The New Barbarians in Public Relations Vs. The Old Guard

It will take time but eventually everyone will know what some consumers of public-relations already know.  And that is that communicating a message and getting action is a whole new ball game.  The new barbarians in public-relations vendors are playing that new game.  The old guard isn't and seems to have no intention of doing that for a long time.

For example, email no longer works.  Either the email winds up in the spam box, isn't opened or if it is opened is greeted with initial annoyance.  So, who is out of touch enough to believe that emailing is a great way to send a message or generate action?  The old guard.  It's fine-tuning the email message and its lists.  That's beyond denial.

For example, an opinion-editorial in THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, which used to bounce around the corridors of power in Manhattan and Washington D.C., has a short shelf life.  Yes, it can make a brief impact.  Yes, it's better than nothing.  Yes, it can be routed to influentials.  But so much more effective is to have your client's opinion formated as a blog post and send it bouncing around the Internet.  Intense attention to that item will last about 36 hours.  Then will come the 2nd wave of interest, built on the platform of that initial momentum.  With that Internet strategy, the client's story has legs.

For example, a formal press conference, unless the news/issue is hot, will attract 3rd tier media.  Clients don't have the time to bother with 3rd tier media.  The new game is to drill down with the client to news/issue that will attract top tier media and provide it to one media outfit as an exclusive.  The rest will pick it up.  The bloggers will post on it.  The new barbarians will keep that story alive and kicking.

Among the new barbarians, says Jonah Bloom in his September 24th AD AGE article, is Edelman, known more and more now as Edelman.com.  Way back when, the head honcho at Edelman started blogging.  Now about 15 of the players at the agency are blogging.  Because of this Edelman as an agency is exciting enough to attract fresh communications talent.

Question: Is the old guard so financially comfortable and so well-networked with deep old-guard pockets that it can just ignore the new realities?  How can such smart people with such outstanding former track records just sit there and observe the game being moved to a whole different playing field?

Comments

[Phil Gomes]

I can tell you from experience that there are a lot of people out there who strongly resist change. For example, I've worked with people who were not only anti-social-media, but viciously so.

A long time ago, I was once yelled at for forwarding a blog post to a client. For some reason, just the acknowledgement that individual voices matter a *lot* really gets in some people's craw.

I tend to think "deep old-guard pockets" has very little to do with it -- there are folks with such pockets that most certainly grok the current comms landscape. Rather, I think the ability to embrace and incorporate change has to do with a company's (and its communications team's) passion for learning.