I've been thinking a lot lately about the subject of public relations. Over the past 20 years, the public has had consistent declines in both the believability of advertising and the "fusion" of corporations and news providers. There is no doubt (to me) that the public relations business model has some serious kinks in it.
First off, the lack of credibility of advertising claims has a negative effect on all communication vehicles. Second, as Disney, Viacom and General Electric acquired ABC, CBS and NBC, it only gave us incredible examples of how "talking heads" no longer have the ability to influence us the way Walter Cronkite did (in the U.S.A.). No doubt, the same phenomena has manifest around the world (think about Rupert Murdoch).
Between all the options available, public relations continues with traction, mostly, again in my opinion, because of placement of stories in non news areas, like in "magazines" like Vogue, Vanity Fair, Real Simple or Details, the type of magazines (both their digital and analog versions) that write about "features" vs. "news".
The real problem for the P.R. industry is that we are moving further and further away from belief in anyone here-to-fore thought of as an authority. In this era of what I call naive sourced knowledge where all of us can become experts in basically anything we wish to become. So what should a "flack" do?
People now read peer reviews as a main source of input to learn about subjects. They read 15-20 reviews on Amazon vs. reading a book review (by an expert) in the New York Times book review.
Do you think that the public relations companies should find the most popular blogs or Twitter sites and "attach" themselves to them? Do you want to know what Ashton Kutcher or Britney Spears thinks about, well ... anything? If Tiger Woods were to blog about the best steak house in Dallas, or why he drinks a certain bottled water, do we really think he knows better than "true Texans" about what steak house is truly best in Dallas (I guess I'd be surprised if he didn't refill water bottles)?
The real story this month is: whatever business you are in ... the one thing that should be off the table is to keep doing what you've been doing in times of systemic vs. cyclicized change.
I'll bet the P.R. people are doing their best to figure it out.
W2
 | Art: |
| Books |
| Gilded Lily? |
| Pop |
| Public Relations |
| Style |
| Time |
David Howse - 8/31/2009 11:25:21 PM DST (GMT-4)
Watts, can you elaborate on "the one thing that should be off the table is to keep doing what you've been doing in times of systemic vs. cyclicized change. "
I am lost on that sentence.
Thanks.
David
watts.wacker@firstmatter.com - 9/1/2009 7:59:23 AM DST (GMT-4)
hey david
people who think that what is going on is some type of b'ness cycle will be surprised with what will transpire. we are experiencing "something" that will result in b'ness looking for new directions & new resources that were not used before. so, thinking about ones business the way they thought about it before is not a direction i would take. time to deconstruct & look at the parts.
Peterjf - 9/1/2009 8:10:05 AM DST (GMT-4)
I agree with W2 about the change that is coming but after 45 years at this it always keeps changing. As I often say, everything going forward is a reinvention of has or does exist. The question is always what will the reinvention look like. I for one believe that Twitter (and social networking in general) is a fad not a trend.
Fred Smuda - 9/1/2009 10:31:20 AM DST (GMT-4)
Watts, you are so right. The current recesiion is the tipping point that is causing many consumers to re-think what is important to them, and what they expect from brands and corporations. We are entering a marketing era that can no longer be based on satisfying consumers' physical and emotional needs, but goes beyond those two dimensions and begins forming relationships with customers from a more holistic perspective. In other words, market to the whole person rather than just slivers of what makes each person unique.
so watts - 9/1/2009 3:03:01 PM DST (GMT-4)
fred
we have as many as a dozen 'branded' afinity groups. for me?...jamsworld....teva....
vespa....hartmann....canadian club....ben benson's...as a few.
imagine a data mining tool to extract the correlated (and causal!!) dimensions that cross
all of their emotional/attitudinal axis' points??.
as neuro...and behavioral sciences fuse with I.T. we will be able to make "phycographics 2.0"
Spyros Heniadis - 9/3/2009 9:12:51 PM DST (GMT-4)
Nicely elaborated points. It's just the sort of point that Andrew Keen made in his book "The Cult of the Amateur".
I'm always of two minds on this subject because I truly believe in the democratizing effect of the plethora of communication and connection available to us now, but I also believe it leads to an abundance of crud to wade through to find the worthwhile nuggets.
What's really worthwhile though is the point you make about businesses/brands really trying to form those relationships with their customers. It's almost a return to the kind of relationship you had with the owner of your local general store, before the advent of Big Box Mart.
The difference is in how those relationships are formed and maintained. Less and less through actual face to face relations and more and more through customer care via twitter and reaching out to pertinent bloggers.
It'll be interesting to see how it all evolves.
Colin Harper - 9/9/2009 11:04:16 AM DST (GMT-4)
I can't remember the last time I woke up and "decided to re-think my expectations from brands and corporations", to paraphrase a little. I expect to be ripped off nearly all the time, and therefore avoid contact with brands and corporations as much as possible. I also suspect peer reviews have been hijacked by viral marketers – are all the reviews on Amazon authentic?
colin harper - 9/9/2009 11:06:01 AM DST (GMT-4)
[b]And Another Thing. [\b] I dislike the concentration of news and channel provider that's happening, and it's influence on editorial standards - for example, there's ever so little critical news of China in Murdoch owned news channels such as Sky News and sadly, The Times. Detecting and avoiding bias in any news channel (on or off -air, -line) is hard. One even suspects even the BBC these days.
I like the Economist, and very little else. News, analysis and opinion are increasingly blurred. What did people make of Mr Putin's thoughts on the Relationship between Russia, Germany and Poland in Gdansk last week?
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14380289&source=most_commented
Now that's really kinky - IMHO
colin harper - 9/9/2009 11:07:14 AM DST (GMT-4)
I also dislike the concentration of news and channel provider that's happening, and it's influence on editorial standards - for example, there's ever so little critical news of China in Murdoch owned news channels such as Sky News and sadly, The Times. Detecting and avoiding bias in any news channel (on or off -air, -line) is hard. One even suspects even the BBC these days.
I like the Economist, and very little else. News, analysis and opinion are increasingly blurred. What did people make of Mr Putin's thoughts on the Relationship between Russia, Germany and Poland in Gdansk last week?
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14380289&source=most_commented
Now that's really kinky - IMHO
so watts - 9/9/2009 11:08:41 AM DST (GMT-4)
hey collin....authentic?? how many people are that?? when i sift thru 10 or so reviews i start to "see" the ones that are wtitten because the writer is mad that they have never been able to get "their book" written.
Marketing Stories - colinharper 9/9/2009 11:03:27 AM DST (GMT-4)
I can't remember the last time I woke up and "decided to re-think my expectations from brands and corporations", to paraphrase a little. I expect to be ripped off nearly all the time, and therefore avoid contact with brands and corporations as much as possible. I also suspect peer reviews have been hijacked by viral marketers – are all the reviews on Amazon authentic?
Go to the General discussion area.
 |
Middle East | Issues | Archives | Lexicon | Forums | Mailing List | Log In | Search | ?? | ||
|
© 1997-2010 FirstMatter LLC