October 5th, 2004

Filed under:
PR and Marketing
9 Comments »

Sorry, PR Ain’t Dead

My friend and fellow blogging conference planner Roland Tanglao likes to say that PR is dead. He’s smoking the good crack, and taking a very blog-centric view of the world.

Open the paper today. 90% of the stories in that paper originated from a PR person. Let’s have a look at the front page of today’s Vancouver Sun:

  • “Don’t Give Money to Beggars, Police Chief Says” - Clearly, the Vancouver Police media dude
  • “Grandview Elementary Makes the Grade” - From the local school board communications person.
  • “Olympic Organizers Select 2010 Logo” - A classic non-news story placed by PR, from the 2010 organizing committee
  • “Aspirin Scoes Again: Fights Prostate Cancer” - Hmm…who could possibly want this story in the paper? Aspirin vendors, perhaps?

The only non-PR-placed story on the front page is the lead, which comes from some good ol’ fashioned court reporting. Go into the various sections–business, sports, arts–of the paper, and every story starts as a PR pitch. You can do the same thing, if you like, with the front page of CNN.

Obviously, way more people are consuming newspapers and mainstream news sites than the blogosphere. So, even if blogs do offer honest communication with readers (which include journalists), they’re in the minority. Regardless, if you check out a blogosphere-thermometer like Blogdex, half of the stories in the top-twenty probably originate with press releases.

This trend has been increasing for years, and shows no sign of abating. In certain areas, such as technology, you can achieve considerable success without a PR machine, but you’re going to need it eventually. We have clients whose small companies have literally been transformed by the right media hits. Roland, let us handle the media relations for Bryght for six months, and then tell me PR is dead.

Comments: 9 Responses so far

Boris Mann
October 5th, 2004
12:21 pm

Roland likes to say “PR is dead” because it gets people talking (and it’s not nearly as much fun as “blogs live!”). And, in many cases Roland means the non-authentic voice/writing style that many press releases often use.

So…it’s not dead, it’s just pining for the fjords. And blogs/your website/etc. should get added to your mix of marketing strategies.

And we’re working on our 6 month strategy right now, so you’re likely to get a call (again).

[Reply]

Andrea Coutu
October 5th, 2004
1:22 pm

Boris,
The writing style used in news releases is part of a discourse that has evolved over many years. The tone and voice are intentional. How do you think media and analysts would better respond to the discourse of blogs? Just curious.

Andrea

[Reply]

(Associated Press with additional reporting from the CanWest News Service)
October 5th, 2004
1:33 pm

I suspect that your finding is as much an indicator of how incredibly &$%@ing poor the Vancouver daily press is, as much as it is an indicator of the life, death or otherwise of PR.

[Reply]

Roland Tanglao
October 5th, 2004
2:03 pm

To quote from Andrea’s website:
” Public relations executives have taken over from estate agents as the professionals the public trust least. Fewer than 20% of people say the paid representatives of a company are credible sources of information.”

And by way of “defending myself” I’d also add:
a) more and more people and especially the under 30s are becoming more media savvy and can see through the “PR corrupted” ;-) stories of the Vancouver papers and other media outlets who don’t employ that many “real” journalists
b) most under 30s don’t read the Vancouver Sun and the other “PR corrupted” news outlets

“Traditional PR is dead” (more at:

http://www.globalprblogweek.com/archives/traditional_pr_is_de.php)

is probably how I should have phrased it.

Most people write their own work emails and their own work correspondance; a few decades ago, most people had secretaries and other people to help them. And now just a few years later, it is the rule rather than the exception that people write their own correspondance.

In the same way, most people will do their own PR in a few years rather than going through external PR agency that speaks in messages and in a stiff formal style.

Good PR agencies and writers like Darren (we’d love for you to help Bryght out!) and the few others who have written great rebuttals to my ‘pr is dead’ thesis will survive, but the vast army of overpaid formal voice PR hacks will be gone. The dreaded “disintermediation” word comes to mind.

And yes as Boris says, I do say ‘PR is dead’ to stir things up.

The very fact that I get such a vociferous reaction is proof that that there is something to what I say.

[Reply]

Darren
October 5th, 2004
2:49 pm

Thanks for your comments, everybody.

In truth, Roland, you might more accurately say “the press release is dead”. A PR person’s real value (and, if they’re good, what they spend most of their time doing) is building relationships with journalists and analysts. That means time spent sending personal emails and talking on the phone, pitching. Unless you’re Microsoft or a similar uber-company, the press release in and of itself is strictly collateral for the pitch. Unless you’ve got those relationships built, you’re never going to get any value out of sending out the release.

Despite everyone’s comments, relatively speaking, the Vancouver Sun isn’t a bad paper. Its consumption of PR-placed news is typical of the newspaper industry as a whole. As you move into niche or industry publications (and websites), it only gets worse. Webservices.org is probably the most read site for that tech sector. Every one of the stories on the front page comes via PR. And, of course, preference is given to those ‘Sponsors’ in the righthand column.

This is, in part, a matter of necessity. I happen to know that Webservices.org is largely run by one guy, Colin Adam. Even if he had personal communications with all those companies, and monitored all their weblogs, had a Web 2.0-kinda relationship with them, and if all those companies communicated informally about their news, the front page would look the same. The language might be a little more plain, but there wouldn’t be any more ‘journalism’ present.

[Reply]

Shane
October 5th, 2004
3:29 pm

As I am one of the PR-newbies in this town, I have to agree with Darren. I don’t think public relations is a dead art, I think it is just evolving slower than online-obsessive (like myself and Roland) types would like. It would be a great world if everyone was online…but, that day has yet to come.

Sure, most of what I write ends up online on one site or another. But, only people who are online - on a daily basis - would know about it and they would also have to be looking for it. Syndication helps with getting the word out there but, I believe, PR is really just getting out there are talking to the masses face to face. One could write the best darn PR story and many people would pass it up. Same thing for publications online.

I would also agree with Roland since I am “one of him”. I like to get my information online rather than through a newspaper. Yet, as I mentioned, that day has yet to come. It is coming fast and furious but the majority of readers like to hold the paper in their hand and read it in their kitchen…not the computer room.

Anyway, too many things to say, and nothing will be solved in this comment box.

[Reply]

Boris Mann
October 5th, 2004
6:43 pm

Andrea, in response to “writing style”: as Roland also pointed out, many people (including media and analysts) become immune to this style.

Media and analysts, if they’re doing their job, need to monitor blogs as another information channel (use tools like PubSub etc. to get targeted information). Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg [1] does a great job of participating in blog conversations. Mark Evans [2] is an example of a media person that does great blog.

[1] http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/gartenberg/
[2] http://evans.blogware.com/

[Reply]

Andrea
October 7th, 2004
12:31 am

Roland:

Thanks for your reply. But there’s a difference between communicating with the public and communicating indirectly through media and analysts. That’s why I was wondering why you thought news releases were not effective in communicating with journalists. I can see many, many reasons for using other forms of communication to send messages to the public, but it’s unclear to me why a journalist would turn to a blog.

Boris has noted that many people are becoming immune to news releases. However, news releases are not usually intended for “people”. They’re typically intended for media and analysts. In certain circumstances, they are intended for “people”, but this forms part of a larger strategy — the average news release is meant for a busy editor, not Joe Buyer.

Having worked in journalism for 13 years and as a marketer for more than 10 years, I cannot see why either of you feel that a news release is an ineffective vehicle for communicating with media. Certainly, it should not be the only vehicle, but I do not see how it fails or why a blog would communicate information faster or better. I can see why a news release would not be the best tool for communicating with “people”, but, even then, there are circumstances in which a news release still fills a role.

[Reply]

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