What Does PR Stand For? Not What You Think.

"I got nowhere else to go!"  Richard Gere saddened and angered about the future of PR

The practice of public relations is in a state of desperation.  PR agencies must re-focus their mission to meet client expectations increasingly linking programs to profits. Otherwise, like Richard Gere's character in An Officer and a Gentleman, PR will have 'nowhere else to go!"

When I started working as a PR Director at Donna Karan in 1991, the department -- all six of us -- took up a single large office beside the showroom.  Our jobs, working with the fashion media and celebrities with some special event organization, were narrowly focused and therefore performance was easy to measure.  Communication with consumers was not in the PR job description.  That function was controlled exclusively by the advertising department.  

This siloed approach to the marketing process was the accepted common practice among many companies until the advent of 'integrated marketing' firms about a decade ago that increased client confusion instead of clarity.  Two factors from the recent past have permanently blurred the boundaries between advertising and public relations:  market segmentation and real-time consumer engagement.  

Market segmentation is a by-product of online activity, with Google Analytics and other services making it possible to dissect consumer behavior into razor-thin markets based on an individual's online preferences and surfing habits.Developments in market segmentation enable PR agencies to take on many roles of traditional advertising agencies:

• This data is available to everyone at no cost or minimal cost, significantly reducing the historic leverage that advertising firms held over client companies.  
• Second, market segmentation enables more efficient advertising spending.  Instead of buying high-priced print and broadcast campaigns, firms today target the precise market they want to reach and avoid wasteful spending.  
• Third, the advertising process has become de-mystified, with online campaigns conceived, created and implemented within hours compared with the army of graphic designers, copywriters, production and traffic departments and other administrative and creative functions that make up a traditional advertising agency.

Real-time consumer engagement is a direct function of social media participation.Developments in consumer engagement enable advertising agencies to incorporate functions of traditional PR agencies into their strategies and campaigns:

• Every social media user, whether multi-national corporation or individual has equal access to the entire network with the same potential to influence that audience based on their experience.  
• Access to influential editorial reporters, television producers and celebrities was previously the domain exclusively of public relations firms.  Social media enables advertising agencies to incorporate access to 'influencers' into their strategies and campaigns for clients.

Market segmentation and real-time consumer engagement are prompting a continual refinement about the mission and services of PR and advertising firms. Increased sophistication of acquiring relevant data combined with the simplification of the means to reach target markets and a surgical approach to campaign investment create opportunities for agencies to expand their services.  One common element motivating this discussion is the client's single-minded focus on results, which has broadened its definition for PR purposes beyond raising awareness and has come to mean the ability of advertising and public relations campaigns to verify a positive cost/benefit relationship.

Whether any PR agency decides to incorporate non-traditional services, quality of work and results measurement remain the key to a successful practice. Contemporary agencies must take a page from hospital marketing and envision themselves as a unified group of separate specialities, charged with creating successful patient (client) outcomes. 

Then, as PR practitioners, we'll truly be Up Where We Belong...