PR agencies, you need to work with us, not against us
The idea that media agencies are weak and can be replaced by PR agencies is preposterous argues Shivani Maharaj. In this guest post, she argues paid media actually now drives earned media.
At last week’s CommsCon event, Ben Shipley, managing director of Spectrum Group, told an audience of public relations professionals that the time is ripe to take on media agencies.
He said: “There’s never been an opportunity where they have been as weak as they are right now.”
I can’t wait to see the first round of feedback on a media plan produced by a PR agency…
Magazines and print anyone?
Hi Shivani, thanks for taking the time to read and respond.
Hopefully, you’ll get to spend enough time with your new found PR friends to understand that journalists have a bias for drama. Far from a focused takedown of the media agency model, I talked about what the PR industry can learn from Kung Fu Panda. Admittedly a topic less likely to gain the type of response Mumbrella is famous for.
I will continue to stand by the thinking that PR should be willing to define, implement and measure new types of marketing and that unaddressed transparency from media agencies has created an opportunity for new thinking to be heard and paid for.
You’re also not the first media agency person to suggest that PR should roll inside the media monolith to build out skills and further lock down that lion’s share of the marketing budget you’re so accustomed to, but I’ll take my chances out here trying to do something disruptive.