Blogging from the Server Side

Brad Brenner has a blog post claiming that public relations professionals are all the more relevant in this day and age. Quoting from the text of the article:

Doomsayers don’t get it. They think PR is all about writing a press release or getting a story in a magazine. Now that print media is in decline, they say PR is on it’s way out as well. They never understood that press releases and published articles are just means to an end. The core of PR has always been about communication skills and strategies - the ability to evaluate the competitive landscape, identify the right messages and succinctly and effectively communicate those messages to the right audience -wherever they may be.

Brenner's claim is that the scope of PR's function transcends traditional press release pitching and because of this, PR takes on a strategic role:

The fact is, marketing today is more complicated and more multi-faceted than ever before. Creating, managing and maximizing the success of a marketing program in the digital age requires a real pro - and today, more than ever, that pro is a public relations expert.

What Brenner fails to address in his rebuttal is that power of public relations professionals to shape the message is shrinking. Brenner would like you to think that PR professionals are uniquely qualified to compose and convey that message. An inconvenient reality that I have mentioned in a prior post puts that assumption to question:

... your reputation is controlled by a marketplace where your message competes with that of those who don't agree with your message.

There are too many PR professionals who think that some creatively spun copy will tidy up and protect a brand that is self-destructing because of product or service issues. It doesn't work that way anymore.

Carl Morris has a great post on his blog from this past January that chronicles how badly PR people screwed things up for Chrysler and Target. And let's not forget the feud between TechCruch and Lois Whitman.

Consumer sentiment toward corporate America ranges from skeptical to cynical. Quoting an excerpt from an April 28 story from Reuters about a Harris poll:

"What was surprising in this year's study was the very clear total loss of trust in corporate America," said Robert Fronk, senior vice president at Harris. "The focus on individual rewards, the focus on greed all really added up to this incredible drop."

Respondents said the brutal recession has darkened their view of corporate America, with 75 percent reporting their opinion of corporations was lower due to the downturn. They saw little hope for economic improvement, with 43 percent expecting conditions to get worse over the next six to 12 months.

Good PR professionals who understand how the playing field has changed can help a client from making gaffes, but they can no longer repair the damage that bad behavior leaves behind.

The companies that will succeed in the future are those who straighten up and act in a way such that their operations align with the ideals they set forth in their literature. Letting the employees, rather than paid professionals, write the posts will go a long way towards meeting that goal.