Meet the marketers: there will be no PR takeover
The move of PR professionals into broader roles is not the beginning of a public relations takeover of traditional marketing roles in advertising, Qantas head of brand and advertising Kent Heffernan has told Mumbrella360.
In response to Qantas corporate affairs chief Olivia Wirth’s recent move to the broader role of Group Executive of Brand, Marketing and Corporate Affairs, Heffernan told the Meet the Marketers session: “It depends on the industry, I don’t see it as a huge growing trend.”
“Olivia is in that role now and she does have a PR and marketing background; she has been exposed to marketing, particularly in the tourism area. So it’s not necessarily a PR person now taking on a wider portfolio.”
“It absolutely makes sense for us. Having that tight coordination across PR, social, and paid marketing is incredibly important to us so that we can have that consistency in our positioning, in our branding, and integrated sales strategies as well.”
However, Kellogg marketing director John Broome felt that there is room for PR professionals to bring forward more ideas on the agency side.
“There’s a great opportunity for PR agencies because of their traditional experience in being able to foster one-on-one conversations, brand communities and things like that.
“We have a great example of a PR agency coming up with a great idea which cost us thirty to forty thousand dollars to put into the market for teenagers, and we’ve got over a million impressions from it. Anybody can come up with an idea. If a truly collaborative agency relationship is set up, then I think PR agencies can come out from beneath ad agencies and digital agencies and really put their case forward.”
Diageo marketing director Matt Bruhn saw the digital agency category as coming to the forefront.
“I have a real problem with the words traditional media. It kind of says that there’s traditional and non-traditional media. Let’s get over it – it’s just media now. The concept that digital is somehow non-traditional is a ridiculous construct. Whether you’re born in the tech-age or not, it’s now just a part of your everyday existence,” he said.
Bruhn said that over a fifth of Diageo’s marketing spend goes towards the digital space. Given the restrictions placed upon advertising alcohol – Diageo can only advertise after 8.30pm on television – they have also looked to other channels for their remaining marketing spend.
“We spend a fair bit of money on experiential. We have this in bars and clubs. It’s a whole different channel – the original social network.”
Heffernan said he has ruled that fifteen percent of Qantas marketing spend go towards digital and social.
“I think the client almost knows as much as the agency in some cases in the digital space. Most agencies can do the digital activity like banner ads and search. At the moment, I do believe you need a specialist agency for the hardcore digital stuff like video-seeding and applications that help you find your way around Heathrow airport.
