Richard,

Did you write this or is it Satire? Are you sincerely advocating MORE self-promotion, MORE disintermediation, and LESS collaboration by pr professionals?

Or, perhaps, is this a Rally-the-Edelman-Troops moment since you weren't invited to the Wal*Mart party at Worldwide Plaza?

The best marketers are the people that learn how to apply strategic approaches to unique problems. The CEO and Board do not care whether their CMO or her advisors come from a "discipline", let alone a "lead discipline".

Leadership also requires discernment, knowing when to follow and when to support other subject matter experts.

I, for one, am thankful to have been taught strategic thinking across multiple disciplines at Ogilvy and not hood-winked at Edelman into complaining that the other guys are stealing MY BACON.

Richard,

This is a fantastic post that really encapsualtes the feeling of the PR blogging community. Or at least my personal feeling.

We're all desperate for PR to take the lead and not let another opportunity slip through our fingers.

All the storm fronts are in place - the "web 2.0 revolution"; dissatisfaction with advertising and an increased number of PR grads - for PR to start taking the lead in the marketing process.

Ed

PR people, with rare exception, are not in the C-Suite because we have a history of wearing our insecurity on our sleeves and using strategies such as "accreditation" to achieve self worth. We have done a horrific job managing our own reputation. How can we expect a CEO to believe that we should take the lead in managing theirs?

Clients want strong, self-assured leadership. Do you think they care whether it comes from the ad guy or the PR guy if its smart and will help the business? The landscape is changing rapidly, and if anything, we are better positioned to step up here. Richard's message is right on target, but until we adjust our role as messenger, we're screwed.

Richard,
Here are a few suggestions to add to your list:

1. Get smarter. At its best, PR offers deep insight into the culture at large and how to influence it. As companies struggle to understand the full impact of emerging media on how people think about and relate to their products, no industry is better positioned than PR to put all the pieces together. It’s also true (albeit a truth of the inconvenient sort) that most agencies and internal PR shops don’t have the right talent to fully leverage this advantage. Traditionally, we’ve hired people with communications or journalism backgrounds. They’re smart all right, and aggressive, and hip to the zeitgeist. They’re not the problem. The problem is all the talent we don’t have. Where are the economists, the cultural anthropologists, the psychologists? Not here. Not now. It’s tough to come up with powerful ideas, integrative ideas, ideas that really are going to move the culture, without powerful and different kinds of thinkers.

2. Get connected. PR pros do a lot of talking, but we’re way behind other disciplines when it comes to talking – and listening – to consumers. One step we’ve taken in my business to address this shortcoming is to merge Interactive Marketing and PR. Not only does this give us the firepower to expand our online offerings, it gives us the ability to target and reach out to consumers directly. It’s even changed the way we think about designing PR. Next week, for example, we’ll hold a real-time interactive session with over 100 consumers in preparation for a new product launch. It won’t be a market research session. We already know what consumers think about the product. The point of this session is to have consumers help us create the PR program for the launch.

3. Get on with it. If PR is dying, we’ve already written its epitaph. It goes something like this: “we’ll do a survey and a press release; partner with a non-profit; and hire (fill in your favorite grade B celebrity here) to do an SMT. Oh, and we’ll build a web site.” For all the talk about the future of PR, the fact is that most agencies come in most of the time with the same old pitch. And there’s a reason for that. Just like AOL’s subscriber model, traditional PR remains a cash cow, even as we count down the days to its inevitable demise. It’s past time to get moving on what’s next.

Edward,

I do not write satire. I think that the presumption has been that ad agencies act as coordinators of multiple communications disciplines. I intend to challenge that notion. There are times when PR should lead.

Press agentry is by no means the only skill on the bench.

Because advertising is a PR tool, it should be on the bench too.

Because PR is involved with values, it has custody of the brand conversation but the CMO can bring on the water.

No one else can play on this field. It is the C Suite.

But they can shout from the terraces.

With all of the mergers of PR and ad agencies -- finding any independance is like trying to find the burnt chip in a Lays bag. Few and far between.

After reading the PR Week article, I understand where Richard is coming from --don't necessarily agree -- but I know where he is coming from.

Communications is becoming more and more muddy. Just think of the way we are receiving information today -- and you can only barely see the difference between PR and advertising.

How many of our PR agencies have used a service like NAPS to distribute our mat releases? Isn't that advertising -- guaranteed placement? What are blogs -- certainly not traditional PR by any means -- and probably closer to advertising with a lower price point.

The nexus of PR and advertising is here because the media has already changed. We must be aware and use any means necessary to provide the coverage we can get for our clients.

McTague makes a valid point, one that makes any self-respecting - or self-deprecating, as it may be - PR professional cringe. Paid media such as NAPS or any other horrific service is suffocating our bread and butter, yet we're being forced to play in that field. It's truly scary. And that?s why Richard point is so? poignant. We?ve got to get creative and blur the lines between advertising and PR, while trying to maintain some amount of integrity. Personally, I see one-on-one viral marketing taking over. Yes, it?s true that the cost-per-hit ratio will go up exponentially, but if your messages are ultra-targeted, then your ROI will (read: should) also increase at the same or similar rate.

Richard,

Just a point of clarification. When you wrote "(the Dove Real Beauty initiative - by the way, Edelman did the PR, not Ogilvy)" this is not true in Asia. Ogilvy PR won the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty work at the regional level and also won local execution in many markets. I personally worked with Research International in crafting 1,700 pages of new research in Asia, and with a colleague in Hong Kong wrote the new 50-page white paper in Asia as well as created the complete tool kits used by all agencies in Asia--whether Ogilvy PR or not. I do not believe Edelman handled any of the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty work in Asia. This was not a mere copy of the US work pioneered by Ogilvy & Mather and Edelman in the US, but instead a very tribal look contrasting attitudes by country (including traditional rivals), by demographic and by psychographic. Then public debates were created in local markets with sources we tracked down.

I do agree that in 360 Degree Brand Stewardship PR can or should take the lead in many cases. In the Ogilvy approach to the Campaign for Real Beauty in Asia, we assembled a team that came to Bangkok that included the client, PR, advertising, activation, online and direct marketing all around the same table with no one party dominating.

Best regards,
Chris Graves
President & CEO, Asia Pacific
Ogilvy PR