Guy’s thoughts and his critique of Ford’s book? Does PR have more importance to commercial organisations than being simply a sales tool? How much does PR actually build up reputation and how important is this in your experience? Is public relations at risk of losing what credibility it has established for itself due to marketing trying to claim its ‘territory’?

*Guy Versailles, APR, has expertise in communications strategy and planning, with a special emphasis on press relations, public affairs, internal communication and crisis management. He has worked in high profile government positions (including the Office of the Premier of Québec), Hydro-Québec and the Solidarity Fund QFL, a major investment fund based in Montreal. He holds a Bachelor of Arts with major in Journalism, has completed a graduate course in «Management and Sustainable Development» and is a past director of Quebec’s foremost association of public relations professionals. He was recently awarded the Yves Saint-Amand Award for Excellence, in recognition for his contribution to the advancement of professional public relations. He is President of strategic communication consultancy, Versailles Communication.

The solution to best practice utilisation of social media by organisations is encapsulated in that summary. All we need to do apply – with rigour, creativity and tenacity – all of those elements articulated.

The new study – Social Media Strategy and Governance – gaps, risks and opportunities* – can be viewed through either a positive or negative prism:

• The negative approach can look at a finding that says only two in ten organisations have a social media strategy and declaim that this is a terrible result and a stain on the reputation of those that are responsible for its application
• The positive approach can point to a large number of steps that organisations have taken since the emergence of social media, supported by the salient observation that it is still a field that has, if anything, increased its acceleration and depth of subtlety since its emergence.

What is PR trying to achieve?

Whether taking a negative of positive approach, it is clear that there is a wealth of opportunity to capitalise further on the discipline(s) of social media. And, yes, whilst a core opportunity is to engage more deeply with stakeholders with effective communication, a more profound opportunity is to utilise the interactive and environmental scanning dimensions of social media.

This will help organisations learn more, so they can effectively evolve to meet their stakeholders’ expectations. But, as the study says:

“…most PR and corporate communication practitioners see social media as ‘another marketing and promotion channel’ with less focus on two-way engagement, listening and collaboration. Thus, the unique benefits of Web 2.0-based social media and networks are not being fully realised.”

This goes to the very crux of what we are committed to achieving in public relations, which may well be the topic of another post, but here are my options:

• Communicate organisational messages and information, sensitively and in a targeted manner etc, but that’s it
• Listen to stakeholders and adapt the communication that occurs according to stakeholder needs (content, mechanisms etc)
• Listen to stakeholders and both persuade them to alter their knowledge/perceptions/behaviour as well as providing information to our organisations to alter their knowledge/perceptions/behaviour.

The latter is where I think public relations offers a truly meaningful value to organisations – and, sure, it means short-term pain for long-term gain – and manifest itself as the most business-relevant discipline possible.

Control and capability in social media

One of the themes of the report is the tension between organisations ceding control of communication to their stakeholders by engaging in social media or, and this is pretty funny in many ways, ceding control of their communication to their own employees!

I always thought employees were meant to be an organisation’s number one brand ambassadors. And yet here are organisations still thinking that it’s okay for their employees to engage in BBQ conversations, yet not participate in online versions of BBQ forums, social media. It’s an attitude verging on censorship and repression. Some organisations, or their power-wielding hierarchy, really do think they can withstand the forces of curiosity and individual self-expression.

I guess it can work for a while, but eventually – Libya etc – the walls come crumbling down.

Lack of strategy in PR’s application of social media

The dearth of organisations taking a comprehensively strategic approach to social media – Brian Solis recently bemoaned the absence of direction in social engagement – was made crystal clear through a number of statistics:

• 65% of private or public sector organisations have no specific policies or guidelines in relation to social media use by employees
• 67% of organisations provide no training for employees using social media in relation to work
• Almost half of organisations do not monitor social media regularly
• 36% of organisations do not analyse social media content at all.

This raises the following questions:

• How are employees meant to be excellent advocates (and hence a marketing asset) for their organisations, or even satisfactory ones, without guidance and training?
• How can excellent reputation and brand building occur without being aware of what is being said about an organisation on the behemoth that is social media?
• Do organisations actually believe that social media content/communication/conversations operate in a siloed manner that does not influence other modes of communication?

I would once again point you back to this post’s opening paragraph. Without taking a comprehensively strategic approach to social media, without giving employees the skills and licence to be effective brand advocates and without recognising the power of social media as one of many potentially relevant communication mechanisms, this social media journey will be one beset by more pitfalls and more pain than is necessary.

How developed is your organisation in the strategic application of social media? Are all social media activities integrated across your organisation? Is your social media activity fully integrated into overarching organisational communication strategy? What are the barriers and frustrations you have in applying social media for your organisation? Do you take a positive or negative view of some of the findings discussed here?

Social Media Strategy and Governance – gaps, risks and opportunities was written by Jim Macnamara, Professor of Public Communication at the University of Technology, Sydney and Co-director of the Australian Centre of Public Communication.

However, what’s unfortunately more often the case is marketing being rather clueless about what the business or brand story (competitive differentiation) should be. Then it becomes a case of the tail wagging the dog, where PR needs to lead marketing to effective strategies for being heard in the market place and help drive brand awareness and credibility.

[This is a guest post by Ford Kanzler.*]

If marketing is only focused on “turning a buck”, it’s not being undertaken by very good marketers. They probably ought to move over to working in finance. Those are the ones who just look at numbers and typically have no sense of connecting with customers or any other constituencies, except perhaps for stockholders, who are also quite often just trying to turn a buck as well.

Marketing leads

If an organization is set up to deliver goods and services, then frankly marketing ought to be at the helm. Consider what PR would be doing if there were no Marketing…finding and delivering something for an interested group.

What organizations exist without an aspect of Marketing? What organizations exist that exist solely for the purpose of public relations?

• PR is a service to the organization: it’s the “voice of business”
• An election campaign is marketing a candidate
• A benevolent cause is marketing to potential donors
• Manufacturers are marketing a product.

Consider that reputation, community relations, issues management, internal communication, investor relations and much more are all supporting and sustaining the organization’s or business’ purpose of delivering a goods and services to “customers” or whatever you want to call the recipients.

Cooperation is key

Certainly, I agree that marketing and public relations must work together effectively. PR doesn’t exist in isolation.

However, PR serves the purposes of the organization whose essential reason for being is marketing. I suggest getting upset about who’s directing the show is quite pointless. What’s true is that PR quite often needs to provide communications direction when marketing fails in that area.

Skilled marketers know what needs to be transmitted to their market. Lack of marketing direction doesn’t automatically make PR necessarily ‘in charge’. We’re merely filling an often occurring leadership vacuum.

PR pros shouldn’t get too full of themselves about doing that, even if it’s often a very necessary and valuable role. After all, what are you promoting or communicating about if there’s not a marketing objective?

Effective marketers, now and historically, have a clear vision of what customers want and why and provide PR (and/or marcomms) with the insight and direction needed for communicating well about the organization, products and services.

If PR is also “dedicated to the holistic organization-stakeholder set of relationships, including marketing imperatives,” so much the better. Then both functions are on the same page and things will likely work out a lot better.

Bringing a focus

I prove my value to clients by helping them understand what, how and when they should be communicating about their business. Then I help execute appropriate campaign tactics that carry their story to receptive prospects.

Am I doing PR when I move back up the chain of events to create communications strategy? I don’t think so. I’m doing the work of the marketer who should have figured out how to tell their story before I showed up. Thankfully, lots of businesses haven’t figured that out, so I and other PR pros can help marketers that way. We’re doing marketing so we can do effective PR.

The mind directing the voice

If public relations isn’t a service to marketing, then apparently most companies have it all wrong.

Everywhere I’ve been PR reports to the Marketing VP or Director. If it reports to someone lower on the totem pole than that, it sure isn’t going to be very strategic to the company’s business.

What also enters into today’s PR practice has been labeled corporate social responsibility (CSR).

I suggest strategic-thinking PR pros have long focused on their organizations’ or clients’ social or public responsibilities as critical to protecting the brand’s overall, long-term perceived value.

Were they always listened to? Certainly not and often to the detriment of the business they were counseling. Now we have a name for this traditional aspect of PR, specialists practicing it and books written on it.

However, CSR also must connect with the business objectives and either temper or enhance what the business is planning, doing or not doing. It’s here where there certainly may be potential conflicts between marketing, other groups and PR.

CSR, or PR pros working in that vein, have the opportunity to act as a corporate conscience. When PR pros want to separate their work from marketing and seem to consider PR a higher or loftier calling there’s going to be trouble. Corporate and marketing management will be quickly turned off by PR pros who are not well connected with Marketing’s objectives and strategies.

To Craig’s point that, “organisations are driven by their vision, values and business objectives,” I agree. The last time I checked “business objectives” are definitely about communicating and selling goods, services or an idea, typically to earn revenue. Creating awareness, credibility, preference, willingness to engage and purchase or adopt something from the organization sponsoring the communicating drives revenue.

This is at the heart of PR’s support of the organization’s marketing and sales effort. Creating good will or positive regard or reputation are all intimately connected to business growth or maintenance.

Even organized religions are marketing and publicizing in a range of ways to raise funds or gather members.

I’ve done PR for the Boy Scouts to help grow membership, community support and involvement. It’s all the same game. Yes, the scouts are driven by their ‘vision and values’. However, bringing new scouts and their parents into the fold to grow and maintain the organization is what the organization’s survival is all about.

Not tying PR efforts (objectives, strategies and tactics) to business objectives is, frankly, a sure way of losing your job or your client. Do marketing and public relations need to play well together for best effect? Certainly! Their working hand-in-hand is key.

What did you think of Ford’s assertions? Should public relations always be a service to marketing? Are those PR pros working in a CSR vein taking the opportunity to act as an organisation’s conscience? Even if PR is not working in a CSR-specific (or branded) area, should it still be acting to some degree as an organisation’s conscience?

*Ford Kanzler is a Managing Partner at Marketing/PR Savvy and has extensive experience in both marketing and public relations. His just-published book, Connecting the Mind and Voice of Business, illuminates the ups and downs, and pros and cons, in each discipline cooperating and understanding each area.

Why do you think a well-known global PR firm recently appointed an ex BBC journalist as Chief Content Officer?

[This is a guest post from experienced corporate communicator, Craig Badings.*]

We all know content’s not new. It’s what we’ve been doing for years.  In fact when PR first started in the US, companies employed journalists to write content that looked and sounded the way the company wanted.  So why would I flag something that has been around the PR world forever as one of the biggest changes facing our industry?

Because the rules of the content game have changed dramatically.  First, traditional content development and production required a significant process, budget and distribution, but nowadays you can do it from your mobile phone and include sound, image and video if needed.

Second, the gap between the customer and the company has closed.  Not only is the time of content to market almost immediate but clients and customers can interact with the company in real time with real people – except of course for those wretched voice response calls when you call your telecom provider!

Three words come to mind:  strategic, authentic, storytelling.

Companies can no longer interact with their audiences the way they have in the past.  The days of controlling and owning brand messages are gone.

Today, brands need to engage and interact with their audiences in different ways.

We no longer live in the world of top-down story telling.  Instead we have entered a world where entertaining, authentic and engaging story-telling is what our customers want.

Our content should connect with an audience so they feel inclined to interact, share, comment and most importantly own and believe it.

The PR person of today and tomorrow needs to be a great story teller.  No more corporate speak, no more messaging cow clods, no more, “We’ll tell you what you need to know and don’t ask us questions.”

The way customers search for information these days means we need to deliver a fantastic content experience.  Instead of pitching products and services, our role is to deliver customers knowledge in an entertaining, timely, informative and non-promotional way that helps them make decisions and that enables them to share the content with their consumer friends or B2B colleagues.

First we need to know the customer

But to get this right and in order to deliver great content that hits the right spot we better be sure we clearly define the audience.  We should understand their needs and their issues as well as know where and how they consume content.

Only then can we truly develop a content asset and distribution strategy to reach, educate and inspire them.

Content strategy is long-term

The key is to engage the customer for the long-term.  To do this, as PR practitioners, we will need to measure the impact of our content across various stages of the buying cycle.  Finding and understanding your audience in the first place takes time, effort and resources so why do it if you aren’t in the content game for the long haul.

Our clients must become publishers

Most companies, whether they are consumer or B2B oriented, will need to become publishers.  If not they are missing not only a huge opportunity to engage with their customers but they will lose ground to their competitors.

When someone like Seth Godin says that content marketing is “all the marketing that is left” as PR practitioners we should sit up and take note.

Craig Badings is a director of Sydney-based Cannings Corporate Communications and has his own blog on thought leadership and is the author of the thought leadership guide the experts refer to, Brand Stand: seven steps to thought leadership. He can be networked with via LinkedIn or Twitter.

One of public relations’ strongest and most defining characteristics is its facilitation of, and influence over, the exchange and cross-fertilisation of stories, beliefs and demands between an organisation and its stakeholders. It is, therefore, somewhat remiss of PR professionals not to invest more time into underlining the profound impact we have on positioning, whether it is in the context of an organisation, or one of its products or services.

For a long time now I’ve been conscious of the importance of positioning to PR practice, but have failed to see many discussions of the issue. There’s an excellent, comprehensive and thought provoking one in relatively recent edition of the Journal of Public Relations Research, by Australian PR academic and practitioner Melanie James, entitled A Provisional Conceptual Framework for Intentional Positioning in Public Relations* (NB. Don’t let the title put you off!)

In this post I identify, discuss and tease out aspects of this article, but to get full value I suggest you seek it out at your local uni library.

Marketing and public relations: positioning contested

As usual, the notion of a contest is easily transferrable to marketing and PR. One of the quotes I like that James’ uses is Ries and Trout’s, “The basic approach of positioning is not to create something new and different, but to manipulate what’s already up there in the mind, to retie the connections that already exist.” Positioning, they also said, “is what you do to the mind of the prospect.”

Now many aspects of this are insightful and useful, but when marketers start using the word ‘manipulate’ it reaffirms my perceptions of the discipline and one of its essential weaknesses. Whereas public relations, practiced at its optimum level, is about mutually driven outcomes, marketing seeks to contextualise and, yes, position to seek optimum profit for an organisation.

Who’s spin-criminal-in-chief now?

James spends time talking about the marketing and sales-aligned general notion of positioning and the inappropriateness of many discussions on the topic to public relations. Yet, as her research points out, positioning is endemic within our public relations discipline.

Positioning, when practiced by PR pros, is much more likely to lead to change from the organisation, rather than focusing on the one-way and sales-targeted communication that marketing employs. Pointedly, James says, “public relations works to co-construct particular meanings in the minds of publics [i.e. stakeholders]”, underlining the transactional nature of our field.

Compare the two:

• Marketing “re-ties” perceptions that already exist
• Public relations constructs meanings in a partnership (though admittedly, in most cases, probably a partnership of unequal power).

Public relations position on positioning: positioned

James says that, “Positioning in public relations can be defined as the strategic attempt to stake out and occupy a site of intentional representation in the contested space where meanings are constructed, contested and reconstructed.”

Key roles played by PR, James says, are stakeholder analysis (i.e. market research), framing of organisational positions (i.e. contextualising of communication, driven by strategy) and organisational narratives (which are always, to some extent, co-constructed with stakeholders).

For the most part, positioning undertaken by public relations is intentional, even if it is in response to positioning or communication from organisational stakeholders. The responsive dimension of positioning necessitates fluidity being inherent to most positioning, reinforcing its negotiated characteristic of positioning. And if social media isn’t emphasising this then I don’t know what is!

James introduces work undertaken by psychology researchers Harre and Langenhove, called a “positioning triangle”. Her research underlined how accurate this conceptualisation is for PR:

• The position of various players within the organisational ‘relationship environment’
• The social forces of action and interaction that is occurring
• Narratives (stories abound!).

James makes perhaps the ultimate point that, “positioning is a significant part of public relations practice.” In an applied sense, this suggests public relations practitioners should:

• be conscious of how their communication impacts on organisational/product/service positioning
• understand the relationships relevant to positioning between an organisation/product/service and other relevant organisations/products/services/stakeholders, as they exist in a fluid, transactional environment
• counsel their organisation to evolve based on the varying needs of the organisation and its stakeholders – thus helping to build and sustain mutually beneficial relationships between the organisation and its stakeholders
• be assertive in claiming the practice of positioning within their activity and spelling out to organisational hierarchy the importance of public relations’ role in this area.

What work have you done in the area of positioning in your public relations practice? Have you been frustrated by your organisation not recognising public relations’ relevance to positioning? Do you relate to the various concepts noted above and how would you contextualise them to what you do in your workplace?

* James, M. (2011). A Provisional Conceptual Framework for Intentional Positioning in Public Relations, Journal of Public Relations Research, 23(1)

Certainly, the marketing communication dimension of business communication, in the context of issues management, may have been glossed over quite significantly.

Marketing communication is an unusual discipline, if indeed it is a discipline. I tend to think of it as a set of tactical mechanisms that fall under both marketing and public relations.

From a practical perspective, I suspect marketing communication tactics are traditionally and generally implemented by the marketing team, but based on the strategic remit of public relations, these tactics are equally useful for public relations. This has been proven time and again by organisations that have a corporate communication function, but not a discrete marketing one (not unusual for government organisations in Australia).

Some marketing communication tactics include:

• brochures and flyers
• direct mail and email
• social media marketing, including Facebook, Twitter and blogs
• events, launches and stunts
• branding.

Marketing should think like public relations

Marketing in all of its guises should be cognisant of the broader remit in which its activities occur. In essence, marketing needs to think like more public relations. Questions marketers need to ask include:

• what are the ways in which this product or service could enhance or damage the relationship my organisation has with its stakeholders?
• what are the different perceptions that varying stakeholders could have of this product or service and what are the ways in which we can optimise the experience of our stakeholders in regard to the product or service?
• will making money off this product or service compromise the capability of my organisation’s other products or services to make money?
• if this product or service doesn’t deliver according to its objectives, what do we do?
• what is the history of producing products or services such as these and have there been issues in regard to them that could compromise outcomes such as profit, organisational reputation and stakeholder relationships?

Characteristics of the product or service that need to be considered in this thinking include:

• What is it designed to achieve?
• What is it made of?
• How is it manufactured and delivered?
• How much are workers in the production and supply chain paid and what are the conditions under which they work?

Marketing as broadcast; PR as interactive

Despite its many claims to the counter, marketing is essentially about selling, so it would do well to consider the broader strategic remit of public relations, which is also about selling but, more importantly, the long term reputation of an organisation and the relationships it has with all its stakeholders, not just its customers.

Marketing communication elements offer an opportunity to listen, engage and evolve, but so does their generally non-confrontational nature provide an excellent means to build relationships and reputation.

As marcomms is generally driven by marketing strategy, this strategy should situate itself in a broader context than profit and loss, thus providing room for marketing communication tactics to apply approaches that can enhance the organisation’s positioning and reputation.

The challenge is doing this in a way that doesn’t cloud the positioning of the product, service or initiative the marcomms is promoting. But it is possible. And doing so effectively will build the stakeholder ‘relationship bank account’.

What are examples of where marcomms can be used to build an organisation’s reputation you can tell us about? Does marketing miss the bigger picture of organisational reputation, focusing too much on profit & loss, in your opinion? Does marketing have a conversation with stakeholders for any other reason than to make more money and, if so, is this fair enough?

PS. This blog has just been named as one of Australia’s 25 best business blogs. Some great company I’m keeping if you care to check the other 24.

Are we to lose this fundamental quality that gives PR its overwhelming POD as part of this process of, as a new study implies, ‘dropping the PR’ from what we call ourselves?

These topics of how PR should be termed and how will it evolve in the context of other business communication disciplines were raised again recently by the appearance of Ogilvy PR’s thought provoking Peripheral Visions Study (in itself a terrific example of applying the strategic alliance methodology to gain enhanced credibility, due to its partnership with the IABC). The study is based on extensive research amongst Australian PR and communication professionals.

PR and marketing: happy singalong

The notion that public relations and advertising will be “merged into hybrid/blended agencies” was one finding (60% agreement), but from this I’ll extrapolate that this belief is not just relevant to agencies. I can’t see how agencies can exist in this hybrid form if the reality isn’t reflected in the manner in which in-house communication teams are organised.

However, this raises the interesting question of whether agencies do now, and should in the future, reflect the way organisations structure their business communication (e.g. marketing and PR, primarily) teams. To the best of my knowledge PR and marketing, though clearly connected, genuinely run their own shows. And this is reflected in agency structures (i.e. PR and marketing delineation).

Of course, the spanner in this mix is a snotty little ingénue called social media. Everyone is claiming the right to run this show. PR (over marketing) ‘seems’ to have the inside running, but I’d be careful about punting too much on the PR pony. I can envisage social media-specific departments within some organisations, reporting through neither the PR or marketing silo, but direct to whoever has responsibility for all three areas.

There is so much synergy between fundamental aspects of PR and social media that I can’t see the logic in the two being separated, but marketers can be a self-focused bunch and if it can help turn a buck, they’ll want it.

Two of the big issues that will need to be addressed if blending the PR and marketing disciplines into an integrated ‘brains trust’ are:

• Marketing tends to be more about brand; PR tends to be more about reputation
• Best practice PR is based on two-way symmetrical communication; marketing is predicated on turning a buck. The two don’t always align.

Whilst two-way symmetrical communication is a pipe dream for many and not commercial enough, for me at least it provides an ethical, inspiring target to aim for.  Based on the two-way symmetrical mindset, I wonder if PR is actually anti-economic growth, based on the supposition that growth has a greater upside for the well off and increases the disenfranchisement of the less well off. Economic growth also tends to come with a larger population and accelerated environmental degradation.

As Jonathan Franzen wonders very, very loudly in his most recent riff-fest, Freedom, is an increasing global population the root of all evil?

Marketing, of course, is all for economic growth, more money making products, more money in the pockets of those who own companies etc.

It’s a political, social and moral discussion. Can PR and marketing ever really sleep together in comfort? The s*x might be tempestuous and astounding, but will they respect each other in the morning? Perhaps more to the point in the longer term, what will the kids be like? Social media freaks and born with an iPhone in their hands, that’s for certain.

Can you blog in utero?

Giving PR a new name

76% of respondents to the report’s survey agree that we’ll refer to ourselves as communication professionals rather than PR professionals. Kieran Moore, Ogilvy PR Australia’s CEO and my inordinately intelligent and insightful ex-boss, got it right when she said PR needs to redefine rather than rename itself.

“While we don’t agree with dropping ‘PR’ from our discipline, we think this shows that companies, organisations and individuals are demanding authentic communications advice that focuses on the reality of reputation – in the real world context of business and organisational needs,” said Kieran.

It isn’t an easy issue to come up with an answer to. So many people think PR is media relations alone, due to the evolution of the discipline, that I can’t envisage a day when the term public relations will ever be perceived as what it really is:

A wide ranging business communication discipline that, on a strategic level, encompasses PR, strategic planning, marketing communication approaches and more, whilst on a tactical level is everything from media relations and social media to event management and crisis management to employee communication and positioning.

So I fully empathise with those that want to change the name. But with the wealth of academic work that has been developed to underpin our discipline, including my much-nagged about two-way symmetrical communication hobby horse, I just don’t think it’s worth the agony.

And what the hell is a ‘communication professional’ anyway? As a brand, it pretty much sucks deeply. Marketers will laugh at that brand. It tries to say everything and says nothing.

Muscle up PR pros. Stop bitching at your name and go about fighting for territory and delivering quality.

This is the same way I look at brands. You can call it what you like. You can create whatever logo you want. You can conceptualise the most creative, eye catching ad campaign in the world. But if the product or service itself is weak, then THAT is the brand, that is the outcome and no matter what clever marketing spin you put on it, that product or service will flunk.

And don’t come crying to your PR pro when your lack of rigour in looking at various aspects of your new gun product or service comes back to bite you for some crisis communication or positive media placement. Think bigger picture. Think, in fact, PR 101 two-way symmetrical communication.

Do you think PR should change its name? What are your thoughts on this hybrid communication discipline that it has been posited may emerge? Why all the talk about PR’s name change? What will it change? Is it a superficial, ultimately hollow move, which is basically what I argue, or is it something of greater substance?

Why and how helping other PR agencies is a good thing

The benefits of referring business opportunities manifested itself for me recently and think it’s an interesting anecdote to share.

Recently I was asked by a Sydney PR agency I’ve done a little work for, and had a few enjoyable discussions with, did I know anyone with financial PR experience as it had an opportunity. This isn’t something I’m skilled in, so I went to the trouble of searching for some options. Fortunately, a friend of mine who does work in financial PR made a recommendation so I put what I hope ends being the happy couple together.

Less than a week later, I get a phone call out of the blue saying good bloke and savvy PR guy, Daniel Young of Encoder PR, had recommended that this company talk to me regarding a potential public relations opportunity. Now, I haven’t won this work at the time of writing (fingers crossed), but what a lovely and much appreciated thing for Daniel to do.

What goes around….

Seeking money from referrals is bad PR and marketing juju – two dirty deeds

On the other hand, I have some tales to tell in regard to what I think is a negative, divisive and often fundamentally unethical and dishonest approach to business referrals. That’s right, I think it sucks.

Quite a few years ago when I was working for an agency, a friend (…) of someone in the agency referred a potential client to the PR agency.

Lo and behold, we won the client. Lo and behold, the ‘friend’ then asked for a considerable cut of the business due to their referral, the logic to this approach being you wouldn’t have got the business without me.

Now I railed against this at the time, spluttering in dismay and, yes, disgust, but it seemed there wasn’t much to be done. At the time this approach really was marketing industry pretty standard practice, so I’m led to believe, and kicking up a stink at the risk of losing the client wasn’t a preferred option.

Was the client informed of the cream taken off the top, which is a VERY BIG question to ask about these sorts of scenarios? I don’t know.

I do know, however, of the situation in a much more recent situation that I was involved with.

A business communication agency referred a potential client to us. This agency wasn’t capable of doing the work required of us themselves. We won the work. The referring agency demanded a very considerable cut of the revenue we generated from the client. The cut came in two ways:

• An over-estimation of time and effort and expertise that the referring agency provided on certain activities, built into our fee, which they received a bloated cut for – this aspect of the fee was, at least, made transparent to the client
• A second tranche of fees that was to be paid to the referring agency that was totally hidden from the client, for no other reason than being referred the business.

I won’t reveal what ultimately occurred, but it was a sickening and sad reflection of the marketing industry that such a thing even came to pass.

What should occur in marketing industry business referrals

I think I’ve clearly nailed my colours to the mast on this one.

If you have a business that is capable of delivering the desired services to a client, great, deliver away. If you don’t, refer on. Why should you get a cut of business that you haven’t provided any services on?

All you’ve done is referred/recommended another service provider that can deliver the goods. Surely, the opportunity may one day come back for those referred to, to refer back. I would have thought that if you have to pay for the referral it will stick in your back teeth and you’ll be loathe to help the initial referrer out.

So that’s two strikes against the bad juju approach.

And I haven’t even discussed how in this social media age that it is an even more outmoded, dinosaur-like approach.

The social media dimension of reciprocity inherent within its best practice application is the sharing of knowledge; generating a thought leadership positioning; being prominent by giving value, not doing the hard sell for new business and hoping it generates credibility and presence.

Social media has accelerated the death of the old pay-for referral approach. This is an inherently corrosive approach to business and does nothing but attach a pyramid selling, lowest common denominator stigma to business, with further negative knock-on effects to society in general.

Strike three.

It will be a rainy day in hell before I ask a company I’ve referred business to for me a cut of money generated through the investment of their time, their expertise, their sweat and blood. What an immoral, evil and reprehensible approach to take.

What do YOU think about paying for referrals? Is it fair or ridiculous? What tales can you tell of your experiences in this area? Does it still go on? Is it an outmoded approach to take? C’mon, give it up!!

We’re lucky these days. The internet is a university. And some of the best lecturers (practicing professionals, academics and their hybrid sisters) in the world have blogs, which is where I’ve learnt a hell of a lot about not just social media, but a range of public relations, marketing and business issues. It is incredible just how much you can learn from great blogs and, underpinning that, how generous people are to provide their insights and advice.

One of these blogs’ best characteristics is that they cut to the chase. They’re pithy. You get some theory but so do you get the cold, hard, slap-in-the-face and here-and-now of what matters and what you need to do about it.

Content is king ipso facto content marketing is NOW

Content management and its nimble sibling, content curation, are the new marketing central. In this online-centred world with its reliance on search, its appetite for quality content and its proclivity to send it viral, quality content and its intelligent leveraging is almost unspeakably important for marketing and public relations.

And, partly because of the sheer NOISE of all this online activity, this means that thought leadership, value and insightfulness – and let’s not forget HUMOUR – are more valued than ever before.

One set of content management stats = this:

• 80% of business decision makers prefer to get company information in a series of articles versus an advertisement
• 70% say content marketing makes them feel closer to the sponsoring company
• 60% say that company content helps them make better product.

So that’s two posts I’ve flagged with only one promised. But the real point I want to make is encapsulated in the issue of where does content marketing belong in the social business? Now, this is an entirely valid question but, more importantly in my view:

What business cannot afford to be social, when so much of the conversation about it will be online?

The question of where does content marketing belong, however, is articulately explored in the conversionation post linked to above. One upshot is that if you have no single person or business unit coordinating content generation and utilisation, you do so at your peril:

• Content may not appear
• It may be shoddy and reek of a lack of professionalism and care
• Different elements may contradict each other, either in a specific tactical sense or an organisational branding sense.

In any of these cases: disaster.

Being a winner at getting targeted traffic for your blog or website

A post was published recently on Problogger by marketer Eric Enge that I consider one of the most important marketing/PR posts ever written. That sounds like hyperbole, but I’m sincere.

The reason it is the most important is that it provides an easy to understand explanation of long tail keywords and how to leverage them on blogs, websites etc. it is important because:

• as we now know, the internet is the number one source of information, after word-of-mouth (in fact, it’s often another version of word-of-mouth, but let’s not go there just now…), for many, many people
• searches/Googles for the most searched for keyword terms are extremely competitive, so being strategic about how we articulate content on our sites (i.e. the application of keywords) is absolutely stone-cold imperative
• the use of long tail keywords means that we will be able to funnel the most targeted, relevant search queries to our online real estate (and please remember, identifying target audiences as opposed to those who are generally irrelevant is crucial for effective marcomms).

Eric talks about Google Adwords keyword tool as the baby to use, but Google’s Wonder Wheel is another fun and very useful tool to consider utilising as well – both free!

And if you’re a B2B marketer or PR professional, don’t think long tail is not for you. In fact, I think the incredible specificity of much of B2B marketing makes long tail even more valuable.

PR and marketing needs to identify, cultivate and harness the power of 3rd party advocates

3^rd party credibility is a fundamental strategic approach that excellent PR and marketing uses. It works well with thought leadership, in fact. This is because not all thought leadership needs to come specifically from the organisation that wants to leverage off the goodwill and brand impetus 3^rd party credibility delivers.

Using a non-organisational employee to deliver thought leadership that the organisation benefits from is a subtle form of brand advocacy. But there are other reasons why your company should use brand advocates:

• They create lots of content
• They are influencers
• They talk a lot!
• They use social media a lot
• They care about their own reputation and like to share and influence
• They are loyal to brands they love/like/respect/ have a personal ‘thing’ with…

3^rd party credibility, thought leadership and brand advocacy are not the sole property of online communication, either. They are relevant to the entire big, wide world of marketing and PR.

Are your assumptions about media relations in PR on the money?

In a recently syndicated post, public relations and communication pro Greg Matusky explored five media myths that he believes apply to many public relations and marketing professionals.

• Sometimes it’s actually okay to say ‘no comment’. The main message here being don’t interact with the media solely on their terms. Organisational imperatives are important, too
• The media can play dirty. They cannot always be trusted. Don’t take them on their word unless you have good reason to
• If you don’t ask, you don’t get. Query a journalist on their rationale for the story. It might actually help to provide them with information that suits the needs of both the journo and your organisation
• You can negotiate with the media. If you don’t try, then you’re leaving options and opportunities unexplored
• Media can sometimes surprise you by taking a perspective or running a story that logic doesn’t always tell you they will. It goes back to the section on content noted above. Have you got the content and rationale to convince?

For mine, another myth you can also add is that a PR media relations pro needs to have a network of journalists to get good media placement. Rubbish. The main element a PR pro needs for this is decent content, insights, thought leadership, POD in perspectives.

It is simply not necessary to have a journalist relationship that requires them to be a Facebook friend, to be going to each others’ kids bar mitzvahs or to have season tickets to the same sporting teams. Relationships, of course, help. But how do you think the PR pro-journalist thing became a useful relationship in the first place?

Because the journalist was consistently provided with quality content, customised to their needs with probably a little bit of ‘exclusivity’ icing on top.

Why we don’t need to measure PR

Measuring the impact of business activity, and oh yes that includes PR and marketing, is somewhat of a no-brainer for any pro that is serious about their work having an impact. How else can you tell whether your work is achieving meaningful, business-relevant outcomes?

Determining what those objectives should be is one thing, but taking an arch-eyebrowed contrary view, Sean Williams argues that sometimes, well, you don’t need to measure PR. Sean says don’t do measurement when:

• you’ve been flickpassed a dodo. No matter what you do it won’t make a difference
• your organisation isn’t going to change or do anything to meet stakeholders’ needs and wants. Clearly, stakeholders are going to crucify you. All you can do is hand them the hammer and nails and grimace politely whilst they are put to use
• the cost of measuring exceeds the cost of the program or work you are measuring. Time to take a punt on the impact. Or talk to a few of the target audience. Measurement for the price of a pint. There are worse ways to do business…

On the other hand, do measurement when:

• you care about the program’s results. Really care. You might even depend on the results for your own organisation’s or your own (i.e. Le job) existence
• you know you need to change and data is the way to convince the purse-wielding powers that be
• you want insights and information to speak confidently and persuasively on your key issue(s).

What are your thoughts on the propositions put forward by each of these five (plus) posts? What is missing from the arguments put forward? Should there be another topic included? Is there anything here which has challenged your own perceptions of what we need to prioritise and implement?

PS: I’d welcome you joining my 1,500-strong LinkedIn network (send me an invite!) or interacting with me through Twitter. You can also learn more about my PR and marcomms business through my About page.

But I’ve posed this question: are public relations’ firms and their in-house sisters’ fixation with this approach hindering their ability to generate credibility for itself and not sufficiently pragmatic when being used by profit-driven organisations?

Well, through numerous public relations marketing LinkedIn groups, and in personal emails to me, the differences and caveats and justifications have been coming in thick and fast. Some of the fallout has been generated by me asking why isn’t making money a KPI for public relations jobs?

This question was prompted by insights from The Annual Insight Into The Communication Profession 2011, undertaken by the only Australian recruitment consultancy specialising in corporate affairs and communication executives, Salt & Shein. The survey identifies that profit-related KPIs are barely visible for those in Australian public relations jobs.

Why PR is should not be measured on turning a buck

Professor Jim Macnamara*, Professor of Public Communication at the University of Technology, Sydney, leads the teaching of PR at Australia’s leading public relations education university. He is virulently opposed to the notion of PR being measured on its profit or sales-generating outcomes.

“While some marketing PR likes to, or would like to, show how it drives sales and profits, and it is important to have objectives related to the overall goals and objectives of the organisation, the reality is that sales/profits are the outcome of multiple influences and activities,” says Professor Macnamara.

“This includes distribution strategy and effectiveness; the sales channel and its work; pricing; competition, product/service quality etc. And this is even before you get to marketing comms.

Any one of these factors, or a combination of them, can significantly affect and determine sales and profits. Then within communication, there are the influences of advertising, promotions, online, etc that are all intermingled and combined in consumers’ minds.

“It is very difficult to show direct causation by PR in sales and/or profits because of this fusion of multiple influences, information sources and experiences.

“The same is true of advertising – although the advertising industry typically has failed to acknowledge this and misled management. The high cost and lack of proof of advertising’s impact has come home to roost and resulted in many organisations turning away from big budget advertising.

“I don’t get why PR is obsessed by, or is expected to generate, sales and show direct correlations to profits. Many other specialist functions in organisations are not judged this way. For example, we don’t expect HR, or the legal department, or the production department, or even the CEO to generate sales and profits. We recognise that they contribute to ultimate success – but they do so through specialised functions.”

But then again, who’s paying the PR bills?

Increasing the quality of stakeholder relationships, encouraging them to buy into an organisation’s vision, along with getting stakeholders’ perspectives so that an organisation can evolve, are all vitally important elements of public relations. That’s why PR is so much more important to an organisation than marketing.

But can we balance these seeming potentially oppositional, or certainly tension-rife, dimensions? Can we undertake best practice (and some may say, idealistic) public relations whilst still doing what some organisations say we must do – undertake activity to help make money?

• “I teach this to students at Notre Dame. PR is about the triple bottom line, sure. But when it boils down to business, it’s about making money and keeping shareholders satisfied (just the bottom line).” – Dr. Greg Smith, Senior Media and Communications Officer, Department of Training and Workforce Development, Western Australia
• Not having a profit or sales-generating focus is one of the reasons why PR is relegated to a back row in business says an  an international branding and communications expert from Germany
• “I think we’re deficient if we don’t include a financial component in any plan we propose. [The difficulty] should not deter us from reflecting or having an explicit financial objective as part of that program.” – Alan Smith, corporate communication consultant
•  Another PR and marketing professional says that good PR should drive sales as that is what the client wants.

These are just a few recent perspectives taking a divergent approach to Professor Macnamara. Clearly some head clearing dialogue going on here.

Professor Macnamara wonders, however, in response to those who say PR can and should be measured in terms of sales and profits – how do they actually measure and prove that?

“I would be very surprised if they have any rigorous valid method of proving what they claim,” says Professor Macnamara. “The reality is that most marketing PRs who claim to deliver to the bottom line measure their efforts in terms of advertising value equivalents – a totally invalid correlation of hypothetical cost and value that bears no relationship to sales or profits or even effectiveness.”

If we are putting out a media release, or holding a launch event which thousands attend or initiating a Facebook promotion – all about a product or service…surely we are trying to make a sale, turn a buck et al. If this is the case, and despite PR at a higher level being more important than making money (maybe don’t’ tell your CFO this, though, okay?), then why the hell don’t we have financial KPIs as part of this program?

And if we have them as part of this program, why not embedded into certain PR roles at a deeper level?

Public relations is about building relationships

“A further key factor is that public relations is largely directed at other [non-profit relevant] objectives,” takes up Professor Macnamara again. “In most conceptualisations and models, the primary raison d’être of PR is building and maintaining relationships with key stakeholders such as employees, shareholders, investors, communities, etc. Thus, PR has a longer-term focus and a different strategy in most cases.

“Turning all relationship building and maintenance activities into money-making opportunities, or making this a key objective of public relations, is not authentic (we don’t really care or want to support communities, etc, we just want to make money) and is effectively a retreat to the early industrial era of Vanderbilt and Friedman. They said the only objective of business was making money and the only loyalty was to shareholders.”

Let’s define public relations

“As long as PR people think they can be sales and marketing people, they will struggle,” points out Professor Macnamara.  “Publicity creates awareness, but it does not sell things. Nor do events, newsletters, community sponsorships etc. You need distribution channels, good pricing strategies, quality products and services and sales people to sell. Sales and profits are their KPIs.

“I actually think it is quite dangerous for PR to try to tie itself to sales KPIs. It will inevitably fail to show clear evidence of direct causation and, thus, will be seen as failing, relegating us to being a second or distant third or fourth cousin to advertising, sales promotion and marketing.

“KPIs and objectives have to be functionally relevant and directly causal. That’s not to say that PR cannot CONTRIBUTE to sales and profits. What does it contribute?

• Relationships
• Reputation
• Awareness
• Trust.

“Then let’s measure those.”

What did you think of the perspectives in this post? Do you support PR sticking to its predominantly relationship management and reputation enhancement imperatives? Or are there other aspects that you think PR should strive to achieve? What is your professional experience in the context of these dimensions?

*Jim Macnamara, PhD, FPRIA, FAMI, CPM, FAMEC became Professor of Public Communication at the University of Technology Sydney in 2007 after a 30-year career working in journalism, public relations and media research, which culminated in selling the CARMA Asia Pacific media analysis firm which he founded to Media Monitors in 2006. His most recently published text is ‘Public Relations; theories, practices, critiques’. Jim can be networked with on his LinkedIn profile and on Twitter @jimmacnamara.