The wide world of PR Week

May 10th, 2010 / 11:00 pm

It’s super to see how the new PR Week global edition seems to be flourishing.

For different reasons, I’ve been a fan of both the US and UK PR Week publications for years, but as each is so geared to the American and British domestic audiences (respectively), there was a gigantic ‘rest of the world’ blind spot between them and now we have a fresh source of international PR news content.

Indeed, I’ve been fortunate of late to provide commentary on PR Week’s market focus reports for Canada and for Japan.

Considering the increasingly worldwide nature of communications consulting, there surely should be more room for quality journalism in this space and now we have another key player.

Categories: PR industry
comments(1) Tags: global, media, PR

Do management consultants make good PR people?

May 1st, 2010 / 2:00 pm

During my travels around Asia these past few weeks, I keep hearing about how management consulting firms are trying to get into the public relations business.

I reckon that we PR people can take this two ways:

As a promising sign that the rising PR trade is now so powerful and profitable that it is ‘worthy’ of cross-sectoral competition from other providers of professional services who now want to get into our act.
As a sad commentary on how the PR industry has failed to keep its promises with clients, who insist on a quality of especially corporate communications counsel that existing providers aren’t providing in ample or consistent measure.

There is truth in each of these perspectives, and so the PR industry should prepare itself for increasing competition from the newcomers. They are not trying to do PR by purchasing established PR firms, and they are not tending to recruit high-profile senior PR talent. Instead, management consultants are in most cases simply adding PR consulting to their existing range of advisory services. Rather than attract real PR people, most are simply putting on a PR hat.

Is this because management consultants have such a low opinion of PR consultants that they see communications as an easy add-on for people of their own advanced acumen? Or is it because they are somehow arrogant, believing that someone successful in their famous firm can become easily expert in a field so ’simple’ as PR? I’m not going to attempt to answer such questions here, but it is noteworthy how the new front being opened in the PR war is so devoid of actual PR professionals.

It shows, too, and that may limit the commercial success of these raiding missions into PR territory.

The other day a famous management consulting firm circulated a white paper on measuring word-of-mouth marketing. With the prestige of the firm’s powerful brand behind it, I was prepared for an impressive experience. But when I flipped through one sophomoric page after another, instead of the expected ‘thought leadership,’ I found obvious observations about very basic 101-level PR concepts which were written with an overblown style and an attempted profundity. Accompanying the written article was a simple diagram of FisherPrice-level communications thinking.

If it isn’t the hubris of condescending professional services brands that will limit the appeal of their new PR offer, then it is the leadership limitations of the PR industry that will increase it. Our own profession — sometimes egged-on by false industry prophets — has often believed its own hype about how PR people deserve a ’seat at the table,’ even though as a trade we’ve repeatedly shown that we have no business being there much of the time.

Others have traditionally held the biggest marketing cards and owned the most advanced research information, so we PR folks have been found quantitatively and qualitatively wanting in comparison. But now the balance of power is shifting PR’s way. Our traditional strength in relationship management is being amplified by the easy reach and measurability of digital. Technology may be causing a disintermediation in the global recruitment business (why pay a 30% headhunting fee when we have LinkedIn?), but so far it is helping to further extend the existing capabilities of the global PR business.

PR’s knack for distilling a client’s complexity into simple and compelling content (drawing on our skills as media storytellers), then sharing it persuasively with people across platforms in the right sequence comes naturally only with years of practiced experience. It is difficult to replicate this kind of thinking suddenly from an outside industry where, on a good day, PR will always only be a notch up from afterthought status.

The main thing going on is that there is a growing market for ‘big brain’ PR and clients are financing a flight to quality. Regardless of its traditional designation, the firm that can provide c-level answers to vexing communications questions will command a premium in the marketplace.

Categories: PR industry
comments(5) Tags: consulting, management, PR, quality