Mar 07
16

The Clash of Advertising and PR – Part 2

5 Comments

Ad Age’s Jonah Bloom has an interesting article on the convergence and cultural differences of Marketing and PR and echoes a post I made about nine months ago (The Clash of Advertising and PR).

The first two-thirds of the article are right on the money and reflects how forward-thinking Public Relations professionals are capitalizing on the opportunity presented by social media to broaden their services beyond traditional media relations. Also how some marketers are embracing User-generated Content, social networks and other forms of social media. In essence, the PR and Marketing departments are starting to play the same games (if not always on the same playing fields).

However, there is one paragraph that rings totally false in my experience with PR people:

It’s also interesting to note that the two departments are moving in opposite directions when it comes to the issue of consumer control. While marketers are all talking about giving up some degree of control of their messages, PR teams are becoming ever more officious controllers of the message. They seem frequently unable to countenance anyone — internally or externally — saying any thing they construe as off-message, and often employ techniques honed in the political arena to undermine the reputations of people or media they perceive as having crossed them.

I think in an effort to be more balanced, Mr. Bloom is making a bit of a straw horse argument, comparing the actions of the most progressive marketers and the least progressive PR people. In my experience there is a much, much larger percentage of the PR industry that understands the folly of command and control messaging versus Marketers and agency people. The notion of “a single brand voice” is as popular with marketers today as ever, but is decidedly a controlling phillosophy. I prefer to think of a “brand chorus”.

In my opinion, the very discipline of media and governement relations requires that PR people know how to foster conversation and influence stakeholders, this is usually a softer and more personal sell in practice than even the most insightful mass or direct advertisement.  The discipline of advertising as it has been taught and practiced is the absolute opposite, a one-size-fits-all take-it-or-leave-it message.

Sorry Mr. Bloom, you had me for a while and then lost me completely.

This entry was posted on March 16, 2007 at 11:29 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Posted in Advertising Public Relations Social Media by dwalker 5 Comments

5 Responses to "The Clash of Advertising and PR – Part 2"

  • Ed Lee says:
    March 16, 2007 at 11:43 am

    i love your point on the brand chorus versus a brand voice.

    now i hope i can liberally steal it in future meetings and presentations!

    Ed

  • dwalker says:
    March 16, 2007 at 11:49 am

    Theft is the sincerest form of flattery these days ;)

    Use it as you see fit, Ed. Just make sure your audience hears and acts on it.

  • Boyd Neil says:
    March 16, 2007 at 5:29 pm

    I suppose it shouldn’t come as a surprise that an article in “AdAge” (which implies this is the age of the ‘ad’; which of course is less and less the case) would misinterpret the concept of “messaging”. I think of “messaging” as an idea framework within which to tell a story. It is a clear, simple guide to the expression of a point of view. If new information sheds a different light on the point of view, or brings a new dimension to the story, then the story changes. That’s hardly dogma: it is a trigger for conversation.

  • dwalker says:
    March 16, 2007 at 9:31 pm

    Well put, Boyd.

    I agree, there is a big difference between sharing a perspective versus enforcing a gospel. As you say the first can evolve and adapt where the second is written in stone and unchangable.

  • Webwalker » Blog Archive » Negative Database: It’s not what you are, but what you aren’t that counts says:
    May 8, 2007 at 10:26 am

    [...] to me, probably because I find the notion of a single brand voice for communications outdated. I prefer the notion of a brand chorus or even orchestra, since the concept embraces that some messages or tunes can actually work [...]

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