Wily E Coyote: Traditional PR is Running on Thin Air

This assumes that Strumpette provided an accurate portrayal of PR woes. It did not. In fact, Strumpette was piece of astroturf created be disgruntled former employee. Amanda's rants were personal not pundit generated and lacked the impact needed for anyone to take it seriously.

PR is in trouble, but the failure of Strumpette is a sign that the PR industry is growing savvy to fake rants versus real criticism. yes, many PR line managers will lose their jobs over the next years, but no because they failed to listen to Amanda. It's because they failed to adapt to the participation ethos of social media.

You are right - at one level, PR is dead - as I have previously highlighted in a post of the same name (which incidentally drew a comment from the aforementioned Amanda Chapel).

http://tinyurl.com/yvzj52

But it is an institutional death - a death of the structure of the industry rather than the skills it contains. As I conclude at the end of the post, "the death of PR as a discipline is both good and bad news for those people in it. The skills PR people have will be in increasing demand, but the houses we currently live in will be knocked down and we will have to find new places to live."

Tom, a very interesting read but not sure I totally agree. Are you talking about the whole of PR, or the affects on a PR agency's business model and service? Maybe the latter could be pressured, but in this communications revolution, anyone who is a good communicator, writer and observer with street smarts will be a very hot commodity.

Great post, Tom. I think it would be interesting to see how other industries outside of tech are handling the changing PR space. IS it as important for government? What about packaged goods, etc?

If "Amanda Chapel" is a barometer for the PR industry, then it is DEFINITELY in trouble. Agree with the previous comment that Strumpette did not -- in my view -- provided an accurate portrayal of PR woes. Regardless, I agree with many of your points Tom. Nothing can change until the pocket books take a hit. I personally think that PR is often still thought of by many as an acronym for "Press Release" or even "Press Relations." Public Relations is actually a very broad term, isn't it? It should not be confined to press relations, press releases or white papers. These are simply communication vehicles. Those in our indstry that know this are adapting and will thrive. Those that rely solely on "old school" tactics (for lack of a better term) will be hanging out with Wylie E in Tom's PR proverb.

Bill: I'm mostly talking about the PR Agencies. In-house PR is doing far more, in cases such as Intel, than most outside PR firms.

Is Amanda Chapel a barometer for the PR industry? Well, what's wrong with someone revealing the way PR is done by some companies and some individuals? And asking the industry to change? We could do with more Amanda Chapels, imho.

gerat post, tom. pr is lucky to be compared to a icon of resilience and fortitute as wylie e. i don't think the fall of a pr gossip blog is a tell all for our industry but i do agree with you that the times are changing and we may not be changing as quickly as we should to keep up. start ups with WOM success are great and there are lessons to be learned. there are also many aspects of "traditional" pr that work well - and work even better when integrated with the new tools available.

i personally like some wreckage from time to time. the best time to learn is when things are building up and breaking down. tom, you refer to no pain no gain(change). i will also toss in that pain is just weakness leaving the body, and if there are some pr folks out there feeling aches and pains in the morning...you get where i'm headed.

In China, traditional PR is still very much alive. A lot of the PR work involves paying Chinese journalists money to make sure that the client's story is picked up in the traditional press; clients then rate the PR agencies by how many times the story has been picked up. Still very much blast PR.
What do you think PR will look like in five years?

Matt Podboy: Thanks Matt, I would count Voce as one of the very few PR agencies that are on top of the changes...

Paul: PR in five years time will look a lot different, it will be more "public" relations than "press" relations. But there will also be a secretive side to PR, there will be "black hat PR."

Paul, "A lot of the PR work involves paying Chinese journalists money to make sure that the client's story is picked up in the traditional press" - that's not PR, that's bribery.

Drama Queen Train Wreck blog was never anything but a sustained insult to women and a series of nasty personal attacks sprinkled with gossip.

PR Watch continues to do brilliant work. But since they are not interested in industry gossip and don't resort to naked ladies as a way of getting attention, we don't talk about them.

Ken Silverstein and James Bamford have also done brilliant work.

We don't need vicious drama queens, we need journalists. You would have thought a journalist might have understood that.

What do you mean by Black Hat PR? That strikes me as Wyly Coyote territory.

I think you know what I mean by "black hat PR" :-)

No I don't understand what you mean by that. I hate wink and nod commentary. So, what, precisely, do you mean by black hat PR, and why do you imagine any good could come from it?

Tom,

I think your initial premise is flawed. Believing that traditional PR is nothing but press releases and white papers misses the mark of the public relations profession.

PR (in-house and agency) practitioners were able to change rapidly with the arrival of the Internet and 24/7 news cycle. You know why? Because at the core of what we do is dealing with the unexpected. The burst in social media conversations has only thrown lighter fluid on what PR has always strived to do: respond rapidly and clearly on the terms of your audience.

Tell me, which other marketing discipline fosters two-way dialogues with key audiences?

And, it's not all about defense. Social media has now extended the PR profession a massive invitation to tell corporate stories directly to end-customers -- some of whom are choosing to do their own research via alerts and feeds that are fed by PR-driven links and tags -- choosing to circumvent traditional media.

As PR people we have always been asked to engage different constituencies and stakeholders, from investors, to customers, influencers, analysts, employees, and yes, also consumers (I remember when I encouraged clients to launch their first 800 numbers to engage directly with their consumers. Some listened, some didn’t, and now they all have to take that call.)

I think saying that most PR agencies do not get social media is wrong. Social media is new way to engage in conversations with stakeholders. Some agencies and companies mastered this before others, but the key thing to understand is that it has to be embedded in everything we do, and not seen as a separate discipline.

And engaging in conversations with stakeholders is what we have been doing all along.

We are not the coyote. We are the road runner.

There's hope for us yet, since one extreme viewpoint like 'Strumpette' manages to temporarily distort perceptions about PR and the media.

Ironically, the Strunpette-effect also reaffirms how communications actually works, both in old and new media, which means that there'll be plenty of work for PR folks like me and journos like you Tom -- albeit perhaps in a different vehicle.

As to small start-ups spending no PR dollars, I worked in the US during the height of the dotcom boom and found that when the early adopters are tapped out, that's when big marketing dollars are needed.

Your level of influence and networking can only get you so far, and that's when PR and the other marketing discplines get into their own.

You should ask Cindy McCaffrey how she got Google to be a household name once the initial early adopter community had been tapped out.

Cindy was VP of marketing at Google and an ex-colleague of mine at Apple PR in Cupertino. She'd have some interesting insights that I think correlate with this social media/PR/marketing/new media phenomenon.

Just my 2 cents worth from Sydney ...

Luca, yes, you are right, there is a lot of excellent work going on within the PR industry in using the new media technologies to build online communities, and to improve communication between companies and their customers.

Such efforts are very effective if done right, and they create tremendous value for clients.

But there is a massive amount of work still being done around traditional PR. This is an expensive way to reach the same goal: improve sales and improve brand perception.

As more companies realize they can get more bang for their buck with new media PR approaches, they will pull much of their money from doing PR the old way. Revenues for PR firms will fall.

It is similar to how media companies have suffered a fall in revenue from the rise of new media platforms such as publishing search pages, and building social media sites. Those online publishers can offer cheaper advertising with better conversion--plus a ton of free additional marketing data compared with traditional advertising.

Yes, Olgivy is doing some interesting work in the new media areas, others are too. But such work accounts for a small fraction of PR industry revenues.

The trend is clear. Some PR firms will emerge as Road Runners while others will remain behind as Road Kill :-)

Tom,

Your strawman arguments about the inflexibility and eventual death of public relations got links from me the first time.

Not falling for the linkbait a second time, Tom. Sorry.

Your understanding of PR, once again, is limited to a series of tactics (press releases, cold-calling, stunts, events, giveaways, whitepapers) and by industry (tech).

In any case, if you spent *any* time with PR folks who *are* committed to making change, you'd perhaps be inspired to temper your pronouncements a bit more.

And your attempted elevation of Strumpette to positive industry force and fearless muckraking critic is, well, disappointing. Having been stalked by the strumpette crew/guy (incl phone calls to me, colleagues, and once even to my fiancee) and my work grossly misrepresented on that revenge-site, let's just say I'm not inclined to agree with my SNCR colleague here.

Forget that I could argue on various points in this post - I'm just going to point out some wrong information.

Slide.com was launched by Weber Shandwick (prior to my time there). It currently has an in-house PR person.

Phil: I'm not link baiting, that is way too easy to do with PR people. I'm just giving my view from where I sit--you can ignore it or not.

Others: Do I misunderstand the role of PR? I'm subject to much of the tactics and strategies of PR firms on a daily basis, and have been for more than 25 years! Not much has chnaged, yet the world has changed...

Jeremy: I'm not saying that there is no role for conventional PR, I'm saying that less money will be spent on PR-as-usual.

Tom, you said they spent $0 on PR and marketing - it's just not true.

Jeremy, I should have been more precise about Slide.com. They started off life as a much different company. Slide now develops apps for Facebook, that's where they have been very successful, gaining millions of users for no cost of acquisition.
Have they spent money on PR and marketing in the past? Yes, they have, but not that much and it did not help them much.
It wasn't until they changed their product strategy and also their PR/marketing strategy that they've been successful. Doesn't that worry you and the others in PR?!

All I'm doing is pointing out that there is something going on here, there is a trend developing and that trend is no friend of traditional PR practices.

Is it really that different a company? Not really - they evolved.

Just like PR has evolved, and continues to evolve.

The annual PR is dead story is just that - dead. PR firms, albeit some faster than others, are changing and adapting, just like advertising and marketing firms will change.

Tom:

The kind of company that you're suggesting can succeed with zero money spent on PR is just the kind of company that has two or three road warriors going from conference to trade show to conference, building business relationships.

Sounds like a lot of money spent on PR to me. Every time they chat someone up, speak on a topic or post something on a blog or Twitter about an industry issue, appear on a podcast, speak to a reporter, or demo a product, they're practising public relations/marketing.

If you don't want to call it PR, you can call it something else. They may have shifted tactics, but they're still working their butts off promoting their products and their companies.

To say that "traditional PR doesn’t provide the same bang for the buck" suggests that any IT canary can put out the same product and content within today's marketplace. That's just simply not true. Press releases, white papers, case studies, and media relations - these things are still important, relevant and will continue to be; therefore, you need someone to produce that product - someone skilled in the craft of PR. "Social media" or "new media" are just new tools to help fashion and deliver the message, not cause it to plummet to the canyon floor. The core values behind "social media" are wrapped in community building. Who better to handle communications than PR?

Whether or not the coyote is running on thin air or has fashioned himself a new-fangled rocket ship to chase after the Road Runner, the fact remains he’s still a coyote. He’s still relevant in the ecosystem, or ego-system, as it turns out.