I often coach teams by bucketing PR into two categories: “Marketing PR” and “media-savvy PR.” Believe me. There is a huge difference, and you want to execute the latter. For those who err toward the former, beware.
Many years ago, I went to lunch with a top-tier trade reporter. He complained that he couldn’t stand two of our main competitors because all they did was disguise PR and alleged news as marketing. The press releases and press conferences were a huge waste of time, he said. The executives overmarketed to him, providing no stories, just verbal data sheets. They overran PR and turned them into yes men, ordering them to send releases on new product features and marketing moves that had no newsworthiness or merit. Many were vaporware or visionware. It was data sheet PR, not media-savvy PR. It hurt their brand image and future coverage opportunities, he said.
I said nothing. Anything I said would sound competitively biased on my part. So I just listened, stunned at his candor.
Shortly after, I caught up with a top-tier channel reporter at an industry event, and he expressed the same frustration about both competitors’ press releases and overall PR behavior. He was frustrated. In retrospect, he probably had just left briefings with them before I ran into him. You could tell the top-tier press were talking amongst each other. It was pack journalism in action.
The companies’ reputations were sullied. Their tone deafness at the PR and executive levels meant that they didn’t even know the damage they were causing for themselves. An exec or PR manager could leave the next day, join a new company, and those bellwether reporters would still think twice about engaging.
Although their corporate brands took a hit, the impact paled compared to their individual brands as practitioners. They committed reputational suicide with the top media in their space. They were essentially blackballed without realizing it. And all along they and their companies paid millions in PR expenses for agencies, headcount, vendors, and programs. Try to justify the ROI for both companies in their ops reviews or board meetings.
Who were these competitors? Startups? Founder-led companies with evangelical, aggressive tendencies? No. Both are household brand-name companies every human on the planet has heard. Some of their products are in your house. They are Fortune 50s and Dow Jones Components.
That’s the effect of “Marketing PR”. When Marketing disguises as PR, without any sense of media savvy, bad PR happens.
Contrary to such overzealousness and tone deafness, media-savvy PR focuses maniacally on the intended audience – the press. The media institution is based on the principle of objectivity, manifested through storytelling. Good PR managers understand newshole, logic flow, and storyboarding. They know when and how to engage top-tier contacts based on their writing schedules, beats, and deadlines.
Most of all, they operate effectively in two requisite areas – media relationships and pitch prowess. By excelling at both, they lead the field in influencing key media and deliver productive results to their businesses. They bridge the gap between marketing the business and developing newsworthy stories for media. And the press release – when used as a media-centric vehicle – becomes the backbone of that brokerage.
As a marketer, I am aware of the pressure to push, push, push, even if it means breaking rules in PR. But as a former journalist and PR professional, there’s a better way. Use press releases, don’t abuse them. Execute “media-savvy PR,” not “marketing PR.”
I can assure you that media-savvy PR achieves marketing and business objectives. It delivers client satisfaction to your executives and marketing teams. Using press releases as a fundamental part of media-savvy PR strengthens one of the most important relationships a business can have with its marketplace – solidifying trusted ties with its press corps and you.
