‘That’s not a PR idea’: Why it’s time to leave labels behind

“That’s not a PR idea” was a phrase I used to hear a lot earlier in my career. Back in the noughties, breaking out of your agency silo was particularly hard, and it’s gut-wrenching to think how many great ideas never saw the light of day because they were deemed to have stepped outside an agency’s patch of grass.

Attempts to ring-fence PR in or take bites out of it have been a consistent by-product of convergence. The rise of social media agencies and departments meant what used to be PR ideas executed across social media were increasingly annexed and ring-fenced by social media professionals. Media agencies started creating shareable content and SEO agencies began publishing and distributing news and opinion-led articles.

It was okay though; only PRs knew how to influence journalists and deliver earned media. Which was fine to cling onto until one day everyone began looking around to find that there appeared to be a lot less journalists than there used to be, with traditional outlets reaching fewer people.