A Lack of Real Vision is Stalling the PR Industry

Where does PR Newswire fit into this paradigm? I'm guessing the executives quoted have marketing departments that distribute corporate announcements through "the wire" -- and I wonder if the chain needs to be amended.

HI Danny, thought-provoking post. Here's my prediction for 2017--there will be no PR agencies. Sure, there will be content marketing agencies, digital agencies and integrated marketing communications agencies. Some of these firms may even be run by folks whose roots are in PR. But the PR agency as we know it today will not exist.

Appreciate the thoughtful response.

To your last point, measurement and quantification is all about expectations. My PR background is primarily with tech startups so they most of the time want publicity, which ultimately leads to credibility for them, aka traffic to their site and Facebook/twitter love. With the sophistication of our analytics these days we can even attribute PR to sales... now that would be interesting.

I once met a guy who told me he was in the "lead generation" business and when I asked him how he did that, he said "by doing PR."

Wouldn't it have been refreshing for one of them to just say: it's all moving so fast I can't predict 2017, but I know it will be very different?

That is frightening... I STILL feel like I don't know enough and have SO much to learn, but even my little agency is doing all of that. Maybe that comment is right Danny, the folks making the big bucks don't want anything to change... but it HAS already.

There is no question that the PR industry has a PR problem – we are still considered the

“dark side” when a journalist joins our ranks. We actually outnumber journalists 4 to 1 now, which is another conversation in itself but only makes our job of “traditional” PR that much harder. But to state that the PR industry is stalling is just a blatantly wrong statement (http://www.vss.com/NewsDetails.aspx?ID=272).

Admittedly there hasn’t been much innovation specifically for the PR industry besides the

wires services that some people still use. We’ve had to adopt beyond just strategy and publicity to utilizing social media (facebook, twitter, pinterest, tumblr, youtube etc.) to continually go direct-to-consumer. And therein lies the answer – the PR industry, which used to rely very heavily on mass media for “coverage” can now bypass them to a certain extent and directly engage their customers/community on multiple levels and actually quantify their results.

At the PRSAIC a few weeks ago I sat in on a panel with the CEO’s of the top agencies

(GH, H+K, Airfoil, Ketchum) and they all admitted they go way beyond “traditional” PR now. They now provide their clients with earned, owned, paid, shared and promoted. Basically whatever the client needs.

As an entrepreneur in the PR space, I even launched my own company Launch.it to try

and bring innovation to it. Launch.it is a free self-publishing news platform for PR professionals, agencies and brands to launch and socialize everything new. Our goal is to be the most comprehensive direct-to-customer source for the timeliest news of all new products, services and ideas to make sure that they can be found, discovered

and shared. We want to create a home for everything new and make sure that nothing gets left behind.

I’m more worried about other industries than I am about the PR industry – I think we will be just fine.

Read more at http://www.business2community.com/public-relations/a-lack-of-real-vision-is-stalling-the-pr-industry-0310348#D2CmsQhVrD8G4QtT.99

@AmyVernon @dannybrown To be fair, a lack of real vision is stalling most industries

Folks at big companies with fat salaries and a bright future are not the ones to ask about the future. They would be just fine with the future being exactly like the past. The people to ask are the people you've never heard of. They are a little harder to reach and aren't yet respected but they are the ones shaping the future right now.

@dunnpr we all must be better prepared for what may (will) be thrown at us. Easier said than done!

@dunnpr First off, I have a ton of respect for the PR industry, although as the world is changing at lightspeed due to technology...

Hi Danny thanks so much for sharing this with us.

As Challin mentioned before, I would also like to see some solutions. Or perhaps the PR industry has reached the pinnacle of what it can do today. Thats not saying that 2017 will use the same strategy its currently using. The PR industry and most industries began using Facebook, and Twitter after they came out as a way to interact with their respective audience. 

Danny,

You're mostly right (and so are many of the comments describing other communication sub-fields too). Personally, I think public relations has always in the midst of disruptive change from its earliest beginnings as a spin off from propaganda and never really recovered despite the best efforts of many. 

As an advocate for integrated communication, I'm not always sure that losing the notion of public relations as it exists today would be a bad thing, with one very critical exception. There are several skill sets and ways of thinking about the world that are unique to this profession. I don't think we can afford to lose this thinking. 

In fact, I find it interesting that almost none of what is preserving from public relations has to do with publicity or media relations, which are the two areas public relations tends to become bogged down. If the field could reign itself in as the management function definitions that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, I think this conversation wouldn't continually surface. 

Good stuff, 

Rich

Hi Danny,

This is a very interesting post and I'm sure you'll get some amazing comments from PR experts (already have :)).

But I don't think it's limited to PR. It includes communications and creative firms in general. You could say the same thing about my industry and I'm still playing catch up (some I know aren't even trying). The amazing thing to me is that many of the marketing directors I talk to are so uninformed about all this and they are approaching this like it's 2007, or 1999 ;) Certain companies I approach should at the very least be blogging and more engaged on their social media channels. They're looking for more business, have the resources to do it, but are stuck in the old model. Let's print a brochure, design a website and place a $2,000 ad in a trade mag, then we're all set. 

Me? Well,l I have a LOT to learn from experts like you and Gini, but the slow trickle of information I'm bringing into every new meeting. Well, I'm getting a lot of nods. This is good ;)

If I only had a crystal ball. Hmmmm, I wonder what Ray Kurzweil would say … ;)

Hi Danny, I know you mentioned some companies who are thinking in terms of 2017, but can you provide some of the programs that they've implemented that are more forward thinking?  I'd love to not only hear the problem, but also some solutions.

Thanks!

When I received this same article I wrote a blog post about it, too. I promised it first to Ragan so it'll run on Spin Sucks later, but my thoughts are the same as yours.

Recently, a very well-respected mid-sized agency changed their brand from PR firm to integrated marketing communications firm. I applaud them for it, but it's the same thing we did in 2009. The real problem though? They're stil lightyears ahead of other firms.

I spoke at a conference earlier this year where some of the people quoted in this article attended. When I asked a few questions of the audience about basic things (Google alerts, blogging, social media for their agencies, measurement), less than one percent raised their hands indicating they do it.

This scares me. I know - and respect - Elise Mitchell and a couple of other leaders quoted a great deal. It saddens me they're so far behind the curve on this stuff. But, until we ALL begin educating our clients on what's important and how to measure our efforts to real business results, it won't change. Too many still ask for media relations or events only and don't want to use their PR counsel for anything else. It's a top down problem.

Great article, Danny. I agree that the PR and marketing industries are moving and ever changing. I think that the people who are quoted honestly have no idea where the industry is going OR they don't understand where the industry is at now. Perhaps they are stuck in 2006 :)

Great post and debate, Danny. I agree with your assessment and also Clay's point that digital darwinism is moving so fast that 5 years out is really hard to predict. From my perspective, your "the future is now" theory applies to you and the other switched-on guys you list that are ahead of the curve, but I think there is a huge raft of old-school PR types who are still trying to catch up as the vast majority of what they do is based on traditional media. They are not the cutting edge of the PR industry or the PR Week thought-leaders, but getting the industry as a whole (and their clients) to embrace what the 8 experts are talking about is still a challenge and possibly part of the reason why the industry is perceived as being slow to change as it is fragmented and slow to learn.

In some ways it is hard for PR to be ahead of the curve because as I discuss with others, adoption of technology/services creates services.  Technology is a driver of mediums, and honestly I could tell you something right now that PR should be looking at is getting their products/services/information/brands placed into more games, especially modern ones, ones surrounded by life/future...etc.  Start looking at all these kickstarter and independantly funded items and think of how you could leverage kickstarter programs to help innovate something for your business/service...etc.  PR firms will need to go above and beyond simply marketing what you already have but help you market and get interest in what you are trying to create.

Danny, beyond being behind the curve on social media the PR industry needs to change its business model to stop selling time on a best efforts basis. 

Yes, we need to understand social media and be a leader at that. But we also need to go back to being more than content creators. We need to go back to being consultants and start finding ways to get paid for results. Given the structure of most agencies that won't be easy - they're built to sell time. That's the kind of disruptive change that needs to happen. Learning to use a new communications channel is just expected and they should have done that already.

It's been years since I've worked at a traditional PR firm (long before social media was around). But, I'm continually shocked at how slow the industry has been to get on board.

A friend of mine - a business owner and former ad exec - invited me to guest lecture today for his class on social media for media relations. My friend said that PR people are best positioned to dominate in social media because they know how to communicate with their audience. 

He's right. That SHOULD be true. And it is for a number of folks. But, it seems like there are still so many firms that are behind the curve. It leaves me scratching my head!

@RTRViews Thanks for the quote and other ideas, sir!

I won't flatter myself to believe I can predict where the industry will be.  I do, however, know that rigid structural constraints and the constant drone of profit demand from publicly-traded parent companies stifles creativity and true innovation.  I wrote about this recently - http://whydidnttheyaskme.blogspot.com/2012/07/for-immediate-release-pr-agency-pr.html

Danny, a lot of industries related to communications are challenged right now, and in truth, whether you are in PR, news, or even social media, when predicting five or ten years down the road, the only honest answer is "I don't know."

You may have some ideas, but you don't REALLY know where we're all going, and that's the excitement of the world in which we work.

The people quoted are much smarter than me and are immensely successful. Their quotes may be accurate, but there are two things I did not see in the quotes:

1. Something different than what has been said the last few years.

2. Something I didn't expect.

"I don't know," or "I have some notion, but I'm not sure," are probably the real answers, but most people are afraid to admit that. Most of us simply can't predict what the next innovation in our broader communications industry might be. I think that's why there are a certain number of "social media experts" who proclaim every new platform as the next big thing - eventually they'll be right.

The PR industry will look much like it does today. There will be a lot of firms that are living and working five, ten or 15 years behind the times. There will also be firms or individuals who are being adaptive and innovative in how they meet the needs of their clients. If I knew what the latter looked like, I'd make bazillions as a consultant.