It has been something of an odd couple of weeks, with some of my professional peers either brazenly speaking of lying (PR Week, February 3rd), or offering somewhat antediluvian points of view about what PR really is and how we go about our everyday business. Having recorded the BBC’s The Bottom Line with the erudite Evan Davis on Wednesday, I was fascinated by the content and tone of the two edits: the slightly ill-tempered exchanges on the radio version were thankfully usurped by the more thoughtful, directional and content-rich discussion on the broadcast edition.
Does all this matter – or are these merely the narcissistic ramblings of an introspective bunch of PR people? Well, yes, it does matter – and here’s why:
As one of the central tenets of Citizen Renaissance argues, the construction and the approach of the communications industry for the past fifty years or so has contributed significantly to the mess and the muddle in which we now find ourselves. We see this manifest in the historical inversion of the Wants & Needs relationship; the consumerisation of everything, not least in politics; and a relentless drive towards super-consumption that is simply unsustainable, both for our own wellbeing and the finite resources of the planet.
Yet, communications can – and must – be a powerful agent of change, especially in the post-Crisis world. However, no such change is possible if the communications industry itself does not get its house in order first.
In The Bottom Line exchanges with the formidable (Lord) Tim Bell, I tried to get across three fundamentally differentiating points:
The Vitality of Trust: Just as we now recognize (and can quantify) that, for both business leaders and politicians, Trust is an effective line of business, we must understand that a PR industry without Trust simply cannot function, let alone be a reformative/ restorative force for good. I would take issue with those who say that ‘Trust’ is only one small part of the communications equation or who happily apply the taxi rank principle when it comes to working with despots, tyrannies or organisations with dubious ethics. Instead, Trust sits at the very core. Our failure to understand both the nuances and the fragility of Trust – and the relationship between Trust and principled behaviour – can only lead to a cataclysmic failure of effort. Trust (http://www.edelman.co.uk/trustbarometer/) is therefore not there to be bandied about with platitudes and cliché. It must be studied, respected and sensitively handled to make sure that where it is needed, it is gained; and where it is lost, it is properly restored. This is the responsibility of the communications professional, working with the institutions of government, business and media alike.
The Call for Engagement: It is fascinating to listen to others debate definitions of Public Relations dating from the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s. The world has evolved since Vance Packard’s (1957) dystopia of Hidden Persuaders. Unlike fellow guest Julia Hobsbawm, Bell showed something of a reluctance to move on – resolute in the belief that PR was merely the art of crafting messages and persuading others to fall into line and ‘believe’. The communications industry cannot afford to behave like this anymore. In an era of active engagement, the PR professional can no longer be either kingmaker or communications serf, but instead a true and substantive facilitator: bringing together networks and active partnerships that can share and advance interests for the common good. Those who fail to recognize this seismic shift from broadcast models to engaged networks fail to understand the profession in which we now work.
Digital has changed the game forever: The (occasionally deliberate) misunderstanding of the democratizing and empowering force of Digital is one of the greatest shortcomings of a number in the communications industry today. As Citizen Renaissance powerfully portrays, a digitally active citizenship drives transparency and accountability and, itself, becomes a reforming force for good. To belittle it as ‘just another channel’ or ‘geeks who get excited about stuff like Twitter’ is as dangerous as it is patronizing. The point is not the technology itself, but the permanent behavioural change that the technology has induced – driving us forward as a society that not only better understands our civic and societal responsibilities, but one that has found our collective voice. That voice had previously been lost and emasculated in the middle of a pyramid of self-anointed elites.
Which brings me to a final point on the role of vested interests – always obstructive in the wider sense but increasingly so in the rapidly evolving world of communications. If, like me, you believe that communications can be a force for good, then you will also recognize the convergence of all the marketing disciplines into one, interdependent sphere of cross influence (an early version of this appears in Citizen Renaissance). This is therefore no longer about the narrow channel of PR but about the wider construct of communications. PR, as the discipline that has always understood the Government, Business, Investor/Analyst, Citizen/Consumer and Third Sector agendas in equal measure, is uniquely placed to lead – and therefore to build both Engagement and Trust, in turn leading to reformation and ultimate societal benefit. But the business models of many in the communications world – which force the separation of advertising, media, Digital and PR etc – remain forever in sales mode; in effect, propagating the silo approach for financial gain at the expense of societal interest (open disclosure: Edelman is family-owned and independent).
In the radio broadcast, Tim Bell ridiculed my point on this, justifying his assertion because the likes of WPP, Omnicom etc represented 85% of the market power of communications. Yet principle cannot be sacrificed on the altar of market share. Business models will need to change as rapidly as attitudes towards the new communications landscape.
The communications industry has to elevate itself beyond being the ‘joke butt’ differentiator between the rat and the squirrel. We have an important but not self-important role to play. We need to be able to advise on matters of policy and with insight, evidence and substance. The industry needs to dispel the myth that we are opaque deal-makers or the masters or mistresses of spin – this belittles the industry and sets us back decades at a time where such regressions are ill-afforded. There are indeed chimes of freedom flashing but now is the point at which we must look – and move – forward and not anchor ourselves in a somewhat un-romantic and murky past.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I have to say that I’m surprised at Tim Bell clinging to the narrowest of definitions of the role of PR. It has become blindingly obvious to me that my job is to start conversations not try and colour them.
The notion that we exist to create messages which we can sell/force/fool/bribe others to support is so outdated as to be almost laughable. One of the reasons I joined Edelman was precisely because of the views we have as an agency on this issue. I feel that strongly about it.
However, I fear PR has an image problem. Just as the right of centre only seems to have comical self-publicists as its most vocal supporters, so the PR industry is only broadly acknowledged (outside of itself) through the people at its extremities; the Spin masters, publicists and agents.
These are people for whom truth and trust is negotiated and reputation has a price tag attached. Faced with this challenge, how do we demonstrate that trust, engagement and digital are the new PR watchwords? I feel that I’m often preaching to the converted yet get little engagement outside my industry bubble.
And when you look at the PR Week story you mention early on and an earlier survey prompted by a letter I wrote in response to a Max Clifford piece on lying to protect a client (http://www.prweek.com/uk/news/search/635672/emPRWeek-em-ETHICS-DEBATE-truth-hurts/) are we swimming against the PR tide?
Interestingly, PRmoment looked at the issue of lying in PR on Feb 5th and we to were suprised at number of PROs who, to a greater or lesser extent, admited to lying to journo’s. See http://www.prmoment.com/news/it-might-not-be-moral-to-lie-but-who-said-pros-should-have-good-morals-.aspx
On your wider point of what is the role of PR, isn’t the truth somewhere in the middle? i.e: digital has changed the way PR is done, but the role of PR remains the same.
I think the answers to both Paul’s and Ben’s comments finds a common theme – ‘digital’ has not just changed the way that PR is done (that would treat it merely as a channel), but – more fundamentally – it has dramatically altered role that it plays. This is where the Engagement point comes in. Tim Bell would no doubt disagree that PR and Advertsiing (as well as media, CRM etc) are converging – but this, for me, is the self-evident truth of our marketing and communications age. The Engagement Model is now a hybrid model of all Comms – as confirmed by the inter-dependency, for example, of brand and corporate reputation; or Government, Business, Media and Citizen. Furthermore, ‘digital’ forces transaparency, even where some may seek to lie. The truth will now out faster than ever before.
I’m commenting here having just listened to the radio version of The Bottom Line, although I can’t entirely skip your reference to the PR Week article in which PR practitioners (no-one can call them PR professionals) admit to, almost condone in fact, lying. I don’t have to worry to much however that this disgusts me, because social media will come back to bite them eventually so that they will learn in time to be disgusted at themselves.
I’ve never had the pleasure of Lord Tim Bell’s company, but from his generally obnoxious contributions and obnoxious delivery, I’ll happily leave the pleasure with you Robert. Soley on the basis of this audio programme, any global brands out there employing Chime or considering so doing should consider any interaction with Lord Bell a vaguely interesting history lesson, if they have the time, before looking elsewhere for 21st Century consultancy.
I like your three differentiating points. On this basis, you may be interested in the work we’re doing on a management approach called the Influence Scorecard, and also on the impact Web 3.0, the Semantic Web, is to have on our profession. I have taken the liberty of including a link to both below.
Best regards.
http://www.marcomprofessional.com/posts/philip.sheldrake/how-the-influence-scorecard-radically-transforms-marketing-and-pr
http://www.marcomprofessional.com/posts/philip.sheldrake/pr-and-web-3.0…-a-call-to-action
Has digital fundamentally changed PR? Yes. Why? Because media is changing. Has media changed before? It’s always changing, just not at this pace and with this profound scope for audience engagement.
This post all makes perfect sense and I applaud every bit of it. What saddens me is that, probably, some of the people who really influence the PR sector won’t even read it or think about the contents of the book. Because they don’t really read blogs, they don’t tweet, and while they may pay lip service to the digitisation of PR techniques they don’t understand it and they don’t want to.
Media is changing fast, so PR must change fast. We should not be creating ghettoes around digital skills, we should be instilling comprehensive skills across all PR people. Not understanding changing media and its role in society will, in future, hamper PRs like not being able to type or use the telephone.
As for definitions of PR, conversations I’ve had in recent days with board-level execs sh&t-scared of what social media is doing and can do to their brands leads me to think that ‘the management of reputation’ still rings true, loud and clear.
I agree with this bit: “I would take issue with those who say that ‘Trust’ is only one small part of the communications equation or who happily apply the taxi rank principle when it comes to working with despots, tyrannies or organisations with dubious ethics. Instead, Trust sits at the very core. Our failure to understand both the nuances and the fragility of Trust – and the relationship between Trust and principled behaviour – can only lead to a cataclysmic failure of effort.”
I couldn’t agree more – “Trust is Efficient” – I coined that phrase when I was building First Tuesday, 10 + years ago. And the best definition of Leadership I ever heard was from Colin Powell at DAVOS one year who said, “Leaders are those people who create the conditions of trust so that great things can happen”. Amen to that. Working for Andy Cunningham, who helped Steve Jobs launch the Macintosh, and then went on to found Cunningham Communications, sold to Citigate, helped me to see that PR is simply a mirror. It reflects to the world what is really going on – Andy used to say – it can do no more, but it acts as a catalyst in doing so to change company and individual behaviour. It’s not that you can’t snow some of the people some of the time. You actually can’t get people to believe things about you which aren’t true. It’s that simple.