• by Vanessa Horwell , July 1, 2009

A pinch and a punch for the first of the month and then an introduction. Some of you will recall reading a short piece from me last month called "Journalism Rocks," making a case for why journalistic content should not always be free. Today, I'm back again and will be every other week, with a column that examines all things PR. Yep, public relations -- also known as image management, spin, publicity, and hype.

Or so that is what many people deem PR to be. Something superficial, a tactic developed as an afterthought, "@#$! , we need to create some buzz around this new product we're about to launch in 2 days" or a marketing-line item that should be dispensed with at the first sign of cash-flow trouble. For many, it's perceived as a form of marketing that's not on equal footing with others. Let's not even start on respect, strategic thinking or the value proposition. Am I wrong in my estimation?

Perhaps, perhaps not, but I am in PR and that's the feeling I get from out there. I also feel that many marketers see PR people as old-school, or just not with the times -- you know, stuck in a fax-a-million-press-releases-a-day-type thing. Yes, there is a disparity throughout the industry (isn't there in any, though?), and it would be great to have some real best practices. It would also be great if more of the recently graduated or even experienced PR hacks had a better grasp of media's needs, or could write/communicate their way out of a paper bag and got over the Corporate PR 101 shtick.

So, there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that public relations, or rather, certain public relations "pros" have caused irreparable damage to the industry, clinging to some old cottage-industry ways and their beloved press releases like the chicken dance. Not to mention pissing off a lot of journalists and endangering our sea of trust with them along the way. What? I'm not allowed to talk badly about my own people? Well, it bothers me because we are not all the same.

And so I'd like to start off this very first conversation by talking about us. You and me.

PR (read: effective PR) has moved on from the dinosaur days of the fax machine. That may surprise you. PR and marketing departments, teams and agencies should be working together in beautiful harmony to achieve our clients' common goals, not as separate entities who are pitted against each other and work against each other. Isn't that obscenely stupid -- not knowing what the right arm is doing from the left? What affects mobile marketing companies, ad agencies or social media experts is also affecting PR firms. We're sort of all in this together.

As a PR person, I want to get to know you better. I want to know what you're doing and what campaigns you're working on, and how I (and my peers) can be more relevant to your work and our mutual clients' goals. What I do, and what thousands of great agencies out there do is to create meaningful visibility for our clients. Visibility that prompts people to think, react, act or just remember. Isn't that what you do as well? I just do it in a different way, but that doesn't mean we can't be friends.

This year, everything we thought we knew about "breaking through the clutter" changed. Being a twitterer has become a profession, consumers have changed, media consumption has changed, our country has changed and business models are changing as I type and you read. And, especially in PR.

Isn't it time then for us to get together, to talk, to exchange ideas and discuss issues affecting us? Hey, we could even bitch at each other openly once in a while, in order to push ourselves to create better and more valued work. And to deliver a great product to our clients and change the way people feel by what we do.

So I'm going to leave you with that contemplation ... I would love to hear your views on how you feel about PR, on whether PR impacts or impinges upon what you do, and whether you see the value (and how much) in what we do.