I've got a PR problem

Don’t get me wrong, I'm fond of PR and I have a lot of respect for people in the industry - I have to. Other than the fact that my other half works in it; it's also where I started my career. I would go as far as saying PR is a good place to start if you want to be a planner - although probably not something that will stand out on your CV to a prospective employer.

There are several reasons why it's good. You develop an eye for a story, you hone your writing skills, you do you own research, you have to come up with your own strategy without the help of a planning department, you're under pressure to come up with your own ideas without the help of a creative, you have to do you own media plans and you also have to actually role your sleeves up and implement all of this. Lee has written a good post on this before but I think it goes further than just being a good journalist.

So why do I have an issue with PR? (I'm excluding public affairs, CSR and lobbying from this as they're completely different disciplines in my opinion) It's essentially the reason why I got frustrated and moved in to planning. Out of all the marketing disciplines people in PR, more often than not, tend to be the ones with the least knowledge of brand strategy and are way behind others in terms of innovation.

Although this isn’t a great yardstick for measuring how innovative a profession is, you will be hard pressed to find many PR blogs out there that talk about anything other than how the Interweb is affecting the industry. No shit Sherlock!

Many proposals I see regarding the use of online are pretty staid. So despite the rhetoric I don’t believe that PR is the best discipline to manage your brand online just yet. Many, but not all are just using the same rules as they adhere to offline. They’ll tell me that any brand worth its salt should be on Myspace with no explanation as to how they would use it or why it’s even relevant. They will treat bloggers exactly the same as they would treat journalists, people just waiting to hear about a products wonderful new features and competitive price point. They will claim to be able to create buzz and influence opinion directly in forums with obviously no experience, as they are unfamiliar with the terms ‘advertising scum’ and ‘flaming’.

I get bored of the same tired old tactics, that are just that - a bunch of tactics, wheeled out for every client with no real strategy supporting them. You normally get a celebrity (that you will have no chance of actually using or they only have a very tenuous link to the brand). There will probably be a survey, a competition and maybe even an event thrown in. It’s not the tactics being used as such that annoys me, it’s more the thought that goes into the ideas. I very rarely see the same creative and strategic thinking that you get from people in other disciplines.

Some PR professionals are also great at using a number of power word and phrases that obviously proves they get it. My favourites being:

“We’re an agency that gets results”. Phew, good job we didn’t use that agency that doesn’t get results.

“As an agency we pride ourselves on effectiveness”. You mean you have a press cuttings service.

“We know how to manage your brand online”. Then how come when I asked if you use Instant Messenger did you say is that a good courier service? (This didn’t happen, but I thought it made this long rant a bit funnier).

“Here are our key messages….” No, they are the brand’s key messages, you’re just reading them back to me.

Then there are the same objectives on absolutely every proposal with no expansion as to what this means for the communications:

1. To raise awareness
2. To change perception
3. To deliver ROI

Of what, why and how? Ohhh, refer to the strategy you say. I’m sorry all I can see is a load of tactics and for your information, I don’t think Mr Motivator is a good idea. I’m sure he hasn’t been on TV for at least 15 years.

I do genuinely think PR has a major role to play in a brand’s communications mix and I’m not suggesting everyone in PR is incompetent, I just think the ones I’ve personally experienced recently are giving it a bad name.

I don’t think PR will ever have the position at the head of the table unless they can think more strategically and ensure it isn’t separate, second, or even non-existent to the idea they propose. They must understand how to use emerging media and not just that it’s out there. And finally I would like to see better, smarter, more involving ideas. Perhaps the pressure from clients to get column inches rather than a share of people’s conversations stops them from doing all of this, I don’t know? One thing is for sure, it is about having more than a little black book full of journo’s numbers.