Over the holidays I read The Fall of Advertising & The Rise of PR, by Al and Laura Ries. I don’t recommend you buy it and read it; it’s a much better library check out and scan type book.

For one thing, it was published in 2002, which makes reading it’s tales of Segway, Pets.com and The Red Tent pretty boring and stale.

Also, it’s clear the authors are terribly sad to see the age of advertising slip away and do not see a value in PR. I’m not even sure why PR is in the title, honestly. Here’s a gem from Chapter 9, page 85. Emphasis mine:

Perception is the name of the game, and advertising is perceived as the only way to create a better perception. Not true, but that the perception.

And that better alternative is publicity or, as its practitioners like to call it, PR, or public relations.

Whatever you all the function (publicity, PR, or public relations), the objective is the same. Tell your story indirectly through third-party outlets, primarily the media.

There are many disadvantages to PR. You can’t control the content, you can’t control the timing, and you can’t control the visual appearance of your message. You can’t even be sure that any of your messages will be delivered.

But the one advantage of PR makes up for all of its disadvantages. PR has credibility, advertising does not.

Gosh, too bad PR only has ONE advantage. How the heck would ANYONE hope to build up sincere media relationships that will one day help get your message out? If only there was a person one could turn to for media strategy and message control! (sigh).

Clearly, I’m still processing the tone and take-away message of this book. It has been on my read list for a while, which is why I’m sort of bitter about how disappointing the read was.

What about you? Have you read it? What lessons did you learn?

More importantly: Do you agree that PR offers no message control and only boasts ONE advantage, credibility?

A friend of mine (swear it wasn’t me) was in a meeting pitching a few communications tactics to a group of technology folk. Bless ‘em.

Among her suggestions of targeted events, story ideas and a strong web presence came her idea to reach out to tech-savvy audiences and media via social networking tools like Twitter and Facebook.

The latter idea fell flat when the man at the head of the table declared:

Twitter is useless. No one cares ‘what you are doing.’ It is has no impact on business.

(sigh)

I was shocked that someone so very smart and tech-ish could just write off a communications channel like that. I kind of feel sorry for him.

I’ll admit that I’ve dealt with clients who have never heard of Twitter and getting them to my comfort level with it and other social networking vehicles is quite tough. But I’ve yet to hear anyone who already knows about Twitter just flat out call it “useless.”

“Not appropriate for our target audience,” sure. But “useless”?

You, techy-sir, are smarter than that and you are paying this gal to tell your story in the most strategic, results-generating way possible. Why do you torment her?

The very essence of public relations is to focus on a message and communicate that message to the intended audience via whatever communication channel that public uses/views as valid. I’ll tell a client’s story with smoke signals if that’s what I’ve got to do.

So, if even a handful of your audience is on Twitter then it cannot be called useless.

It’s not that I’m in love with Twitter (wait, actually, I sort of am), it’s that I’m not comfortable with blanket generalizations made by smart people. Where would we be if we used these new media tools only for the exact question they were created to answer?

Twitter is a HUGE communication and research vehicle for me. I use it to poll opinion, start debates among my politically passionate friends and even glean column ideas and research for clients.

But that’s just me. Is Twitter a useful business tool for you?

Well said!

Hat tip, Media Bistro/PRNewser

On the importance of candor, from Vegas firm Stern and Company‘s blog:

Whereas marketing and advertising groups must, by definition, be defenders of their specific products, the public relations department has no such mandated allegiance. Public relations should be the corporate conscience. An organization???s public relations professionals should enjoy enough autonomy to tell it to management ???like it is.??? If an idea doesn???t make sense, if a product is flawed, if the general institutional wisdom is wrong, it is the duty of the public relations professional to challenge the consensus. And, in absolute candor, if your company???s PR function isn???t saying ???no??? with great vigor from time to time, you???re probably not being well served and could well be headed for problems.

Who among us hasn’t thought (or maybe even said aloud), “this whole PR viewpoint/opinion thing, it’s what you are paying me for.  If you want a yes man, clearly I’m not the flack for you.”