So Saturday 27 July was PR
National Awareness Day but (yes, you’d be right to sense some irony here) who
knew? At least the 127 people who liked its dedicated Facebook page did.
The other person who knew about
our industry’s dedicated day was Benjamin Webb, Managing Director of his own PR
agency, who had a (fairly) interesting bylined article in the BBC’s online magazine.
Now that’s quite a coup, and I’ll happily put my hand up and admit I’m quite
jealous, if that was me I’d consider that a high-point in my career (just me? I
don’t think so).
Anyway, my point is that PR
National Awareness Day is surely about enhancing the industry’s reputation.
Great. Then why must ‘people’ always mention Ab Fab Edina or Malcolm Tucker?
Yes I know it’s funny and yes I know most PR professionals will have
encountered every type of PR person along the sliding scale between our two
most infamous ‘ambassadors’, but surely by their very name-check PR’s
reputation continues to be self-perpetuating?
But does it really matter? It’s
an interesting debate.
As PR professionals, we can’t all
be thrown into the same boat. There are different types of PR and we use many
different tactics to engage with a range of media types to enhance the
reputation of our clients. That’s what we do.
In his BBC article (yep still
jealous), Mr Webb used his piece about the challenges of managing the
industry’s reputation to suggest that the writing is on the wall for the
traditional consumer-focused public relations model, saying: “The deluge of
badly-written press releases, silly events and photo stunts, "news
stories" without news value, and meaningless "campaigns" have
come to irk journalists and bore an increasingly cynical general public.”
I disagree. Using traditional
tactics is not what earns us a bad reputation, it’s using the wrong tactics for
the wrong media and reaching the wrong audience that earns PR a bad reputation.
Therefore, I believe enhancing
the industry’s reputation can only come from the credible work we do, using the
right tools for the job of growing client reputations. Surely it boils down to
good old-fashioned hard work and know-how?
Rachel Meagher
Account Director
