Our regularly scheduled interview series will return next week.
Some PR folks don’t believe public relations is marketing. And some marketing folks don’t see PR as marketing. But CMOs and marketing departments see PR as a function.
In some ways, anyone can find truth in this analysis. PR includes such applications as public information, community relations, and public affairs for non profit, NGOs and politicians. But in most 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 it.
From the CMO’s perspective, PR fits within a larger suite of strategic players. This graphic typifies the typical marketing approach to launch a company, product or service. Research, branding (or messaging) session, agreed upon strategy, and then a selection of marketing functions (and their tactics and tools). We currently include social media as Internet marketing or PR depending on the specific tactics.
PR provides earned media as opposed to advertising, which is paid-for media. In that sense PR is critical for third party credibility and creating Word of Mouth momentum. In addition to enhanced reputation and excitement, PR can provide market clarity, advocate for an industry issue, create goodwill, support message consistency, etc., all of which ultimately foster more sales.
Regardless of how corporate PR pros see themselves, they are deployed to achieve these sales and marketing objectives. To know this truth, the PR team or agency needs to look at its reporting structure. Whether or not PR folks see this as demaning is irrelevant. In this case, perception is reality. So to not see themselves as part of the marketing team brings to mind the old adage, "Denial is not a river in Egypt."
Additional Thoughts
A little Twitter chat ensued on this topic last Saturday. Here’s what some of my friends had to say about it:
Copywrite, Inc.’s Rich Becker said, "If it’s not integrated, it doesn’t matter anyway. :)"
Tom Biro added, "Yeah those are the ones that don’t realize that "pr" and "advertising are two of the major things under ‘marketing.’"
Mediaphyter Jennifer Leggio quipped, "I have the same complaint about PR/marketing people who forget that we aren’t rocket scientists."
Wayne Sutton added, "Now that is true and funny, pr vs marketing… the same."
Provident Partners’ Albert Maruggi thought, "Labels are the first form of prejudice. I pray that over time, like a few years, social media blurs the lines of labels."
And social media release developer Shannon Whitley said, "Also funny to see how many PR/Marketing people hate HR & IT folks. We’re all just line items on the expense sheet. :)"
The notion that PR is NOT marketing is truly absurd for me, particularly having worked most of my career within corporations. As a Director of PR I not only had goals related to communications objectives, but had to relate those back to direct impact on the leads headed over to sales. If your PR function is not a critical part of your marketing mix you are doing it wrong.
/kff
I enjoyed this post. Having worked in both an agency and corporate environment I have been educated in how PR falls under the management of marketing. However, I believe that PR is more closely aligned with strategic communication counsel. Mass Comm is certainly a different background than Marketing. Depending on what you are trying to accomplish different skill sets are required. In a straight corporate environment where you are pushing a product or service, marketing should take the lead; however, if you are working on a higher level strategic communication campaign (political campaign, issue advocacy, perception management) then the PR “function” is going to take the lead. In these campaigns PR does not fall under the traditional marketing label. Not all communication skill sets are equal. PR Pros have a perfectly valid reason for claiming that the function does not always fall under marketing in all cases.
In regard to social media, I love you guys, but it’s only another channel to be leveraged to its maximum utility in the overall communication effort. While I see unique applications of the technology, I cannot justify defining social media as a game-changing tool set.
Sender – Channel – Message – Receiver
Same as it ever was.
From the Beach Chair,
Matt Gentile – 300 Days of Sunshine
FloridaMoves.com
It is not surprising that strategic markerters would see PR as a function as you describe. This is because, in this case, the objectives that are being achieved are sales/marketing oriented. Taking a wider organisational perspective, there are many other objectives that need to be achieved. In such cases, PR skills (which extend beyond the implication of gaining “free” media coverage)should be deployed beyond the marketing arena. Not everything that an organisation may seek to address is a marketing issue, requiring a marketing solution.
To only see PR as a tool for marketing support misses this wider perspective. So if your PR function is only part of your marketing mix, you are doing it wrong, as many examples of crisis management prove.
Arrrrgghhhhhhh. Never said I don’t see PR as marketing Geoff, I said I don’t want to include blogs that focus on PR functions in a list of blogs that focus on marketing. I don’t want to include advertising blogs for the same reason.
BTW this means there’s still an opportunity for someone to start their own list ranking what they feel are the top PR blogs. So far no one wants to do that it seems.
Matt and Heather: 1) In the preface to this article it’s acknowledged that the PR profession has other functions than marketing. 2) I hear this argument frequently that PR is more than marketing. In specific situations that’s correct, but in a vast majority of corporate environments, it’s not. Rare is the company that gets into a crisis or situation that requires PR action beyond marketing needs. This is particularly true with smaller and medium enterprises. Instead it’s an excuse for PR people to try to separate themselves from the yolk of marketing, which as Kyle says, is useless. In addition, I’ll add to his comments and say that this attitude is divisive and a bit arrogant.
Matt: Please explain to me how social media was not a game changing tool set for Dell. Who was the receiver in that situation? I’d like to see some case studies of your social media philosophy — Sender – Channel – Message – Receiver — at work and how it’s been effective.
Mack: I know. I was just needling you. Sorry, bro.
Depending on how one defines “marketing,” yes, most definitely PR is a subset of marketing. Just like advertising, direct mail and the others Geoff included in the diagram.
Some, I’d say, see marketing as just selling. Look at Dictionary.com’s “marketing” definition: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=marketing
It runs the gamut from just selling or buying to the entire process:
1. the act of buying or selling in a market.
2. the total of activities involved in the transfer of goods from the producer or seller to the consumer or buyer, including advertising, shipping, storing, and selling.
However, I would think (hope) that most people see marketing as an organization’s efforts to sell something. (Though important, we can exclude roles like customer service for this discussion.)
Another interesting question would be, where does social media marketing fit? Is it a subset (of public relations) or its own genre?
–Mike
No – it is arrogant to be ignorant of PR being more than a promotional tool within the marketing mix. If you hear the argument frequently, then maybe you should be prepared to listen to those with wider experience than you appear to have. On what basis do you assert that PR is not more than marketing in “the vast majority of corporate environments”? Or, that it is “rare” for companies to experience “a crisis or situation that requires PR action beyond marketing needs”. Where is your research or evidence to support such unsubstantiated assertions? Or is your own opinion sufficient?
I am not sure what your problem is with understanding organisations – even those who are focused primarily on selling goods and services – are about more than “marketing” and so utilise public relations for purposes other than supporting sales activities.
Indeed, smaller and medium sized enterprises benefit most from recognising that publics are distinct from markets.
PR people need no excuses to separate themselves from the yolk of marketing – both are valid functions in organisation that need to understand the advantages of working together where appropriate, but also that there are distinctions where subsuming PR to marketing does not deliver the most effective results (strategic or tactical) to any organisation.
Recognising the strengths of different specialist functions is not diversive or arrogant – that’s the preserve of those who aren’t prepared to acknowledge there might be other perspectives than their own.
Really, what would those functions be, Heather? And how are they not ultimately about protecting the brand and the ability for the organization to generate sales?
My 15 years of experience executing PR for marketing organizations always shows that for a corporation the motive is directly or indirectly sales-oriented. Even brand reputation protection has a sales motive. In crisis PR situations, PR is engaged to protect the brand…. And future sales. FOR EXAMPLE: When the cyanide crisis hit, Johnson & Johnson engaged PR to protect its Tylenol brand, and ultimately enhance it.
Now it’s your turn. Show me where PR isn’t engaged for sales. And since there’s now a claim of superior PR intelligence on the table, back by showing your corporate examples to substantiate your argument instead of personality attacks. I guarantee that I can tie it back to a sales motive. PR is a subset of marketing in corporations. Prove that it isn’t.
Lastly, Heather. It’s my blog, and not a journalist report. Opinion on my turf is allowed. You can always write your own blog post, too, with your own opinion of “organisational” PR.
I’ve had my say on this topic in at least two posts and in more lectures and discussions than I can count. So I’ll toss out a couple of links and try to be brief with the rest of my comments.
http://toughsledding.wordpress.com/2007/12/05/why-i-dont-trust-marketing/
and
http://toughsledding.wordpress.com/2007/12/13/why-i-dont-trust-marketing-part-ii/
Professor Yaxley has already made the case I would have presented had I gotten here earlier. I see in her comments only a sound argument based on thorough knowledge of PR theory and practice; I don’t see a personal attack, but then I’m pretty tough guy to insult.
Geoff, based on what I’m reading in your post and the comments of a few others, it seems that a whole lotta marketing folks don’t really know much about PR and where the function fits. And I’m wondering why that is.
I used to blame PR for marketing’s lack of knowledge, thinking we just hadn’t educated them. On the other hand, we in PR do understand marketing. At Kent State, PR students take at least 3 marketing classes, sometimes 5 or 6. Our faculty know, from years in the trenches, that PR will often be working with marketing to further the sales mission. But that’s only part of what we do. (For what it’s worth, our marketing students here are required to take no PR classes.)
If you want cases, I can link you to 4-5 casebooks filled with examples of how PR serves organizations outside the marketing/sales context. Do marketing folks honestly see the functions of employee communication, community relations, issues management, financial relations, crisis management and public affairs as sales/promo functions?
If so, the problem is worse than I thought. I think it’s time for the marketing folks to hit the books.
Nice job lighting the fire. The blogosphere had been pretty dull of late. Discussions, even heated ones, have real value.
I knew I could count on you, Bill, to see it differently. Thanks for the hat tip. Please show us the examples.
To answer your Q, unfortunately, most of these activities lead to sales and brand reputation. Community relations is to build goodwill, and ultimately…foster sales. That’s the end result. Crisis management, protect the brand, and future sales. Public affairs is for organizations, or gov. relations, which is to protect the industry for… future sales. Issues management, standards, environment, etc. Protect future sales. The C-suite always sees these activities for sales.
The one caveat. Employee communications is a different function, part of HR and talent management, not the natural terrain of most PR practitioners.
Ideaology is one thing, but ideaology doesn’t apply in business. Pragmatic use does. So, I’d say sorry, it’s not the marketing profession that needs the education here. It’s PR folks who need to wake up and smell the coffee about what their actions are funded for, and intended to accomplish. The fact that most PR folks can’t see that tells me they are mired in tactics rather than true business strategy from a CxO perspective.
I can’t show you the examples in a blog comment, as I am referring copyrighted books we can’t link to. However, Amazon can help the marketing folks learn what PR people really do. Let me suggest four casebooks, one by Guth & Marsh, one by Jerry Hendrix, one by Center and Jackson and one by Patricia Swan. These are not pop-marketing texts, but vetted works that contain dozens and dozens of well-researched cases. Be prepared to shell out a bit more than $12.95.
To suggest that executives in the C-suites look to PR only for its impact on sales is — well — it’s simply incorrect. I won’t speak for the CMOs you reference in this post, but I know of many CEOs who understand and value what public relations does beyond sales support. I, along with all of my colleagues here at Kent State, have been at the table for those discussions, as we’ve all been senior-level counselors.
Branding? Now that’s something that goes beyond sales. In PR we’ve been focused on “branding” for about 100 years. But we call it reputation. Marketers didn’t invent the concept, they just renamed it.
Yeah, Bill, to me it’s semantics. Whether you call it brand or reputation, it’s the heart of strategy.
I am glad you know CEOs who see PR for its “true value.” I don’t doubt your sincerity or your experience. But I don’t know any who see PR for anything other than a direct marketing or reputation/branding management vehicle. Not one. That’s my experience in the marketplace, and I deal with a lot of them. But I do see a lot of PR people claiming to be more than marketing support who collect paychecks from companies deploying them for marketing communications campaigns. I also see a lot of PR professors reading this blog and trying to defend a corporate ideal of PR that doesn’t exist in my world.
And I am still waiting for someone to show up with a case study with corporate PR where the campaign’s end motive was not aligned with brand reputation or future sales. Just to show me an exception to a norm. And please don’t say charity. In reputation management/brand management, it’s called a halo effect. To enhance your brand with your stakeholders. So they feel better buying from you.
Geoff,
If you look closely at my comment, I listed 4 books that are loaded with the case studies you seek. Don’t ask me to summarize them in a blog comment. That isn’t what teachers do. I’ll simply tell you what I tell my students: If you don’t do the homework, don’t expect to pass the test.
Bill: I am not your student, nor do I want to be. Get over it.
All I have seen from you is ideaology that doesn’t have any grounding in real world situations. When professional education revolves around intangible theory instead of pragmatic real world need, it does a disservice to students.
Your links show posts trying to reinforce a “siloization of PR and marketing,” which from a corporate strategy point does not exist. No CEO, CMO or VP of marketing worth their salt sees these functions as unrelated or different from each other. In my opinion, you have yet to deliver a case study here on this blog that’s relevant to your point. Prove that PR is more than marketing in a corporate situation or stop commenting.
One more thing, not one VP of marketing, CMO or CEO has shown up here to say, “No, Geoff, you are wrong. PR is not part of marketing.” Only PR pros and professors trying to defend their tactical self-image from being shattered by the reality of corporate PR.
Bill Sledzik has attempted to comment again, but since he can only attack me as someone who is not a real PR pro and not add further to the conversation with an actual example, his comment was deleted. Bill’s continued commenting in this fashion both in this current and prior posts has caused him to be banned from further contributions on the Buzz Bin.
Reminding us of the difference between computer-mediated “conversation” and actual conversation. It’s unfortunate to see it devolve into flames when it’s an interesting topic.
I think some of the disagreement may be over the focus on sales–future or current–as the ultimate goal. The same could be said for manufacturing or lots of other functions that clearly are not marketing. Companies exist to make money, so *everything* they do can ultimately be traced back to sales. It’s just a shorter path for some functions than others.
I *used* to have the same beliefs as the professors above, but working in real-world corporations has rid me of those thoughts. As much as I fought not to be included in marketing, advertising, or whatever the Directorate happened to be named, it didn’t matter. At the end of the day I am expected to produce results impacting the bottom line.
The text book discussion above is typical of the back-and-forth I see between adjunct professors who actively practice pr and full-time professors. Ask any of my students and they will tell you I despise text books. Regurgitation is not the way I teach. Yes, without a doubt, theory and history are necessary, but balance with reality is required…or I have failed my job as a teacher.
Geoff,
It’s obvious the “Yolk of Marketing” has been a heavy burden on you over the years as you practiced PR for your corporate clients, but the world is full of different business needs and models, not all of them corporate.
For instance, when the U.S. liberated Kuwait, it wasn’t a marketing resource that handed out American flags to be picked up on camera so it could be shown back here on the nightly news…nor was it a matter of luck or (bad luck) it turns out when President Bush was standing on the deck of the aircraft carrier with “Mission Accomplished” at his back. These and countless other initiatives managed by PR Professionals serve as real world examples where marketing has nothing to do with PR.
In a corporate, business environment, I am 100% with you, as I said in my original post that PR falls under marketing. That is just a fact of life in business, no need to be upset about it my PR brethren. We may not like to admit it, but Marketing rules the roost when it comes to the corporate environment where the sole goal is to market and sell a product or service.
And, as I said in my original post, when you elevate the objective to something more than selling widgets, then PR Pros are called in.
In regard to Dell, yes, there are cases where Social Media have had an impact on bottom line results, but I still don’t know how you extract it from anything more than a channel function in the communication workflow. That’s not elitist, academia talking, its just real-world communication planning and management function.
From the beach chair,
Matt Gentile
Nathan: The comment policy is clear:
http://www.livingstonbuzz.com/blog/about/
Use the search term Sledzik on this blog and I think you’ll see a repeated history here. The unpublished comment was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Lauren: Thanks for that insight. Very helpful for this particular conversation.
Matt: Fair enough. And yes, as I have said in the post and in the comments section several times, I agree that PR outside of corporations is not marketing.
I will say that I like the yolk. After a few years serving agencies in other capacities outside of PR and especially now that I am a CEO, I see PR in a completely different way. These experiences are perhaps the missing ingredients for PR folks.
You know Geoff, there is a great saying in the sales fraternity that “most marketers couldn’t sell hookers on a troop train”.
Heather: OK, I can’t help but laugh at that one. Thank you for bringing some levity to the situation.
After reading Bill’s commentary on getting banned, I decided to comment there to state my views. Here’s a copy of that comment:
Here’s my comment: Get off the cross, we need the wood.
I never said anything about Kent State, given that my wife, and her parents are both alum. But you have yet to back your point with market studies that are easily accessible online, instead referring to text books that are outdated with 20th century communications theory.
You attacked me and my education personally, while failing to add to the conversation. Add to the conversation with substantive examples and drop the personal attacks, Bill, or stay banned.
P.S. Twitter’s public microblogging, much like this blog is public.
Of course CMOs and marketing departments see PR as a sales- or marketing-oriented function. That doesn’t make it a universal truth that PR is marketing function.
Geoff, you say, “My 15 years of experience executing PR for marketing organizations always shows that for a corporation the motive is directly or indirectly sales-oriented.”
I think we can all rest our case against your argument in light of your own admission that your experience is confined to “executing PR for marketing organizations.” That’s not a bad thing. It’s not subservient to public relations as a discipline. But if one were to look outside of “marketing organizations,” one would see these other functions of PR and distance between those PR functions and directly increasing sales.
Again, you say, “I also see a lot of PR professors reading this blog and trying to defend a corporate ideal of PR that doesn’t exist in my world.”
Your world, by your own admission, is a marketing-centric one. No VP of marketing or CMO ever will show up here to disagree with you. You’re speaking from their perspective. No CEO has showed up to disagree with you, as far as I can tell, but none has agreed with you, either.
You’ve repeated your calls for case studies that illustrate the points argued by Bill and Heather. I’m eager to read those case books Bill mentions. Don’t dismiss them because they’re older than a case study hashed out in a blog post.
Still, I’d like to share a post from Jeremiah Owyang on the role of the community manager.
http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2007/11/25/the-four-tenets-of-the-community-manager/
It’s not a case study, but he discusses how he’s been researching real-world examples of corporations looking for people to perform job functions that include being a community advocate, being a brand evangelist, having savvy communication skillsand gathering community input for future products and services. You might disagree, but I call that PR.
You are right, Mike. I would disagree with you. Strongly.
1) These positions — brand evangelist, community advocate, or whatever you call it — are marketing goals meant to reinforce reputation, which is used to build goodwill between customers and increase sales. Also, Jeremiah is a self described Internet marketing blogger.
I am sorry, but you need to get beyond tactics and look at strategy. The failure for you and the professors is to look at the question why is the company doing this? Tactical altruism? Or to build better relationships for more sales?
2) Also, my experiences are not “confined” to marketing. I have plenty of experiences outside of corporations. Goodwill, Very Special Arts, Cultural Development Corporation, the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival, and the Southeast Fairfax County Economic Development authority just to name a few.
My comment was in reference to my PR experiences in companies, which go well beyond tactical media relations. But every time a company engaged in analyst relations, community development, charitable donations, etc. it was to build a better brand with a core audience for more sales.
Geoff, I agree with you entirely that the fundamental question for anyone working in PR or marketing is what is the objective of the organisation and how can we contribute towards achieving that.
However, such goals are not always ’sales’ in my understanding of that term as meaning customer purchases of goods and services. A focus purely on sales may be at the expense of profits, share price, even long-term sustainability or survival of the organisation.
Not everything that an organisation will do (as a strategy or tactically) will therefore be focused on increasing sales (directly or indirectly). Analyst relations may be about keeping up a share price, building trust or maintaining stock market confidence, since there is not always a direct correlation between the response of the financial markets and sales income. We’ve seen that with banks where concerns over their investments have outweighed income from sales. Indeed, one could say that marketing strategies focusing on selling mortgages to sub-prime customers prevented any corporate reputational risk-analysis (something strategic PR practitioners undertake).
It is essential that anyone in PR or marketing has a greater understanding of business than simply how they can contribute towards sales.
They also need to know that organisations can only achieve their objectives with the support of other publics. From that perspective, community, political and other societal relations can be seen as supporting an objective of maintaining a licence to operate in society.
Indeed, there are organisations (such as the Co-op Bank in the UK) which are value-driven, and decisions are made less for sales-oriented purposes (albeit whilst remaining in business).
Of course, one can argue that this is simply enlightened self-interest and that if people like your altruistic business strategy, you will sell more, but not everyone has such cynical motives.
Yes, organisations (especially commercially-oriented ones) will engage in exchange-relationships which are primarily about generated sales, but they will also need communal-relationships for their long-term existence.
That long-term existence might be about generating income through sales, or have other motives – such as providing employment, profits, investment for R&D and so forth. Organisations need PR, marketing and a host of other functions, plus the support of external publics (including, but not exclusively customers) to achieve these goals.
Sigh, most people including many marketers appear to equate marketing with sales. If you look at the definition of marketing it is not all about sales, though eventually the goal might be sales. Rather marketing’s strategy is to build a better product that people want, rather than sell a product you already have.
John: Definition of marketing:
1. the act of buying or selling in a market.
2. the total of activities involved in the transfer of goods from the producer or seller to the consumer or buyer, including advertising, shipping, storing, and selling.
Sure seems like activities to direct/create sales or the actual act of selling to me. That’s what companies are in business to do, provide services or products for fees. That’s it, a very simple thing.
I use the 1976 definition of marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing in the UK.
‘…the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.’
Yes, marketing is about sales, that’s the end result, but how do you get to that sale? You understand what customers want or need, and make a product based on those wants and needs. Marketing is not just about selling a product, its about making a product people actually want, and then selling it to them.
Many people in industry equate marketing with just sales or advertising. What about market research? Isn’t that part of marketing? Marketing is sales and advertising but it’s more than that.
John: My chart included in the original post above includes research so you can see that I do agree with this. But at the same time my personal belief is that ultimately all marketing is geared towards creating sales, including understanding customer needs and product marketing. For me it comes down to the organization’s motive in funding these activities. I do appreciate your different opinion, and look forward to meeting you at SNCR in Sonoma.
Yes I agree sales is is the goal, but how do you get there, that’s the real question for business when developing the right business strategy. I don’t see that we disagree if you agree that understanding customer needs and product marketing are part of marketing.