PR gets a bad rap. And I’m NOT happy about it.
It is not uncommon to see PR get a bad rap in the media.
In the twenty-five years that I have worked in the industry - it’s still something I find hard to grapple with. Mostly because I know so many incredible PR Pros who uphold the best standards when it comes to the way they research, measure, advise and pitch for their clients.
So when I see ‘Bad PR’ getting rolled out as the culprit when a company/ brand commits a decent faux pas for our cringeworthy viewing pleasure - I let out a disappointing sigh.
Case in point - a Sydney Morning Herald’s article whose headline read “The PR Industry has a lot to answer for” when it cited the Kendell Jenner Pepsi Ad as just one example of the perils of PR. In short the ad made the mistake of co-opting the important Black Lives Matter demonstrations which erupted in America to sell soda for profit.
In the end? PR got the bad rap for it. But let’s not be hasty…perhaps the problem isn’t PR at all?
Look, I was mortified by the sheer naivety of the ad too - But my first reaction was not to place blame squarely on the shoulders of the entire PR industry. In fact, my first thought was– “I bet PR wasn’t in the room when advertisers and company executives came up with the idea for the ad in the first place!”
It is our job as PR professionals to offer the advice that we know is honest, open and balanced and more importantly right. And sometimes? Even when PR is in the room – that advice is just not heeded to the teams or people we are advising. The point I’m trying to make is that PR pros a) need to be in the room when clients/ company marketing teams are creating concepts for projects and not after (when it’s too late) and b) we need to seen as more that ‘media hit machines’.
The real problem with the PR industry is that what we do is not always ‘measurable’ – we deal with the currency of reputation. So while senior executives and CEO’s are more likely to take the advice from their HR and legal teams – PR expertise takes a back seat, that is until the proverbial really hits the fan and then we are called upon to go into ‘repair the damage’ mode.
Any client or organisation willing to spend invest their money into PR needs to perceive their PR team the way they treat the expertise of their lawyers and HR teams. And that is, that we understand what we are talking about when it comes to reputation and mitigating foreseeable problems.
PR is what I like to call ‘the quiet profession’. Standing behind our clients at every turn, cheering them on and advising behind the scenes and it is this being behind the scenes that can make our expertise invisible.
Put simply – PR is not just about how many media hits you can score. At the heart of everything we do is developing relationships and reputation. Particularly understanding the audiences who matter to our clients and their possible reaction to every move that client makes.
Many companies understand that it is important to building awareness but don’t really understand it’s purpose beyond the media hit scorecard. This ‘quiet profession’ needs to be given more value and room at the table if it is to have real, meaningful impact on the companies and client reputations it seek to serve. I believe the PR Industry has a chronic identity crisis. We need to PR – PR itself.