PR, innit?

The official (and unofficial) definition

• Public relations is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour.

• It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics.– Public Relations Consultancy Association

• “I want coverage”– Almost every client

What the media writes

Hard news - often ‘bad’Disaster/scandal

Business issues/trendsEnd-user issues/trends

Interesting things

Vendors’ expectations

We have great products

Our great track recordOur illustrious history

Our ecstatic customers

The sweet spot...Topical, quick, timely

Business issuesUser pain points

Real researchPractical impact

Customers and case studiesAverage Joe interestPictures, box-outs,

value-add...

In practice, where media relations sits

A Grange Hill analogy

Mr BronsonScruffy McGuffy

The two middle men extremes…

Estate agents•Coverage-led •“Got the press release?” merchants•Response Source•v2.1•“Press release a month”

•“Only as good as your last piece of coverage”

Consultants•Client relations-led•Airy fairy ego strokers•PowerPoint jazz hands •Corporate sausage machine

– Awful at implementation– Good at (client) lunches

•“His first born in my godson”

Another reason for PR/journo conflict

It would be worse if PR wasn’t inept

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Convincing a vendor to say something

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Trying to explain to Americans why The Register headline isn’t offensive

ChangingZs to Ss

The PR business model

• PR is usually a small line item in the overall marketing budget• Small companies will have a “in-house” marketing person (or

team) that covers PR– Difficult to make things happen

• Large companies will have a “in-house” PR person (or team)• Difficult to make things happen

• That in-house person (or team) will work with a PR agency for– A brain and a spine– Up to date, relevant, experience– Fresh thinking – Arms and legs support– A scapegoat…

PR - Slim profit margin business

• Any fool can start a PR company• Agencies are poorly managed (simply break even)• Chargeable rates go down• More and more junior (cheap) people• Quality gets worse

Typical PR agency structure

Typical PR salaries

Title Experience Bracket

Associate director 8+ years £60K plus

Account director 5+ years £40-60K

Account manager 2+ years £25-40K

Account executive 0+ years £18-24K

The pain in the arse of getting coverage• Agency PR: “Great piece in The Register.”• Spineless in-house PR: “Yes, it’s great. Can you get me 20

hardcopies.”• CEO: “What is this comic? I hate it. The headline is rude.”• Spineless in-house PR: “This is awful coverage. Grrr”• Agency PR: “That’s how The Reg writes, that’s why it has 5m

readers and is your key publication.”• Spineless in-house PR: “Get them to change the headline. Our

CEO doesn’t like The Reg.”• Agency PR: “It was offered to The Reg as an exclusive, we

supplied example coverage. You discussed it with your CEO and it was signed off.”

• Spineless in-house PR: “Get them to change the headline.”

What a good PR should be…

• ‘Tough loving’ the client to make them operate in the real world

• Working with the client to discover/create interesting stories (with some sort of beneficial link back to the company)

• Cutting out the corporate nonsense• Ensuring the story/company sits in context to the outside

world• Prepping the story with proof points, third parties,

photography, infographic etc• Looking at things from the journo point of view• Working with known and trusted journos to have a resulting

piece of coverage that works well for both parties• Growing a big pair of balls…

Thoughts from a PR on how journos can use a (good) PR person

• A (not always successful) route to senior execs and customers– Sometimes the brief is to hide the exec

• A source for additional/future content/ideas/angles– A decent PR knows markets/people beyond their clients

• Build a trusted relationship with the PR, so they can take the risk of championing you to client with a little more confidence– Because life is too short

• Understand and ‘play the game’ with business culture– CEOs don’t want late, scruffy, ill-prepared

• See it from the PR (agency and in-house) point of view– Mortgage payments are at risk