Day: November 7, 2003

As a PR lifer I am very aware of the power of Public Relations and its potential to dramatically affect the success of any organization.

Over the years, the importance of the PR ecosystem has become very apparent.  PR by its nature is a tightly interconnected series of relationships between your co-workers, clients, partners, suppliers, journalists, analysts and other third parties.

When the ecosystem is in equilibrium, PR runs smoothly and is an effective component of the marketing mix, but when the balance is affected, bad things happen.

This need for balance is the very reason I get nervous when I see and hear any one of those different, yet connected components trying to change the status quo.

Robb Hecht points to an article written by Loren Pomerantz on Media Bistro that discusses the relationship between PR and freelance writer and in particular the role freelancers play in the news generation process. Now personally most of my interaction with freelancers is on the features rather than news side, but I’m sure it varies by industry sector.

Most of the article itself is fine, even useful, but towards the end it offers advice to freelancers on what they can do to ease the process for PR people.

The nuggets include keeping consistent contact information, introduce yourself etc. all fine but then it suggests that freelancers should “suck up a little” to PR people and “send a gift if that’s your style”.

What?

I don’t agree.  Why should freelancers have to kiss up? If freelancers are writing features or news stories that are relevant to your client, it’s up to you work with them professionally.

Why should freelancers have to kiss PR butt when they have a well-defined role in the media landscape?

This is exactly the type of thing that changes the ecosystem and as we know that normally ends in environmental disaster.

Richard Bailey points to a very interesting speech given by Colin Farrington, Director General of the IPR – the UK’s variation on the PRSA – on PR trends in Europe.

Europe presents a difficult business environment, particularly for marketing.  Whilst the stated goal of the European Union is to bring Europe closer together, and it has achieved an awful lot of that through shared legislation, reduced trade barriers etc. Europe still remains a loose collection of individual states from a marketing perspective.

Part of the problem is that the European Union is percieved as a peer to the United States, but it’s very different.

Europe is a collection of very different states, each with their own cultures and preferences and each proud of their differences.  For example, Ireland, a very small country and a relatively new state (1949)  is one of the most pro-European members of the European Union. The country views itself as a fully committed member of Europe, but we still see ourselves as Irish.  

Now extrapolate those feelings into countries which have been independent for five hundred years or more. They are unwilling to completely give up their nationality even though they embrace Europe and the collective trading bloc.

During my time working on PR and marketing programs around Europe it quickly became apparent that each European country is proud of it’s differences.

Anyone who has worked on pan-European campaigns will have heard the familiar refrain from every country – “oh it’s different here you see.”

Couple that with a general mistrust of central command throughout Europe and you have a very challenging environment that requires a significantly higher investment.

It’s not easy and in my view it’s not going to get any easier in the near future. 

If you are planning to move into Europe or undertake a European campaign, be clear on what you want to achieve and how you will work with each country and beware of empty promises.

Do not assume that a generic campaign will work.  It won’t.

Respect each country, if you want to launch in a country then invest in local knowledge and resources. Bland campaigns which blindly throw money into a country will fail.  If you want to be successful there demonstrate your commitment.

Finally spend the time building local relationships.  It will pay huge dividends immediately.