Does PR deserve a seat at the boardroom table?
Last week saw the CommsCon conference spotlight the public relations industry at its best. But the profession still has an image problem in the wider marketing mix. Nic Christensen reports.
A self-confessed ‘reformed PR’, Andy Lark, chief marketing officer of the Commonwealth Bank, revels in throwing a cat among the pigeons.
With almost a hint of glee, Lark did precisely this last week, during the CommsCon conference, when he told a room full of public relations executives they were “the ugly red-headed child” of the marketing world.
“The ad agencies aren’t your friends,” said Lark. “I sit there and people try to convince me that you’ll all get together and work. Believe me, I’m a CMO and I spend a lot of money with ad agencies and all through my career it’s been the same – you’re the ugly red-headed child of their world.”
“They don’t want to do integrated programs; they want to take all your money and spend it on TV.”
“You have to seize the creative agenda and place the emphasis on creative and strategy and forget silly words like ‘reputation management’ and things that don’t mean anything to CMOs,” he told the conference in an attempt to set a fire under the public relations industry.
It’s a viewpoint shared by a number of Australia’s leading chief marketing officers who tell Encore they want to see public relations as an industry take a more proactive approach and focus on real results that can actually be delivered.
“It’s an interesting one and I agree with Andy that no, they don’t do enough,” says Nikki Lawson, chief marketing officer of Yum! Brands, which operates the KFC and Pizza Hut brands in Australia. Lawson, a juror for the CommsCon Awards, says: “I’d love them to be more proactive. I think if they understand our business and our industry well enough, they will see opportunities with fresh eyes that we won’t. That can shape business strategy.”
Virgin Mobile’s chief marketing officer David Scribner, who recently had success with the Doug Pitt campaign led by PR firm One Green Bean, says a reactive mentality is a problem for many agencies. “(As an industry) they’ve been very reactive,” says Scribner. “What we are finding (with One Green Bean) is that they are being very proactive and looking for opportunities.”
“We’re looking for innovation in the new media space. It is a space facing constant change and we are looking for an agency that can adapt to that. Some traditional PR companies have a problem there,” he says. “They have a tried and true way and I don’t think that is applicable in today’s environment.” But it’s not just the CMOs who recognise a problem. Michelle Hutton, CEO of one of Australia’s major public relations firms Edelman, was on the panel with Lark at CommsCon.
She responded to Lark’s remarks by saying that PR needed to be “smarter” across the board.
“It’s about insight-based creative thinking that develops kick-arse creative ideas and has a direct, visible impact on our client,” said Hutton.
“Then understanding how that plays out around the media cover from traditional media, to social to a client’s own media channels. And we’ve got to get better at it,” she said.
Claire Salvetti, boss of the Sydney operation of PR agency Mango, echoed these remarks earlier in the day during a session on the future of public relations when she told the audience perceptions have changed.
Salvetti said: “Once upon a time we did what we did and everyone watched on from the sidelines. Now earned media is the focus but we’ve always had the care factor. We’ve always had to create relevance and find the news angles to create coverage and conversations and content.”
Salvetti told Encore that because of the rise of social media, suddenly everyone else has the “care factor”.
“Some people are doing it well. The evolution for me is about the willingness of the PR industry and the wider marketing industry to work together to create content and conversations that people want to participate in and share,” she said.
Others in the industry are less sure outside marketing organisations are moving into the PR space. CEO of Ogilvy PR, Kieran Moore, told Encore: “I don’t see that (as an industry) we need to get off our backsides and get on with it and I don’t see we are losing ground to the creative agencies because we’re not creative or strategic enough.”
Lark also told the audience that the biggest threat to the PR industry is itself in that it won’t “get off its arse” and take advantage of the opportunity to own content and drive conversation.
“While I accept that (Lark) has a wider view, that problem is certainly not the case with Ogilvy,” Moore says. “When it comes to owning and developing content and driving conversation we are definitely doing that for all of our clients. I guess it really depends on what level of public relations practitioner he was talking about, but certainly I would say the big agencies are doing that and have been doing it for a number of years.”
Yum! Brands’ Lawson says ultimate responsibility has to be shared across both agencies and marketers.
“The blame probably fits equally with marketers as it does with agencies,” says Lawson.
“We are guilty of getting them involved too late in the process too often.”
“If we want them to contribute strategically in terms of communications solutions – and even earlier than that with business strategy and helping us identify which public we should be managing reputation with – then I think they can have a more profound effect on the outcomes,” she says.
This is a perspective shared by Edelman’s Michelle Hutton who told Encore that increasingly public relations is being given its place in the boardroom.
“There have been a number of trends that have forced the hand of executives to ensure that public relations and corporate affairs is represented at the boardroom table,” said Hutton.
“A number of senior executives in Australia now have reputation KPIs in their contracts… and I think you’ll find a lot of larger organisations are therefore taking more of an interest.”
This story first appeared in the weekly edition of Encore available for iPad and Android tablets. Visit encore.com.au for a preview of the app or click below to download.
marketers and C-series execs don’t really care which type of agency drives a marketing strategy these days … there are so many breeds of agency to choose from. They just want the one with the best, most accountable campaign – the usual objectives, creativity, understanding of the brief, successful track record, accountability and value for money.
Andy is right. PR needs to not only get off its arse, but stop whingeing and just get out there and take the briefs that are waiting to be executed.
If a bunch of no-name SEO experts and self appointed social media gurus with no relevant marketing comms degrees can take the clients money we sure as hell can.
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“no relevant marketing comms degrees”
haha had to laugh at that FabFour. My guess is you are a fairly recent graduate?
anyway, it’s a pity that Mumbrella had to rehash its earlier identical story…is this an indication of a dwindling audience?
it’s also a pity that Lark is inaccurately crapping on the industry that gave him his break
the only problem is that Corporate Affairs already has a seat at the Board table
Perhaps lark and others whinging about PR should inform their PR firms that they now have an ad budget.
When people have money they get more creative because their imagination is not limited by their financial capability or lack thereof. It’s no use complaining about PRs being stuck in their ways when you’ve changed the rules but failed to tell them
Rather than bitch about your suppliers why dont you tell them what your new rules are?
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@NS I’m two decades into my profession actually and have run my own agency for half of that time. What I was trying to say kindly is that many of the cowboys who have taken clients money in the digital sphere have no relevant qualifications at all. Most we employ now (and in the past) have some kind of degree in a comms related field.
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apologies FabFour and i agree that more snake oil has been peddled by social wannabees than real experience and advice
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I’ve always found it interesting that when times are good and consumers are consuming that all credit goes to the sales and marketing teams. They spend lavishly on campaigns because they can. But the moment it all goes south and the money dries up they come crying to PR to do something. Do ANYTHING! PR, remember, is about relationships. And those relationships last through times of wealth and times of hardship. The moment marketing runs out of the cash it’s interesting to see how quickly all those loved up contributors dry up. And just as in real life … relationships can’t be measured. PR sometimes can’t either. And they can’t be explained at times. But business based on good relationships sure as hell outlasts those based purely on money. Marketing needs to wake up because if PR’s the ugly red-headed child then marketing is the fat lonely bully who thinks he’s funnier than he really is.
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