Murphy's Law

Jenane Sessum has kindly posted some detailed comments on yesterday’s story on the evolution of large PR firms. Please have a read.

Once again, I agree with many of her points, my only real point of disagreement is the scale of the effect of this new economy on large agencies.

There’s no question that larger agencies have some serious challenges in both economic terms and clearly defining their value proposition. But I don’t think the shake out will be as severe as some think.

There will always be a large number of clients who want a big name firm, just as others will prefer a medium firm, a small firm, a boutique firm or an independent consultant. Indeed many clients will take PR in-house, a-l�racle.

The PR business reflects the diversity of our clients and will continue to do so, in my humble opinion.

Of course the problem with opinions is they can always be wrong 🙂

On the Ketchum blog, I still think she was hard on them!

PS:
My sincere apologies to Jeneane for incorrectly spelling her name.  I’ve amended all references!

Evolution has taught us that only the strong survive, but that the surviving strong category is rarely homogenous. 

On Earth we have mammals, reptiles, amphibians etc. and within those groups we have thousands of sub-groups. As the saying goes there’s more than one way to skin a cat.  I think you get my drift…

Last month I railed against the PR Week survey which more or less came to the conclusion that everyone must use one global PR agency.

It’s never that simple.

I have noticed recently that we are increasingly jumping to one or the other end of the spectrum. Rather than understanding diversity we are rushing to apply a one size fits all solution to a diverse, complicated problem.

Jeneane Sessum has taken up the argument from the opposite end of the “one global PR agency” argument. 

In her post “Bye Bye Big PR” she believes that in fact big PR firms are heading for a similar fate as the dinosaurs.

“Even the largest of companies are growing tired of BigPR staffing projects with fresh-out-of-college, inexperienced, lower-level people (that is the only category of PR flacks large agencies can afford to keep only partially billable, you see), yet charging as if they were staffing the project with brain surgeons–or attorneys.”

Now don’t get me wrong, I think Jeneane makes many valid points and I agree with many of them – I just don’t buy this all or nothing argument.

There’s no question that many of the PR pros who’ve been cast out of the agency business in this harsh economic period, will make a lot of money consulting directly with clients. But is this the end of Big PR companies?

No. Not in my opinion.

I can’t see large organizations like Microsoft (who have huge internal PR resources anyway) recruiting 1,200 individual consultants.  And while many firms will buy the “independent networks” idea, just as many won’t.

Big PR companies, small PR companies, mid-size PR companies, independent consultants, networked independent consultants, specialist PR firms, regional PR firms, global PR firms, all these entities will co-exist. There will be changes, but no extinction – in my opinion.

Anyhow, I’ve added Jeneane’s blog to the blogroll and you should definitely have a read of it.

PS: Jeneane also has a rant at a site purported to be a internal Ketchum weblog promoting it’s internal Kudos awards. Don’t bother clicking on it, they’ve deleted the content.

A source of mine pointed me at it last week and it looked like a series of harmless inter-office posts to me – I didn’t link it here becuase it would be meaningless to you.

Jeneane calls it the “first official Ketchum blog”, which it clearly wasn’t.  There was no branding and no mention of Ketchum on it.

She continues that:

“The fact that the first official Blog Ketchum has launched on blogspot serves as a back-patting interoffice circle jerk (sorry for the mixed metaphor–I thought it might give you all something to ponder as you drift off to sleep)–masquerading as a hip controversial PR Real World episode–is laughable.” 

I think she’s being a little harsh with Ketchum (her former employer), after all I didn’t see any marketing around the blog.  Maybe it wasn’t for external consumption. Mistakes happen. It certainly wasn’t viral marketing.

PR Week US looks at what tools are available to manage global PR programs and are they ready to support your programs everywhere.  The answer is not yet.

PR Week UK has a very good analysis of former UK PR maestro Alastairn Campbell.  They also look at the reality of “spin free” government communications.

 This weekend, Sweden will vote on whether to join the European Monetary Union (EMU) and adopt the Euro currency. According to a story in the UK Telegraph the PR campaign for the “Yes” side has driven support for the “No” side. Indeed Sweden’s own PR trade magazine, Resum�A>, alleges that the Yes sides PR incompetence is seriously threatening the long-term health of the PR industry in Sweden.

Update: Since I posted this story Swedish Foreign Minister, Anna Lindh died from stab wounds inflicted on her during an attack while she was shopping. The thoughtless act of a lunatic on this day again puts things in perspective.

 Jennifer Lahl of the Center for Bioethics and Culture writes in AlwaysOn about how Corporate PR is hijacking Bioethics.

 MediaMap‘s ExpertPR newsletter is out with some interesting articles include how PR establishes and maintains credibility,  and why the news is the real word.

Dear Readers, given the day that’s in it, some of you may find the following analogy a little disturbing, however, I believe it puts in perspective some very distasteful trends we’re seeing in corporate behaviour and how PR has become a fall-guy in the process.

Wars are an inevitable part of human existence.  That is a regrettable fact.  Humans sometimes find no other way of dealing with conflict. However the real victims of war are rarely the primary participants, and the world’s nations, recognizing this fact, created the Geneva Convention to protect the rights of those people who were at the mercy of more powerful adversaries.

You may be wondering where I am headed with this. Bear with me.

James Horton writes today about a story in the Los Angeles Times (Free Registration Required) which reveals that the RIAA was well aware of the potential backlash against their lawsuits against their customers, but they were willing to grin and bear it.

So, the bullies unleashed their legal muscle on children, retired people and students. In fact, they in effect declared war on people who were illegally downloading music.

Not good PR, but they wanted a strong message to get through – and it has.

No question.

I dealt yesterday with the fact that they chose the lazy route.  Rather than looking at how their industry markets their product, structures their costs etc. they went for the soft target.  (Compare this to the Business Software Alliance, whose “cease-and-desist” strategy has been very successful in reducing software piracy).

So the RIAA has declared war.  So in a convential war the Geneva Convention protects the weak. Who is protecting the weak in the RIAA war?

The Third Geneva Convention restricts combatants from using prisoners for “public curiousity”. But from the latest stories on the RIAA they are parading their prisoners on full view.

In a story from Wired, we learn that Brianna Lahara, the twelve year old, who the RIAA bravely sued, has had to pay (through her mother) $2,000.  But it doesn’t stop there, not only are the RIAA taking her money, but they are parading her like some sort of exhibit.

“I am sorry for what I have done,” Brianna said in a statement released by the Recording Industry Association of America on Tuesday. “I love music and I don’t want to hurt the artists I love.”

Do these people have no shame? I don’t care about the pros and cons.  This is simply unethical. That’s your music industry folks. Bullying and taking advantage of a twelve year old.

I’m not a member of any anti-trade group, I am pro free trade, pro free markets, but I am passionately against a lack of ethics among commerical entities.

A story on PaidContent.org, claims Red Herring is set to be re-launched. 

French publisher, Dasar [FLASH Warning], is planning to re-launch an online version of Red Herring early next year.

Jim Daly, former editor at Business 2.0 is rumored to be editing the re-launched site.

The way things are going, PR professionals in the future are not going to need to be affiliated to their local professional body or possess good writing skills.  Oh no, to practice PR 21st century style you’ll have to have a law degree.

Over the past few months we are seeing a rapid increase in the aggression of organizations seeking to enforce what they believe are their rights. Where good communications practice teaches us to engage our audience, these organizations believe in litigating with them.

In the business world, SCO continues to avoid the path of sensible conciliatory talks and instead is planning on not only suing large IT vendors like IBM, but smaller Linux vendors and now the crowning glory, they are suing end-users.

It’s a while since I read it, but I don’t remember Geoffrey Moore writing about the “Litigation Strategy” in Inside the Tornado. (I know, I know, I am SO 1990’s)

How SCO think they can outlast IBM in a legal process is beyond me.  But from a PR perspective this approach is harming not helping their profile – in my opinion.

Then in the consumer world we have the Recording Industry Association of America or the RIAA. 

It would be unfair to suggest the RIAA has their head in the sand, it’s more like concrete.

CD sales are falling so it’s the Internet’s fault.  That’s their thinking. They’re spending millions lobbying Federal government and now they’re turning their nasty focus on their customers.  There’s good PR for you.

So let’s look at the music business. CD sales are falling.  Did they ever think that it’s because CDs are so expensive? CDs are moving out of discretionary spending.  I only buy half the CDs I used to because I am unwilling to pay that much money for CDs. The Univeral Music Group has made some steps in fixing this problem, but let’s not forget just how little CD’s cost to manufacture.

In most industry’s you look at your costs if sales are falling, you don’t go suing your customers.

Ah the Internet. The music business has singularly refused to look at innovative ways for selling music online.  There’s too much vested interest.  Apple’s iTune’s has been a massive success showing that people are willing to legally buy music online – if only they could.

The Internet has been mainstream since the mid nineties and only now are authorized music services being made available online. That sounds like the RIAA’s problem to me.  But no my friend that is your problem, and that is why a twelve year old girl in New York is being sued by the might of the music industry.

When did communication, innovation and good business practice get railroaded by litigation? I’m not sure but I know in the end there will be no winners.

By the way, in case anyone from the RIAA reads this, all my music is legit. But that doesn’t mean I agree with your overpriced and under-innovated products.

“Out of all people, why did they pick me?”

Brianna LaHara, a 12-year-old New York City girl who is being sued by the RIAA (New York Post Story)

Update: James Horton posts along similar lines today.

For anyone who is interested, Blogger (a.k.a Google) have announced that all the features in the paid-for version of Blogger (a.k.a Blogger Pro) are now being folded into the free version.

The result is that the basic, free version of Blogger can now generate RSS feeds and take advantage of a whole additional range of services.

Interesting move, it’ll certainly increase the number of RSS feeds exponentially overnight. I can’t help wondering if it’s a competitive move against TypePad which has been doing quite nicely.

Jeff Rutherford over at Trylon Communications alerted me to a story in the Boston Herald about how PR people are leading the marketing charge into the world of blogs – Rick Bruner’s gonna love that! 🙂

The story is only available to subscribers.

“Because just as fast as the Weblog phenomenon is weaving itself into the media landscape, publicity agents and public relations people are swarming this venue where anyone can carry a message to the masses.”