Comments on: Who is helping public relations ‘get’ strategic?

By: Leading public relations blog discussed: wild, fearless and intelligent | Public relations and managing reputation

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 06:11:24 +0000

[...] An extremely important contribution to the public relations profession through her tireless, thoughtful examination of issues, trends and case studies. PR folk who don’t read her posts are missing out (on professional development AND fun). She is helping public relations ‘get’ strategic [...]

By: Craig

Craig — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 10:17:04 +0000

The ‘just marketing’ response is horrific, Tony. Like you, I abhor this presumption that public relations is a synonynm for media relations. I strongly suspect that leaders of PR agenices who commonly apply the term PR to mean media relations will just say, ‘oh, you’re being pedantic’ when this is pointed out to them.

Yeah, really? Language is reality. Just listen to David Malouf. We name to categorise, to own. Language quickly becomes reality.

They should know better.

By: Tony Jaques

Tony Jaques — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 03:17:03 +0000

Dear Craig. how right you are. Sadly this is a very old problem, and many parties are to blame. As a practitioner, and university lecturer and Fellow the PRIA I have seen all sides of this problem, but from my perspective the real challenge is within the profession itself. We keep talking and talking and talking about media relations as if it was a synonym, and it sure as heck isnt. Sadly the solution for many PR professionals is to simply turn their back on PR altogether and reinvent themselves as management consultants. As a result I am afraid PRIA is becoming increasingly irrelevant. At their last Annual conf in Perth they promoted their keynote speaker as “A master of spin”. When I complained they said it was “just marketing.” They dont get it. The future depends on professionals who understand the difference. My speciality area is issue management and I always use a slide which says “The proper focus of issue management is not issues, but management.” I always watch for the reaction Some people “yeah right,that’s brilliant” and others just sit there. You are on the right track. Keep up the good work

By: Craig

Craig — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 21:25:13 +0000

Thanks for your generous comments, Michael. No disagreement from me on your points.

If you are interested in learning more about symmetrical/asymetrical communication, this is a basic explanation: http://craigpearce.info/2009/08/public-relations-changing-the-world/

The post I refer to also explains why I like looking to the theory to help with the application, which I agree is where you prove whether you ‘get it’, or not.

By: Michael Gury

Michael Gury — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:07:02 +0000

I have no idea what “an asymmetrically-based mode of communication” is. But my own contribution to this topic is that someone who is competent has to run something called Communications in its many forms, PR being only one. And so people within Communications have to think of themselves as owners of the brand, be it a product or a company, and coordinate expressions of it accordingly, whether those are in marcoms, PR, internal, speechwriting, etc. Communications success ( as in “impact” ) is not generally a matter of one medium, but rather the orchestration of all available media. Those that do not orchestrate dilute everything, and it costs more to deliver coherent messages.

Remember too that publicly traded companies are different from others, and PR is as much a legal function for them as it might be to move a marketing needle.

I applaud all the university programs offered to teach the skills of PR, but if someone started to talk to me about an asymmetrically-based mode of communication, I’d quickly tune-out.

Years ago, I had PR people who reported to me say that they “didn’t have a seat at the table”; by which they meant that they were constantly in react-mode and unable to influence how, in what manner, and what messages were delivered. I countered that they did have a seat at the table but they haven’t sat down.

Mr. Grunig’s thoughts seem heavily weighted on the academic side, but I’d say that all the little technical skills you can teach to the future PR mavens of this world won’t add up to anything unless the basics of image and brand valuation are part of the mix.

‘behavioural, strategic management paradigm’ may be code for what I’ve just described, but none of this gorpy language means anything if you don’t take a much more rounded responsibility of moving the business plan ahead through communications in its various forms.