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It's no secret that PR has an image problem. And yesterday's Hagar the Horrible cartoon sums it up very well. Here's Hagar, tied to the stake and about to be killed by multiple enemies. And the boorish Hun's PR man is trying to convince them that Hagar is a nice guy who loves children and animals....
Kinda like Edelman and Wal-Mart. Or Edelman and Microsoft. And not to pick only on Edelman, it's like a lot of PR agencies and assorted freelance flacks who defend slimeball clients.
The media has always made fun of publicists. Because if you go back to the early days of press agentry, a lot of slippery flacks tried to dupe the public. The exalted father of PR, Edward Bernays, made cigarette smoking fashionable for women, and was also responsible for a lot of other socially unconscious campaigns.
Look at PR in film:
Tony Curtis as the sleazy press agent Sydney Falco in "The Sweet Smell of Success". He planted drugs on a rising star jazz musician to make a story for a powerful journo played by Burt Lancaster.
And then there was Robert DeNiro's Conrad Brean in "Wag the Dog," who manufactures a fake international war to divert attention from the president's infidelity.
And that's just how the media treats men. Who could forget the drunken bimbo publicist Edina Moonsoon on Absolutey Fabulous. Or Kim Cattrall's horny PR princess on "Sex in the City."
Sadly, PR's image problem is caused by PR people. If there weren't still people from Ari Fleischer who blithely lied for the Bush PR machine, to Hill & Knowlton's M.A. Shute who orchestrated Enron's PR, to the young publicists who don't question the assignments they're handed even when they know they are unethical, there is a great shortage of balls in the PR industry.
Before PR people send me hate emails, read this:
Sure there are a lot of hard-working, honest, ethical PR people. But they are out-shouted by those willing to sell their souls, and that's just a damn shame because PR can play a very valuable role in business growth.
Long-term, sleazeball flackery won't solve anyone's problems. But it does make for a funny cartoon here and there.
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Comments
I agree with you that "there is a great shortage of balls in the PR industry."
It was as a former corporate communications manager with several large corporations that I first heard the term "it's a version of the truth." These words came out of a PR manager's mouth in response to a press release that I felt was not 100 percent truthful.
I guess I'm old-fashioned but to me words tell the truth or they don't.
Posted by: Lewis Green | 02.07.07
What irony: PR has an image problem. Interesting post!
Posted by: Erlend Førsund | 02.07.07
BL, I think you have your ratios reversed.
The majority of PR people have their act together, are competent at their craft, and are very, VERY effective at driving stories, market awareness and results for clients. It's a few slimeballs that give them a bad name, but can't that also be said of the marketing profession?
Btw, I am not a PR professional, but have worked with some of the best over my 15 year career...
Posted by: Paul Barsch | 02.07.07
Paul: I wish I could agree with you. Before I turned to the web in 1995 I had a 6-person PR firm, and I worked in PR for a while before that.
I know from both inside and outside the field that the good PR people are very much the exception and not the rule.
The vast majority of PR people and agencies have no grasp of social media; have not taken control of clients' websites; and have not learned how to get their story across now that message control is completely an illusion.
Posted by: B.L. Ochman | 02.07.07
Lewis: ... "it's a version of the truth."
Oh my word... not sure whether that makes me laugh or cry.
Posted by: Ann Handley | 02.07.07
Howdy, B.L.! There are several professions with the same image problem (lawyers, actors, etc.) and what you say certainly makes sense. Luckily (he said smugly) I'm not one of those!
But what if you ARE being misrepresented by others in your profession? How do you overcome preconceived notions of what you're really like?
Posted by: Robert Hruzek | 02.07.07
Left this with the orig. post already, but must submit here in the name of cinematic integrity:
It should be clarified that Sydney Falco planted the drugs primarily because the jazz musician in question was about to marry Burt Lancaster's sister.
Smearing the guy in the gossip column was part of the effort to break up the relationship. Yes, it was sleazy PR & Sydney's ultimate objective was to stay in the good graces of a powerful journalist. But technically, he wasn't interested in placing a story.
Sorry to geek out on the details, but that's one of my all-time favorite movies :)
Posted by: Patricia | 02.07.07
This blog makes so much sense to me. As I get further in my career, I grow a little more cynical each year. It's so hard to keep a high standard of ethics when all around you, ethics are thrown out the window for a buck. It's just sad.
Posted by: Jenni | 02.08.07
Thanks Patricia!
Robert: I think that you just keep doing good work, and you have the balls to refuse to do unethical work, and over time, your reputation is colored by your results.
For me personally, I only work on accounts I care about, for people whom I respect.
Over the years that has meant walking away from a *lot* of money, but money has come back to me, in spades, from clients I am proud to work with.
Posted by: B.L. Ochman | 02.08.07
Aren't we all out-shouted by the bad apples in our respective marketing fields?
Good PR doesn't include shouting. Like all good marketing, PR is about increasing the credibility and trust the consumer has in a client's product or service.
In a crisis they are often found to be helping company leaders bring back control to an unruly situation.
As the availability and use technology changes the way people communicate the shouting by those applying traditional media communications tactics will appear more desperate. Especially to those of us whose work has evolved into the web 3.0 world.
Forgive them, their cries will be silent soon. As this crisis too will likely be brought under control by a better PR professional.
Posted by: Mike Mohan | 02.08.07
My personal favorite of the moment is, of course, the rampant fauxtography and Jamil Hussein-ification of current events in Iraq.
Apparently, "fake but accurate(-ish)" is good enough for many, especially when it provides a happy opportunity to "Fonda" the public (not to mention the country).
The media's credibility gap, in all its forms, has given rise to... well... people like us, who do our research, uncover squishy untruths, and explose 'evil-doers' for what they are.
(Can I claim two new words for this post? I say I can!)
Posted by: Stephen Denny | 02.08.07
This issue of PR having PR issues has been well documented over here for some time now: http://www.strumpette.com/
Amanda tells it like it is, Edelman like it or not.
Posted by: Darcy Moen | 02.11.07