Is PR the New Creative?
Boches's article struck a particular cord with me because of
some of the things he said, but more because of what he didn't say.
First, he states that "we can no longer buy attention…we need to
get out of the business of telling stories and into the business of
getting others to tell them for us."
So in other words, advertisers should do what PR has been doing
all along? Because last time I checked, my department's job is to
get the media, and nowadays citizen journalists, consumers, and a
host of other third parties - to tell our stories.
He goes on to tout the importance of building experiences -
"ideas worth advertising." What? Create news? Been there, done
that. Every event, every contest, every commemorative day or month,
every "publicity stunt" is about the experience. The only
difference is now - if the experience is good enough - it's also OK
for people to know that it's really advertising. He even wants to
re-write the venerable creative brief to answer questions like "how
will we get this brand talked about?" and "how will we get people
to participate?" instead of "what do we have to say." Funny,
because even though we in PR must first understand our clients' key
messages, when it comes to building a campaign most of our
brainstorms begin not with the question "What can we say?" but with
the question "What can we do?" Sounds strikingly similar to me.
Do these revelations make PR pros any more valuable or
creative minds any less? I believe it actually elevates both. The
experience idea (and its newsworthiness) may come from a more
PR-oriented perspective, but you better believe it's creative that
brings it to life. Impeccable design, catchy headlines and modern
execution will be the difference between an idea worth advertising
and one worth ignoring. Boches expresses concern that the
integrated agency may need re-structuring to keep up with the
times, and that could very well be true. But what he's telling me
is that the integrated agency - one with great minds from many
areas of expertise - is the only kind likely to have the right
resources to succeed. Now, more than ever, creative needs PR, PR
needs digital, digital needs social media, social media needs brand
strategy, and so on…We often compete against specialist agencies,
particularly in public relations. But agencies that don't have all
these perspectives under one roof are more likely to miss
something. I am convinced that we deliver a better product together
than apart.