It’s PR Jim, but Not as We Know It

The title of this blog is, I admit, hardly an original play on Mr Spock’s supposed reply to Captain Kirk in the Star Trek series - ‘It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it’.  But, stay with me, it has a higher purpose. Although in one episode, Spock does refer to ‘no life as we know it’, the version now taken as characteristic of the Vulcan comes instead from being the hook in a 1987 novelty song, ‘Star Trekkin’’, sung by The Firm.  

History is written by the victors, Churchill is reported to have said, and given the wide use of this misquoted phrase you might think that this is indicative of the power of communication to change perceived reality.  You might even see it as just great public relations by the music industry. But that would assume you understood what is PR.

But I’ve spent much of my professional life, it seems, trying to explain to businesses and individuals exactly that.  This task has not got any easier in recent years as the components of an already fragmented discipline have increased and changed relatively in value. But it has occurred to me that if I can’t explain succinctly what I spend a lot of my time doing what chance does anybody else have of understanding it?

We’re all publishers now

So here goes. Some background. Traditionally, public relations has been confused with media relations - mass `earned` communication through the press.  It was always more than that, but the arrival and rapid growth of digital channels and social media has meant we have all the potential to become publishers. And in being so take advantage of `owned` and `paid for` communications opportunities inherent in company websites and blogs or Google searches and Facebook and LinkedIn sponsorships.

Conversely, through the same channels, as individuals we all now expect to be able to talk to companies, organisations and brands directly. More than that, we expect to be heard and responded to where, when and in a way that we like.

Like a hydra with Tourette’s

Yet in the digital age  too many companies are communicating,  it appears,  for the sake of it - just making noise,  unsure who they’re talking to, or why.  Like a hydra with Tourette’s, they spew words and images across media with a multitude of different voices and tones. This is a big, expensive mistake. The age of machine-gun messaging is well and truly over. People want to be engaged with on their terms - spoken to, not shouted at. 

Thus the art of communication is becoming ever more intimate. The idea of business-to-business and business-to-consumer are becoming arcane as marketing becomes person-to-person.  Curiously, though, it’s often large organisations, and particularly the big brands, that know the most about us.  Usually courtesy of loyalty cards and tools that track what we say about ourselves online every day that provide the big data and analytics that should enable us to be targeted very precisely.

I say should because it’s what’s done with that data to realise its value that PR is now all about. PR is no longer just about getting journalist, analyst or blogger buy-in to tacitly endorse a product or position in the hope that it will better influence a purchasing decision than by spending money advertising the virtues of a product  or service.

Content and multiple channel management

Communicating effectively is now all about content and multiple channel management.  It involves redefining relationships between companies and customers and providing the latter with information that is useful and pertinent in a way that they want to consume.  In an industry ever in search of new buzzwords this approach has become known as `content marketing`.

Before anyone thinks I may have just cracked a new definition of, and term for, PR, I’d like to point out that there is yet no accepted definition of what is `content marketing`.   But, to my mind, the elevator pitch is that it is the engine of an integrated strategy to communicate consistently across all platforms so delivering clarity, reinforcing leadership and building that most valuable of entrepreneurial and corporate assets - trust.

Spin redundant

So far so good.  But effective marketing has long since ceased to be based on a shiny monologue - power has passed to the consumer who needs to buy into the totality of a corporate offering in order to start listening, let alone become an advocate. Its success nowadays is predicated on an acceptably ethical and transparent business approach.  This necessitates appropriate values and behaviours existing and demonstrated throughout the organisation and makes the idea of `spin` redundant.

Thus, these days, business, marketing and PR strategy have to be closely aligned.  Communication must be at the core. The role of PR being to manage paid, earned and owned media across multiple platforms, deciding the right  `voice` and the right content with which to engage with each audience – down to an individual customer.  And that, as football managers are prone to say, is a big ask.

The idea of the central role of content management, then, is central to PR going forward – and, while it doesn’t offer a new definition of what PR is, it goes a long way to suggest its function both now and in the future.