Don Draper should be working in PR
In this guest post, PR practitioner Henry Biggs argues that if he were alive today (and not in America and a fictional character) Don Draper would work in public relations.
I was late in getting in to the Mad Men phenomenon but just a couple of episodes in and I was ordering the box set and planning a five-series marathon. But as I watched, it occurred to me that that is all Mad Men is, a period piece no more pertinent to the modern media landscape than Mr Darcy striding around in his breeches is to the Britain I just left.
Advertising is no longer the default message delivery choice as we leave behind the culture of consumerism to enter what is being dubbed the age of engagement. As bought media begins to bow out, it is PR-driven earned media that is in the ascendancy.
As Andy Lark, CommBank CMO, said in his recent CommsCon address: “Any CMO worth their salt is willing to pour heaps and heaps of dollars into PR and PR programs because they are super-effective and super-efficient.”
“Owner of PR agency argues that PR is primary form of marketing.” Astounding.
I’ve heard Don Draper dies in the final episode. Could be a bad sign for PR companies.
Damo it’s no different to any other opinion post here. all the authors are acting in self-interest. Oddly, i havent seen you criticize any of the advertising-is-still-king pieces which proliferate on this site.
This is a great article and Henry Biggs is 100% correct.
advertising is dying and PR is in the ascendancy
once PR practicioners understand they can now ask for budget, they’ll find the ECD within – like One Green Bean has
We need more stunts in Martin Place. That’s what grows brands.
From today’s Mumbrella ‘Danny Bass’ story…
“WPP’s Group M agencies …combined spend of the agencies across traditional and digital media amounts to around $1.9bn.”
Paid media ‘bowing out’??
http://www.brw.com.au/p/market.....oEuIEEfO4H
Social media in trouble?
Are the ’60 million’ coke facebook fans in USA only or worldwide? If worldwide, why not quote TV reach worldwide? Does USA free TV really only reach little more than 10% of the entire population? 108.9 million US only viewers watched this years Superbowl on CBS…
invoking Mad Men? obviously hasn’t reached the episode where Pete promises a potential client “actual advertising, not ‘just’ PR”…
Advertising doesn’t have dialogue with consumers? (its called ‘sales’)
Does coke have 60 million individual dialogues happening with its customers?
Yeah, I’m here to be the Sour Sally and bitch about people that use drugs.
But seriously, I have no major problem with recreational drug use, as long as that use only affects the user. Weed is a pretty good example of this – while there is definitely a criminal element to it, most of my buddies who get high have their own small grow ops and I can safely say their use doesn’t harm anyone, even themselves.
However, Coke is a bit of a problem for me. This series, presented by Blur bassist Alex James, pretty much illustrates why. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/pro.....200749.stm
As others have mentioned, drugs can be used for creative inspiration, and I’m not wholly against that – If I was, I’d find it hard to listen to A LOT of the music I dig, and watching Scorsese’s early films would be out too. But it’d make me really sad if folks in the creative industry knew what effect their use of cocaine was doing to everyone involved in the buying, selling, farming and distribution of the product, and still didn’t care.
Agree with sentiment, but still big question marks over whether PR is currently equipped to take advantage of the owned/earned trend – my view here: http://webershandwick.asia/con.....ll-for-pr/
Don is my hero
TR’s comment demonstrates perfectly why there’s a limit to advertising’s ability to trample on PR’s world – you simply don’t get that stunts are <1% of PR
the reason you don't know what it is, is entirely the point – you're blithely involved with the content by choice because it's intrinsically engaging, not because it's interrupting your reading or viewing
and this is entirely the point – people choose to watch shows and videos, and only put up with the ads if they're forced to
as a creative communicator, where would you rather be playing?
What strikes me about Madmen is all their “ideas” are pretty much what we would call a “strategy” these days. It’s just it was all so new then, that seemed like a breakthrough.
PR and Advertising are but 2 sides of the same coin? Edward Bernays would have been a better option to emulate to drive the current state of Marketing.