PR is dead, long live PR.

January 22, 2006

Odd
things are happening to PR at the moment.

Conversations rage across blogs as to
whether it is redundant or about to evolve into the communications
discipline most suited to the new era of the connected media world.

The
Economist this week carries a great article describing PR’s rising fortunes and the decline of advertising as king of
the marketing communications jungle.

Not the most most important piece of information or commentary in the piece, more of an aside really, was an observation that some PR companies now describe their services as "brand communications".

I
said to someone the other day that "public relations" sometimes felt about as useful to me as
a phrase as "new media". PR and new media, as descriptors, have both lost their currency somewhat, misplaced
their meaning, become unclear or limiting for a lot of people. You say them meaning one thing but worry that the person you’re speaking is probably hearing something else.

When
I’m discussing connected media, the interactions between traditional media
(newspapers, TV stations) and social media (blogs, podcasts, folksonomies) what
I want to say is "new media" but, ironically, that phrase doesn’t
express the new-ness of the models, relationships and disruptions in the media that are taking place. New media makes you think of websites, the late 90s and not a lot else.

This is probably the reason the industry’s own bible dropped "new media" for an acronym "NMA". I guess that’s also why those who don’t find it sticks in their craw, like to use
the phrase Web 2.0 to describe the new phase of innovation in Web media.

Not
wanting to get boxed in again and have people think I’m just talking about
wikis and blogs is why I prefer the phrase connected media to new media.

Getting boxed semantically in is
also why I sometimes feel that PR as a descriptor may lose, or already be losing, its usefulness.

After
years of the industry failing to describe itself clearly, or define itself
apart from charlatans who borrow its name, is PR so misunderstood and abused
that it should be discarded? Should PR re-brand itself?

Or
is the good that goes with it (that fact that people have heard of it, the fact
that The Economist is running articles saying it’s on the up) enough to make
us stick with it?

Another
way of looking at it is to ask, will the name PR survive the evolution into a
discipline that engages with connected media? Are we all in "brand
communications" now?

I’m not sure. But like everything else when there’s more potential in a market for disruption in than status quo, it’s up for grabs.

Antony Mayfield

Public notebook

4 responses to “PR is dead, long live PR.”

David Rossiter

January 22, 2006 at 4:21 pm

PR was also dead as a term 10 years ago. Then the shiny new term was “perception management”. Somehow, PR has continued to stay alive while perception management is just a dim, distant memory!

If PR is going to successfully rebrand itself, it has to mean more than a change of name. It has to do with what we do, how we do it and (perhaps) why we do it.

As we move into a new world of connected media, I’d suggest that we need to start addressing the core fundamental of what we’re now trying to achieve. Once we’ve got that sorted, we can come up with the new “brand name”.

Doing it the other way around seems to be putting the cart before the horse.

What do you think?
Antony

January 22, 2006 at 4:46 pm

Yep – you’re right. I saw Johnnie Moore use the phrase “definition deckchairs” today that nicely sums up the activity off shuffling round terminology and shibboleths rather than getting on with the business in hand…

But thinking about how what we do is changing has to be a priority right now. Whatever it’s called.

I don’t recall “perception management”. But it definitely deserved to die.
Jack Yan

January 22, 2006 at 9:57 pm

Should PR re-brand? Perhaps—but even the branders need to re-brand, going through the same sorts of things. No practitioner seems to be able to agree to a definition (even though I like my one best to the exclusion of everyone else’s—therein lies the profession’s problem).
SpunUK

January 25, 2006 at 10:23 am

Great article from The Economist. Wish they’d be a bit more transparent about who actually writes their stories, but I guess their argument for that is well established and a different story altogether.

Although it’s interesting to have a debate around etymology I can’t help feeling it’s missing the point. IMO you can only show real change through demonstrating, in the very least, competence. As The Economist piece quotes, you need to have a legitimate story. That’s so true. So when Jeff Immelt or Lord Michael Brown consider ‘PR’ people to be their closest counsel for reasons way beyond reputation management; for the ability to connect with audiences in a way that they increasingly demand to be connected (no mean feat), then audiences outside our industry will look to define what we do. You can bet The Economist will be there, pen in hand, if that happens. We’re not there yet, but the bright practices/consultants have an idea for what’s needed so I’d rather leave the naval gazing ‘we have an image problem’ brigade in the corridors of SOHO ad agencies and PR companies struggling to keep up. Talk is cheap these days, don’t you think?