Robb Hecht points to a story in the Business Review which looks at PR’s growing role in the marketing mix. It leans heavily on the infamous Al Ries book
“This rise of public relations, which has been acknowledged by formerly advertising-driven corporations such as Unilever and Gillette, is creating consternation among those who have enjoyed multimillion-dollar budgets to create award-winning advertising that have little impact on market share.”
Robb also links to a profile (free registration required) in the Washington Post on UK PR sleaze king Max Clifford.
Clifford cheerfully concedes he makes a good living in part by helping trash the reputations of the rich and famous. “Over here we probably have the most savage media in the world,” he says of the tabloids he works with. “They are destroying far more than they are aiding, helping, supporting.” Still, he insists, he himself is not to blame: “It’s what people want. It’s the British public. It’s what people want to read about.”
Kevin Dugan has more on his interview with Al Ries this time looking at Procter & Gamble.
“That’s why many successful new brands start slowly using primarily PR techniques. Starbucks, Gatorade, Google, Red Bull, to name a few. Entrepreneurs who have the patience to hang in there while the market develops introduced these brands and many others…. Red Bull, for example, took four years to reach $10 million in annual sales and another five years to reach $100 million. Any big company that took a look at Red Bull in its early days would have said, “There’s no market there. We can’t afford a big ad budget to launch an energy drink brand.”
Dana VanDen Heuvel points to a story on ePrarie that looks at media management.
“Media relationships are founded on a news reporter�s ethical requirement to report factual and unbiased stories. There are also columnists � who are generally very experienced and/or opinionated � as well as feature writers. Expect different approaches from the three, but at the core, expect professionals who fundamentally report the truth they learned when they investigated it.”
Jim Horton is enjoying his life as a second class citizen (me too!).
“Frankly, I have enjoyed my career as a second-class citizen. It provides me an opportunity to tweak those who are too serious about their jobs. What I do as a PR person is often important. I know that, and those of us who work in PR know that. That’s good enough.”
Colin McKay links to PR Week’s interview with Gawker’s Nick Denton.
“Blogs provide a filter between PR professionals and journalists. Reporters have been increasingly overwhelmed by pitches. They don’t open their emails or answer the phone a lot of the time. Some of the more savvy journalists are looking at the web as a filter. Smart PR professionals need to start looking at indirect ways to reach reporters and subtle pitches to weblogs or the creation of weblogs for a specific campaign. That’s a good way for PR professionals to get an idea out there in the hopes that it will get to influential reporters.”
MarketingVox are doing the needful and providing a full service blog on the AD:Tech conference in San Francisco.
Daniel Keeney of Keeney PR has written a piece on the dangers of NGO’s and others using of “templated” opinion pieces.
Murphy's Law 