PR has been long-standing in the marketing mix, but is it important or even effective? The medium has often been criticised as being immeasurable and many clients have not been able to justify the expenditure. However, if ‘all publicity is good publicity’, surely PR is an important marketing channel?
Bill Gates reputedly said, If I had one buck left in the world, I would spend it on PR. To Microsoft, PR is evidently important, but what exactly is it and how can it be utilised effectively in B2B?
According to the Chartered Institute of Public Relations’ (CIPR) definition, ‘Public relations is about reputation the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you. Public relations is the discipline that builds and maintains reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour. It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics.’ However, definitions of PR are sometimes hard to concrete. Patrick Barrow, MD of the Public Relations Consultants Association (PRCA) sees PR as a clumsy term, because it is hard to define. He comments, The Harvard Business School school of thought is that all PR is behavioural. PR is all about reputation and reputation is the sum of behaviour and communication. It is about brand and brand value and is the propagation and protection of all these things.
However, although there have been definition issues surrounding the medium, different ways in which PR is conducted are relatively clear-cut.
When conducting PR, there are generally two main options, with two additional approaches. These options are either to use inhouse PR or to outsource to a specialist agency. Within these two options lie two approaches: proactive and reactive, and both of these options and approaches have their pros and cons.
How does a company choose inhouse or outhouse? Brendon Craigie, UK regional director of agency Hotwire, comments, In an ideal world companies should strike a balance between the two. An inhouse team will play a key part in helping to extract business priorities, helping to make sure a campaign is aligned to business objectives. However, the advantage of outsourcing is the ability to tap into a broad range of skill-sets.
Some companies use a model including an inhouse PR officer and outsourcing some of their work to an agency. This, it seems, is a growing trend in the industry.
Like inhouse and outhouse PR, proactive and reactive forms of the medium also have their pros and cons.
Barrow, of the PRCA, sees proactive PR as the most beneficial, In an ideal world, reactive PR is carried out in response to a problem. However, good PR can see a problem coming. Proactive is always better, as reputations can only be shaped proactively.
Jessica Molloy, PR & marketing manager of the CIPR, comments, There is always a certain amount of reactive PR needed, however, you can’t just sit and wait for a journalist enquiry: you have to get out there. Reactive PR is very slow moving and does not take control of a reputation, and after all PR is all about reputation management. She continues, The option is not about whether to have a reputation, but how a reputation is managed.
Definition difficulties, inhouse versus outhouse and proactive/reactive PR all make for a complicated mix. How then, can the subtle nature of PR be measured effectively?
If, to quote the CIPR definition, PR is ‘the discipline that builds and maintains reputation’, theoretically it is impossible to measure. Is reputation a measurable concept? The CIPR think so, and so developed a Planning, Research & Evaluation Toolkit three years ago, in order to provide companies with a five-step cemented process for media evaluation. However, measuring column inches is not necessarily the key to gauging the success of PR.
Craigie of Hotwire, says it is important to distinguish between ‘outcome’ and ‘output’. The perception of the PR industry being ineffective and immeasurable is well known. PR outcome should therefore be viewed in opposition to PR output. The output may be 50 briefings that have been held in a six-month period, whereas the outcome objective would be finding out what the end result from these briefings was. The output is how much coverage has taken place on a specific campaign, whereas the outcome is by how much the key messages are being delivered. The pitfall of many companies is that they focus on the deliverables, but not the outcome, which is why measurement can be so unreliable.
If PR is difficult to define, measure and is one of the more subtle marketing mediums, is it difficult to know how to ‘do it’ right? Some have seen the way to ‘doing PR right’ is by learning from previous campaign mistakes.
Trial and error is often promoted as one of the best routes to finding success. This, it seems, is also true when using PR in the marketing mix.
Russell Biggart, MD of the ICD Partnership, says planning is essential. When using PR, specific deliverables and objectives need to be agreed from the outset. As a company, we have to draw up deliverables and agree to deliver these in a certain amount of time. If we don’t deliver within this timeframe, we don’t get paid. The same should be said for PR agencies: they need to be extremely targeted and provide deliverables.
However, Sean Feast, MD of PR at AGA, comments, Agencies are not being involved enough in the whole briefing process. Categorically, this should be an integral part of the process. If agencies are involved early enough, we can help to define the strategy. We even suggested a brief to a company, who then implemented it.
Whether it is a large or small agency, inhouse or outhouse, it is becoming apparent that PR should be integrated from the start.
Michelle McGlocklin, MD of Weber Shandwick, comments, PR is much more effective when it is brought into the planning stages very early on. The integrated approach even bringing PR on board as early as the product development stage creates a much more effective and impactful communications platform.
With the issues discussed herein, involving definition, measurement, inhouse/outhouse pro/reactive status and communication with brand strategy, can PR still stand its ground in the marketing mix?
It seems that it is not just standing its ground in the mix, but is arguably standing aside from other forms of marketing. However, integration is still key.
Molloy of the CIPR, comments, Integration is the most important theme: PR is most effective when it is embedded in the company strategy.
Feast of AGA sees this integration, but also sees the potential of PR. It is true that PR should be an integrated part of the mix, but whether it actually is integrated is an entirely different thing. I would argue that PR can actually be used in a stand-alone manner, in a way that advertising and other forms of marketing cannot.
For Angela Bloor, UK PR manager at Yahoo, the difficulty in measuring the success of PR has forced the medium to take a back seat. However, she comments that it is easy to see if campaigns are bearing fruit. PR really has to be integral and integrated with all other aspects of marketing.
Where does this leave PR as a marketing medium? It seems evident that PR plays a role that other forms of marketing cannot: reputation building is still a pertinent factor in generating business, which cannot be as successfully carried out by other means.
How will the use of PR evolve? Feast of AGA, comments, What will be essential going forward is that the level of professionalism amongst marketers generally is maintained to the high standards already evident in the best businesses. If we can keep the level of B2B marketing professionalism high, then PR will always be understood as being an essential part of the marketing mix.
PR representatives have often been referred to as ‘the face of the company’. Understandably, then, these representatives need to be involved in the rest of the marketing campaign from the start, enveloping themselves in the strategy in order to be able to accurately represent their clients. It seems that integration is key for successful utilisation of PR.
- Work hard on understanding the process of PR, both at the outset and throughout the relationship.
- Trust your consultancy. Don’t keep unnecessary secrets that will hinder the relationship or the quality of advice.
- Involve the consultancy at an early stage in any activities that will require its support: last minute briefings usually mean lost opportunities.
- Make sure the PR consultant receives help in order to work in harmony with any other communications suppliers and with any of your own staff important to the work.
- Ensure your top management is aware of the PR goals and are committed to their achievement.
- Plan and manage all activities carefully, but be prepared to act quickly when the consultancy advises you it is necessary.
- Give them a clear understanding of the limits to the brief and when there is a need to go to a higher authority.
- Conduct regular and honest reviews of progress and achievements to ensure the relationship continues to flourish.
- Agree what constitutes success from the programme and measure the results constantly against the criteria agreed.
- Accept that success or failure belongs to the whole team and that the consultancy cannot be expected to deliver unaided.
