Quote, Unquote – apparently PR stunts don’t make campaigns

Dominic Proctor, CEO of MindShare worldwide and president of the Media Lions jury, was quoted in the latest B&T dismissing the actions of PR agencies the world over. “PR stunts are fantastic,” he was reported as saying. “But the criteria for a media campaign goes beyond a stunt.” He’s got a point, one PR stunt a campaign does not make. But don’t think that PR stunts are all that PR agencies are capable of Dominic. We’ve often got a lot more strategic thunkers than a couple of ad agencies combined, and we might just be grabbing at the pieces of the ad agencies pie…

Advertising agencies can easily forget that the power of PR is more than simply getting a couple of nice media clippings and a pretty picture from a photocall. There is an unwritten code in the communication field which suggests that it’s the advertising agencies who’ll come up with the strategy and direction for a program, and they’ll ask a PR firm (or a couple of in-housies they’ve stuck onto the side of their agency) to draft a nice press release.

I would ask the agencies to stop folding themselves in half and gazing at their navel, and consider the reverse. Consider a brave new world where the public relations agency is briefing the advertising agency on the direction of the brand, and instructing the creative director, the AD, and the copywriting team and the rest of the cast of thousands on the type of conversation they should be having with consumers.

Seem too weird? Seem too strange to have a public relations strategic group acting as the protector of the client’s brand, and making the agency jump through hoops to design initiatives which support the PR strategy?

It’s actually happening within our agency. A prominent, well-loved household name brand has worked like this with us for over 5 years. And newer clients are also seeing the model, and liking what they see.

Why?

The secret is in the strategy and that absolutely everything is fair game if we need to communicate our client’s message to their target markets – whether that be direct mail, print advertising, radio production, media clippings, word of mouth or even commissioning a documentary. Why should we restrict ourselves to securing media clippings only when the way our clients will make sales is actually through a wide net of activities which are connected by key messages that we’ve devised in close consultation with the client?

All of a sudden public relations becomes exactly that – relations with your public. And so now we start seeing the reverse of the traditional and typical advertising agency model. Instead the public relations agency starts engaging the in-housies of our own – creative directors and graphic designers. We start looking at the media spend and advising on where the money should be directed. We plan out the media buy.

A brave new world where PR agencies lead with the integrated strategic thinking and the ad agencies follow? This is the future that we can see. Dominic, just as a single PR stunt does not make a media campaign, neither does one pretty picture of a product and a couple of pithy words.  

posted by Justin Flaherty, MD Horizon Communication Group