09/26

It seems there is a dead tree outside of the downtown merchant's store.  The merchant wanted the city to take it down, but as city bureaucrats will do, they didn't get around to it.  So the merchant, an avant-garde clothier, dipped into his inventory and hung 50 bras of various colors from the tree branches.  People noticed -- quickly.  The clothier made sure each questioner heard his story.  He wanted the tree removed, and he hoped the bras would prompt city officials to get going. 

Of course, when Royal Oak officials were called about a dead tree with 50 decorative bras, the city had to act.  It did, but as bureaucrats will do, not  too rapidly.  The director of recreation and public services guaranteed that the tree would be inspected in the coming weeks.  The city attorney, however, ordered the clothier to take down the bras quickly or the city would do it and send him a bill for the work.

So while the clothier gained some of the attention he wanted, he didn't quite get it in the way he wanted.  He still has a dead tree outside his shop, but he does have a promise to do something about the tree sooner than he might have gotten it. 

The clothier, however, did get recognition he never expected.  He got written up in an Associated Press story that is making its way around the globe.  Not bad for an impromptu bit of theater.

I suppose we could say he got his complaint off his bras.
 

09/25

Warner Brothers Network Chairman and CEO, Jamie Kellner, made the statement at a panel hosted by the Syracuse University Newhouse School in New York.  He said,  "Technology is about to become our enemy much in the way that the Internet has hurt the current economics of the music industry. Hopefully, we'll figure out ways to move our businesses around it."   He was referring to digital video recorders like TIVO, which are used to record programs and skip advertising along the way. 

He has the same apocalyptic vision that the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) has about the national  "do-not-call"  telemarketing list, which the DMA got an Oklahoma judge to quash yesterday. 

What both groups forget is that technology never stays the same.  It evolves, and industries that are successful evolve with it.  I am reminded of the fear that Hollywood had about television in the 1950s.  It got so bad that Jack Warner of Warner Brothers forbade the use of the word "television" anywhere in his company.  TV was going to ruin the movie business, and it was going to be a death-struggle that Hollywood could only win by barring the door against progress.   We know the outcome of that silliness.

It is going to be the same  for digital video recorders, for do-not-call lists and for music sharing.  The companies can't win the battle.  All they can hope to do is to slow it down long enough so they can defend and adjust.

I have  long been frustrated by the reluctance of PR practitioners to adapt to new technologies until well after the technologies have been put to use by others.  I have written more than once that PR sidelined itself in the Internet world because it failed to seize the initiative when it had the chance in the early to mid 1990s. 

Why did this happen?  Technology was the enemy.  It threatened to change the comfortable existence that PR practitioners had by doing what they had always done. 

They couldn't stop change, and change past them by.  That is why many practitioners are out of work today. 

09/24

I'm not surprised.  The bulk of the work at the agency appears to be marketing oriented -- promotion, events and publicity in support of products and services.  This type of work has always attracted an eager, young person into creativity, fads and passing celebrity. It is what I call "Barnum and Bailey" PR.

The other side of the business, as far as I can tell, is more scarce.  These are counselors who work on issues such as corporate governance, tort law reform and positioning of companies.  There is less need for them when one chases huge marketing budgets.

This is understandable and disturbing.  Large accounts move around more quickly than they did in the past.  One has less chance to build a story for a company,  product or service.  Marketers want noise and they want it fast.  So, one recruits squads of juniors to get out there and flack.  They don't have to be that skilled but they need to be present and accounted for.  Of course, the corollary is that one turns PR into a commodity.  If you don't need excellent communications skills, you can go to any agency and get the same level of service.

There are counselors left who are good communicators, but they seem to be shrinking into niches  -- out of the mainstream except in places like Washington, D.C. where issues work is most of the activity.  I hope I'm wrong, but my friends tell me  I'm not. 

If PR becomes irrelevant, we have only ourselves to blame.

09/23

His editors decided that blog entries need to be reviewed for accuracy, although they let his remark about the candidate stand.  Journalist blogwriters were dismayed and depressed.  It is not the spirit of blogging to interfere with the opinions of a journalist, biased though they may be.  A blogwriter has the right to say what he or she wishes.  (This was the tenor of the wailing.)

O yeah?  The journalist runs his blog on the Sacramento Bee Web site and is identified as an employee of the Bee.   His work product is not his, therefore, but property of the publisher who pays him.  The publisher has a right to intervene, and it is proper for editors to review his work.  If he doesn't want editors to comment, he should remove his blog from the Bee Web site and place it elsewhere.  He should pay for the blog himself and be careful not to identify himself as an employee of the newspaper.

Blogwriters moan that editing is going to destroy the spontaneity of the reporter's writing.  Well, maybe so, but slander is slander whether spontaneous or not.   No publisher looks for libel suits or the loss of subscribers because a reporter has gone beyond the pale.

Now why do I bring this up?  Because blog writing has entered corporate America and employees are making journal entries on company-owned Web sites.   The employees should know, if they don't already, that companies own the Web sites and therefore, have control over the content.

The fact that so many journalists have started blogs and not been edited is an historical accident. They will be edited in time as employees will be.  It takes only one or two lawsuits to make that change.

Go ahead and blog, but be prepared for someone to review your copy.  And, rather than moan about it, thank your editor (your blogitor)  for protecting you against yourself.
 

09/22

This is overdone publicity that PR practitioners cannot be accused of.  It belongs almost solely to TV broadcasters who need to go live to the scene of a hurricane and tell viewers in breathless detail what is happening.  The center of such hype is the correspondent standing there in weather togs with the wind whistling furiously, the sea rampaging and the rain driving sideways.  The correspondent feels obligated to give a "you are there" description while the camera seeks some form of destruction -- e.g., a roof peeling from a building. 

The broadcasters will say piously that they are doing their highest public service reporting at times like these, but that is horse manure.  Even austere anchors like Dan Rather get gleams in their eyes and rush to the scene of the big weather story -- as Rather did after Hurricane Andrew flattened Homestead, Florida.

I have no objection to reporting what is happening.  That is what a journalist is supposed to do.  I do object to the over-emphasis used to gain ratings.  The news is enough.  There is no need to make more of it than it is.

But thinking about that, where would CNN be without a war?  The network has hyped military action for years with banners of doom and gratuitous reporting.  It is too often tabloid TV.

I wonder why  journalists dislike PR people when reporters are better at hype than we are.