12
2007
PR’s Ridiculous Identity Crisis
An interesting comments chat with Rich Becker on the definitions of PR led to this post. Despite all of the PR experts out there, no one can come up with a set definition for what it is. And that extends to our supposed industry leading bodies and resources as authoritative as Webster’s dictionary (Image from Eucastrophe).
Consider these definitions from various sources:
PRSA says a lot, which seems to be too much. Here’s an excerpt: “Public relations helps our complex, pluralistic society to reach decisions and function more effectively by contributing to mutual understanding among groups and institutions. It serves to bring private and public policies into harmony.”
How about a second PRSA definition, “Public relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other.”
IABC’s content is password protected, so no obvious “guidance” there. No obvious definition on the Institute for Public Relations.
“Public Relations is the art and science of analyzing trends, predicting their consequences, counseling organization leaders and implementing planned programs of action which will serve both the organization’s and the public interest.†— First World Assembly of Public Relations Associations and First World Forum of Public Relations, 1978
“Relations with the general public as through publicity; specifically those functions of a corporation, organization, etc. concerned with attempting create favorable public opinion for itself.” — Websters, 1996 Collegiate edition
“The actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc.” — Dictionary.com
How about Answers.com? “The art or science of establishing and promoting a favorable relationship with the public.”
No wonder why there are so many crazy conversations about what PR is and isn’t. We’re a bunch of “communicators” that can’t get our message straight. What a joke! There can be no definitive right or wrong with this many disparate views.
Personally, I see public relations as a wide variety of actions (see the PR Long Tail) to foster goodwill between an organization and its stakeholders. I really like what Bill Sledzik had to say about PR, and believe that the true public relations pro must represent both parties, the community and the organization trying to communicate.
Bill’s comments:
“PR professionals must live with one foot inside the organization and one foot outside it. We must advocate for our clients but also for the stakeholders they impact. We walk a fine line between organizational goals and goals of society — kind of like an ombudsman or arbiter.”
What is your definition of PR?
Tags: Bill Sledznik, PR, Rich Becker
Lauren Vargas Says:
December 12th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
I like the Cutlip definition:
“Public relations is the management function that establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and the publics on whom its success or failure depends.”
Richard Becker Says:
December 12th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
Hey Geoff,
Sure, blame me. Ha! As usual, our discussions take us to some interesting places, which is always a pleasure.
I wonder if public relations is alone. Marketing sometimes goes off in tangents, with the emphasis on promotion, while sacrificing of the other 3Ps (4 if you count people).
More to the point, you include a nice cross section of definitions, and already know which one I lean toward. As for IABC, I’m not sure they would be charged with a definition as their more in line with communication management of which, public relations may be seen as a subset of (blasphemy, I know).
Perhaps this applies to the old saying that the more we know, the less we know. Nice post Geoff.
Best,
Rich
Mike Keliher Says:
December 12th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
“We’re a bunch of ‘communicators’ that can’t get our message straight. What a joke!”
Must each definition be word-for-word identical to qualify as “getting our message straight”? You own definition, as stated above, is less wordy but means nearly the same thing as many of the others you also mentioned above.
So are we really mostly on the same page, or are you just adding to the joke? Or am I missing something?
Lewis Green Says:
December 12th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Geoff,
It seems to me that the definitions aren’t definitions at all, as they lean toward decribing what PR does not what it it.
Life was easier when we called it media relations, which has the definition inherent within the name. Matter of fact, as I think about it, the definition is also inherehnt within the name Public Relations, which says to me that PR is “relationship building between a business and the public.” Definitions, after all, are meant to be simple.
Geoff Livingston Says:
December 12th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Lauren: Great, another definition ;)
Rich: We have great discourse, and I enjoy!!
Mike: The weisenheimer in me wants to say, “I don’t know.” But I think there are subtle differences. For example, dictionary.com says promote goodwill, and I say foster goodwill. Promote can indicate sales.
Lewis: Good points. There is no simplicity in PR. Perhaps that’s the real problem.
Tom O'Brien Says:
December 12th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Geoff:
I don’t think the definitions will collapse into one any time soon.
PR is beginning to feel like the boy pretending to lead the circus parade into town. (Social media & online conversations being the parade itself.)
Get into the conversation!
TO’B
Jason Falls Says:
December 12th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Geoff — I took a stab at it here (http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/2007/12/07/redefining-public-relations/) which basically says it’s the pure definition: relating to and with the public. My argument/definition is that PR is communicating to the outside, allowing them to communicate back and then monitoring what they say to each other. The crux is that customer service should be a function of PR but I believe social media to be an online extension of PR because it’s just communicating and monitoring lines of communication with and among your audiences.
Longtime reader. I think this is the first time I’ve commented. Spoke to Ike today and realized I just need to be more involved here. Thanks for all your great posts.
Bill Sledzik Says:
December 13th, 2007 at 12:45 am
Geoff,
I’m the “Bill” whose words you quote at the end of your post. I wrote that last week, an eternity in the blogosphere. It’s been a hot post that’s piled up over 30 comments so far.
Next time you quote me, plug in my last name, will ya? That way the Google Alerts will flag it. A link would get my attention as well, but I’m so contrary I don’t get many of those! It ain’t easy being a loner in the blogosphere!
We’re only going to disagree on one point, and that’s your headline. There is nothing “ridiculous” about PR’s identity crisis. We’ve been fighting it for decades, almost as long as we’ve been piling up definitions — more than 500 unique ones at last count. The best place to find those definitions, btw, is in the textbooks. Dictionary writers know as much about PR as, well, as marketers, which is where I got into this debate.
When I teach PR Principles, I focus on five definitions. It’d be rude to list them here, but I’ll send the handout to anyone who’s interested. They can email me through the link on my blog.
Most definitions of PR cover four basic tenets — tenets that were outlined by Cutlip and Center back in the 50s, then refined by Grunig and Hunt in the 80s. Here are the four elements I preach to my students:
One: PR is a management function. If we aren’t at the table, we aren’t effective. I don’t think anyone will argue.
Two: PR is advocacy. We represent organizations and we help them communicate and (gasp) influence opinion. This one rankles some who preach the symmetrical model (and I’m one), but advocacy is part of our history and a big part of what we do. It’s also the one part of PR that marketers tend to understand.
Three: PR is 2-way communication. The promoters and press agents of old “pushed” messages and hoped to persuade their audiences in one-way fashion. Modern practitioners rely far more on their ears and their empathy to communicate. We connect to stakeholders, but we also make sure they connect to us. Another part of 2-way is our willingness to adapt the organization to the needs of stakeholders, which is the foundation of 2-way symmetrical practice.
Four: PR promotes responsible performance. This is the ethics component of public relations, or what the Web 2.0 folks refer to as “transparency.” It’s been part of generally accepted PR definitions for more than half a century. Whether it’s part of PR practice — well that’s definitely up for debate.
In my 25 years with PRSA, I’ve heard debates over how we should promote and position the PR function, but I’ve not heard a lot of disagreement over definitions, at least not in the last 20 years.
The quote you feature from my post of Dec. 5 is part of an essay calling out the difference between PR and Marketing. There is no “identity crisis” there, since the functions have different, though complementary roles.
To the others in this conversation:
Lauren: I agree with you. The Cutlip definition really nails it, but it’s pretty abstract for the uninitiated. Try using it to tell your mom what you do and you’ll get a big, “Huh?”
Mike: We’re all more or less on the same page. But it’s not about the “message.” The message is just part of shaping the relationship.
Lewis: Life may have been easier when it was just “media relations,” but I never saw a press agent with a seat at the table. I spent my life trying to escape the “publicist” label, no small task when you work in a journalism school.
Rich: This is all your fault, my friend. So you have to finish it! (Nice job, and a great post at Copywrite Ink. You are a gentleman and a true wordsmith.)
Geoff Livingston Says:
December 13th, 2007 at 8:02 am
Tom: Agreed.
Jason: An interesting take that I’ll have to explore further. I think that customer service (per post on Monday) is a marketing function because it involves transactions, but bad customer service equals ugly PR. Social media serves as a convergent point of several disciplines. But that is just my $.02. No one can be right because as Bill Sledznik commented, there are 500 definitions. Therefore, theory and opinion rule the day rather than concrete definition.
Bill: Thanks for that lengthy definition, and “splaining” it, as they say. Duly added to the growing list of 500 definitions of which we now have less than two percent (thanks for that footnote).
I still think it’s ridiculous that an industry can’t agree on what it does, and this lack of clarity accounts for many of the problems the profession suffers. Ridicule means the act of making someone or something the object of scornful laughter by mocking or joking, etc. Ridiculous means deserving ridicule.
The PR industry is ridiculed by many for its many points of hypocrisy and unclear practices. I think we can agree on that. Consider your and many others “sordid love affair” with the blog that shall remain unnamed.
Having 500 definitions of PR only makes the business worthy of ridicule because there’s no possible way for practitioners to get clear guidance on what they are supposed to do. Consider the less than two percent of definitions we’ve already bandied about here! And so we have our nightmare, and PR people (academic and professional alike) around the world decrying the state of the profession… which for all intents and purposes is undefined. That’s ridiculous.
500 definitions equals chaos and certainly great discourse, but not uniform action as an industry. Instead, everyone has a license to claim as a pro (which technically is true if they get paid to perform PR functions) and be right. Because, surely, one of the many definitions fits.
In the words of pop anti-philosopher Yogi Berra, ‘If you don’t know where you’re going, chances are you will end up somewhere else.”
Bill Sledzik Says:
December 13th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
…and when you come a fork in the road, take it! Gotta love Yogi, but I’ll always hate the Yankees.
If you immerse yourself in any of the big professional organizations, PRSA and IABC in particular, you won’t hear as much of this “debate,” nor will you hear ridicule of the profession. That’s a problem far more prevalent in the blogosphere, and I guess we’re all contributing to it with this thread. Both IABC and PRSA are well focused on the mission of PR and the definitions that embody it.
Though I’ve had my differences with PRSA this past year, I don’t disagree at any philosophical level. The definitions and descriptions put forth by PRSA and IABC tend to be abstract, a product of a lot of deep reflection by some pretty smart folks who sometimes get caught up in their own jargon. The Cutlip definition that Lauren cites is another example of it. To a professional it’s entirely clear, to my mother, it’s total gibberish. But the profession isn’t talking to my mom.
In the end, PR isn’t a complex business, but its reach is broad. Communication, after all, involves all aspects of the organization. As such, it means different things to different people. I just got off the phone with our local IABC president, and he tells me that 70% of the group’s members internationally have a major or primary focus on internal communication. You won’t find anywhere near that skew at PRSA, which tends to be dominated by factions from marketing and strategic communication (as if we promote communication that isn’t strategic).
No doubt we need an “integrated communication” function. I just don’t think marketing has a broad enough view to do the integrating.
Well, it’s been fun. Thanks for putting up with my second tome in 12 hours. My good friend Andy Curran may have said it best with his comment over at my place:
“I predict that there will be peace in the Middle East, a Cleveland team will win a world championship, and it will snow in Miami Beach in July before a resolution to this debate occurs!”
Link: http://toughsledding.wordpress.com/2007/12/05/why-i-dont-trust-marketing/#comment-14121
Andy has to be right, because he loves Yogi Berra and he hates the Yankees even more than I do.
Bill Sledzik Says:
December 13th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Sorry. I neglected to mention this excellent post by Heather Yaxley, her first at PR Conversations, back in August. She puts this subject in perspective using a simple analogy. Perhaps she even lays the debate to rest.
http://www.prconversations.com/?p=307
Why I don’t trust marketing: Part II « Says:
December 13th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
[...] Geoff Livingston goes a few rounds with Rich, then does his own post. He morphs the discussion into an “identity crisis” for PR, and he includes a quote from me to sum it up. I’m flattered, but I guess I’m on Geoff’s shit list, as he didn’t include my last name or a link to the original post. No offense taken, Geoff. I’ve been an outcast since high school. [...]
Richard Becker Says:
December 13th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
Thank you Bill. Finish the conversation in social media?
I’d rather define public relations. :)
Best,
Rich
Andy Says:
December 15th, 2007 at 5:38 pm
Been struggling with this myself. I have been actively blogging for three quarters on our corporate web site - one Friday afternoon, about 3 hours after I made a post, I got an inbound lead for our product offering. My efforts to foster goodwill produced an accidental lead…was I explicitly direct marketing? Nope. My organization is small enought to measure cause and effect.
As our organizations increasingly blur the lines of how consumers interact with their stakeholders, perhaps PR,Direct Marketing and Advertising will one day be called something entirely new?
Defining Public Relations « The Word Says:
December 20th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
[...] out the recent blog posting by Geoff Livingston, author of the recently published Now Is Gone, to read more about the inconclusive debate on [...]
A new definition for marketing « Online PR course blog Says:
January 21st, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Strategic Marketers See PR as a Function » The Buzz Bin Says:
February 28th, 2008 at 2:03 am
[...] cases, PR is an internal or hired function to execute a portion of a marketing campaign. And yes, PR is clearly undefined or over-defined, depending on how you see [...]
Public Relations… What’s the definition again? « Columbia Sportswear blog Says:
February 29th, 2008 at 2:00 am
[...] one can seem to clearly agree on a set definition. Take for example Geoff Livingston post about “PR’s ridiculous identity crisis.†He pulls PR definitions from PRSA, the Institute for Public Relations, First World Form for [...]
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