Dead is the new black

As I'm about to demonstrate, the best way to start cheap conversation is to declare something dead -- an industry, a technology, a hallowed way of doing business. The web is dead. The phone call is dead. The press release is dead. (Hell, the press release dies more often than a Spinal Tap drummer.) Why are people so eager to declare something not merely dead, but really most sincerely dead?

I know, I know. Repeating that line from The Wizard of Oz is dead, just like declaring things dead is dead, as some of the commenters on this article about Saatchi & Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts declaring marketing being dead have noted. Hell, this isn't even my first post lamenting it. And yet, people like Kevin Roberts keep doing it, and this latest incarnation, if you will, is so absurd that I can't help but pay it the ridicule it so richly deserves.

Is marketing dead? Well, is selling people things dead? What, Amazon doesn't employ marketing? Apple doesn't use it? I get it. Consumers are more savvy and sophisticated than they used to be. All that means is that marketing has to be more savvy and sophisticated as well. Read this article about Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard. Patagonia sounds like exactly the kind of company that Kevin Roberts extols. You think what they do isn't marketing? Then you need to read more carefully.

But it's not enough for Roberts to declare marketing dead. He's like a business school butcher. Management is dead. Strategy is dead:

“Strategy is dead. Who really knows that is going to happen anymore in this super VUCA world? The more time and money you spend devising strategies the more time you are giving you rivals to start eating your lunch.

“Management is dead. To win today you need a culture and an environment where the unreasonable power of creativity thrives. Ideas are today’s currency not strategy. Martin Luther King did not say ‘I have a vision statement’ did he? He had a dream. You have to make sure you have dreams and your brand also needs a dream.”

I'm not a CEO, but strategy strikes me as nothing more than identifying your goals, how to measure them, and tactics you will employ to achieve them. As for MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech, I've actually heard it described as a mission statement. The best mission statements, the ones that actually make an impact for organizations, set forth measurable objectives. And while what King called for in his speech was somewhat ephemeral, it was a blueprint for a very specific legislative agenda. In other words, you can be dreamy and strategic, all at the same time, despite what Mr. Roberts would have us believe.

But I digress. What is it with people prematurely declaring death like some unethical transplant surgeon? For one, it makes them sound more enlightened and with-it than the rest of us. Two, it relieves them from doing the hard work that goes along with the traditional ways of doing things. The challenge is not in deciding between the old tools and the new ones. It's that we have to use both, which isn't easy. And third, giving all these would-be coroners the benefit of the doubt, they want to bury practices that they see being misused, or done poorly, or in ways that bring discredit to an entire profession or industry. It's not press releases that are dead, it's bad press releases. It's not marketing that we want to kill. It's lousy marketing that insults our intelligence.

To that I say, hear hear. The king is dead. Long live the king.

I write press releases, therefore I am

Recently I was at a work-related function, and a woman from another organization asked me what I do.

"I'm the director of public relations."
"Oh, so you do press releases..."

As her voice trailed off, I tried hard to make sure my outward expression did not match my inward sigh of frustration. I quickly interjected, "And also our publications, and our web site, social media. And some speechwriting."

Her view of my job was limiting, but I didn't do much to help. I suspect that a lot of PR people -- particularly those of us who work in-house -- when asked what our job entails, tick off a list of the products we produce, without addressing what is supposed to be the underlying reason for our existence: to use the specific tools of our profession (those products I mentioned above, among others) to help our organizations achieve their strategic goals.

Perhaps that goes without saying. And maybe it's self-absorbed to assume that no other profession faces the same dilemma. When someone tells me they are an accountant, I don't ask any more questions, because I assume I understand what they do, but that may not always be the case. It may vary by organization and industry. Certainly, my role as director of public relations means different things at different places.

After all, how was I supposed to respond to that woman? Tick of the new, official, PRSA-sanctioned definition of public relations, or perhaps its superior Canadian cousin? I'd come off as vapid at worst, pretentious at best. So yes, ma'am, I do write press releases.

The problem is that many of us internalize this short-hand for what do, and we let it define us, both within our organizations and without. That's the reason for wrangling over how to correctly define what we do. Too many of us think our jobs are to create these products, this collateral, when in reality those are all means to an end. Yes, I know I've spent an awful lot of time going over this subject at this blog, but it's an awfully important subject.

And it's not just about how to describe ourselves on LinkedIn. It also speaks to how we measure our results. At the end of the year, do we tally the awards our magazines and newsletters won, do we count headlines and web hits? Or do we look at the organizational results, and say, "When we did X, the company got Y." Or at least, "The company got Z because of Y, and it got Y because we did X."

Otherwise, we are mere communicators. Not that there's anything wrong that. It's just that for me, it's not enough.

Still not dead

Boy am I tired of reading articles and blog posts by PR experts telling what tools I should discard because they are supposedly useless and antiquated.

The press release is of course the major target. I don't know if it is laziness or what, but some PR people just fish for an excuse not to have to write these. It's not my fault if you can't be bothered to write good ones, or can't stand up to internal politics and scrub them clean of jargon and useless quotes.

Yes, I still use them to get good media hits. And yes, I still create media lists, but I craft them thoughtfully so that my stuff goes to reporters who are relevant and won't see it as spam.

We are in an audience-driven business, now more than ever. You have to know what your audience wants and needs, how they consume media and acquire information. That should dictate what tools to use.

In case you are wondering what set me off, it is this:
5 things PR should eliminate immediately


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

That's not what I said

Burson-Marsteller anaylzed how companies' messages are conveyed in the media, including bloggers, and found a 48 percent gap, meaning nearly half of the message reported by the media does not reflect what the company intends.

A couple of thoughts, off the top of my head. One, the findings are rather intuitive. In fact, a lot of us in PR are happy when half of our message gets picked up in media reports. When a story comes out that reflects 100 percent of what my university is trying to get across, it makes me feel like I can go home for the year. This is exactly why savvy PR people have embraced social media: because it allows us to communicate directly with our audiences.

After all, media coverage is a means for a PR practicioner, not an end. It provides two functions: conveys strategic messages to your taraget audience, and provides third-party validation for your organization's endeavors. As for the latter, there isn't a great substitute for the prestige that can come from a good media placement. But as a communications conduit, the news media is rather inefficient. You have to rely on the reporter to get the story right. You have to rely on an editor or producer to place it where an audience will see it. Does it get buried on the inside pages of the local section, or during the last few minutes of a news broadcast? And you have to hope that the intended audience actually reads, watches or listens to the report.

Social media allows you to push out your message to the people you most want to listen, and get their feedback -- sometimes instantly. And when you do have a good media placement, you can get it front of people, instead of hoping that they happened to have seen it.

Another interesting tidbit from the Burson-Marsteller study: News releases continue to be reproduced verbatim. So much for the death of the press release. This should surprise no one who has spent time promoting scientific research. Many, many science news web sites and blogs -- many of them reputable -- print what they pick up from PR news services directly. I heartily concur with Burson-Marsteller that the lesson for PR people is to writer press releases for your target audience, not for reporters.

Things to do in public relations when you're dead

First the web was dead, then the phone call, and now the press release -- which, like cowards and Kenny from "South Park," has died a thousand deaths.

I think I've already covered the whole web-is-dead thing here. As far as phone calls go, technology is certainly making it easier to avoid them, and it gives us more options for communicating at our own convenience. But as Clive Thompson notes in declaring phone calls dead, those that we continue to make are becoming more meaningful. I urge the people who work for me to make phone calls and not simply wait for an email response when they are working on an important project -- especially one that is time sensitive. It's actually easier to talk to someone on complicated matters than to trade emails or texts. And there's never mistaking someone's tone when you are talking to them on the phone. No need, in other words, for emoticons.

As for the press release, well, that's also ground I've covered previously. The bigger question is, what's the obsession with declaring technology and communication channels dead? Two reasons, in my opinion. One, pronouncing a technology obsolete that many people still use extensively is an easy way to appear to be on the cutting edge. And if it turns out there's life in those old bones yet, well, you weren't wrong -- you were just ahead of your time.

I also think there's a certain amount of laziness at work. If something is outmoded, then you have an excuse not to invest time and resources in it. It's the same reason people dismiss new technologies as fads: It spares them the effort to learn how to use them. As often as not, it's wishful thinking.

Alive and well

The Bad Pitch Blog is tired of PR navel-gazing over whether the press release -- traditionally the basic tool of media relations -- is dead. Indeed, this has been a popular topic for years now in online PR discussion groups and at conferences. The Bad Pitch Blog nails it:

At the end of the day, if it's newsworthy, it doesn't matter what format it's in. Serve it up on toast...there are more than enough creative options. But the more the public relations industry talks about the press release, the more we have an answer as to why PR doesn't have a seat at the table.


The public relations industry needs to spend as much time on critical thinking, where we provide more value, as it does on the nitty gritty of the tactics. Maybe this rant is telling me the industry needs to spend more time on critical thinking. Perhaps it's the challenge of a discipline that must scale between thoughtful strategy and detail-oriented execution. But that's more of an opportunity than anything else. (link)

People still use press releases because they still work, at least with the traditional media. (Which we still care about, by the way.) But they only work if they are well-done, properly targeted, and about something the reporter is likely to care about. In other words, a good press release shares the same characteristics as other good tactics in PR. As a former colleague once said, it ain't rocket surgery.