The Pitch: Chuck out those old views on PR and move with the times

By GRAEME STERNE*

It's time to get rid of some old views about public relations. They are no longer helpful for the communications needs of today's companies.

Worse, these old images obstruct good business practice and affect the economic, social and environmental bottom lines.

Old view No 1: spin doctoring. No one admires it. It's a tired old term that cynical journalists keep using to cast real PR in a negative light.

Adjusting the truth to hide uncomfortable realities will come back to haunt you, sometimes sooner than you expect. It is unethical and undermines relationships rather than building them.

Old view No 2: Call on PR in a crisis. If you have not prepared a crisis plan before one hits then you are failing in your business planning.

It is far better to be proactive in crisis preparation than waiting for one to happen. While PR specialists are skilled at communicating in a crisis, they are better placed at the senior management table when the strategic plans are being developed so that a communications plan is interwoven into the business.

Prevention is better than cure. Collaborative strategic planning is better than seat-of-the-pants reactions and amateurish, naive handling of the media when the heat is on.

Old view No 3: PR is an overhead. If you view PR as an add-on or as a subset of marketing, you have missed the point.

Properly understood, PR is a senior management function. It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its public. This includes consumers, staff, interest groups, government, media, investors and so on. It's not an overhead, it's what business is based on.

Old view No 4: PR is about media relations and publicity. Sixty per cent of PR budgets in the United States are for internal communications, special events, investor relations, community relations, fundraising, public affairs, and government relations.

This does not take into account the roles of advice-giving, research and issues advertising. What are the percentages in New Zealand? That depends on your senior managers' views of PR.

Today's PR is about partnership building, building relationships - long-term in most cases. It's about strategic communications management. This means communicating effectively to meet company and consumer objectives.

PR should be a change agent. It has one ear on the economic, social and international environment and the other on what the organisation wants to achieve. That is why it is a senior management job, like marketing, operations, human resources and financial management.

What is the view of PR in your organisation? Have you relegated it to "getting publicity for us" or to "organising feel-good activities for clients"? You will get these things and much more if you throw out the old views and take on the new.


* Graeme Sterne is a lecturer in communications and public relations at the Manukau Institute of Technology.

* The Pitch is a forum for those working in advertising, marketing, public relations and communications. We welcome lively and topical 500-word contributions.
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