Head to Head: Is the PR industry suffering from an identity crisis?
In this series, Mumbrella invites the industry’s senior PR professionals to share their opposing views on the industry’s biggest issues. This week, Angie Bradbury, managing director at Dig&Fish goes head to head with Liz McLaughlin, director of Horizon Communication Group on whether the PR industry is suffering from an identity crisis.
The PR industry offers clients a vast range of capabilities which has often caused confusion when trying to determine what PR is.
Dig&Fish’s Angie Bradbury argues that the PR industry is in the middle of an identity crisis because every agency offers something different. She also argues the word of PR has moved from a noun to a verb which diminishes the PR’s broad remit.
Meanwhile McLaughlin says the PR industry has always understood its remit and it has never been a one-size fits all industry.
Yes, argues Angie Bradbury, managing director, Dig&Fish:
Good piece, thank you.
I would like to see the phrases holistic and channel agnostic banned. That would help.
Isn’t the very question of whether PR has an identity crisis answered by having two industry professionals hold opposing views?
The real answer is that of course PR is facing an identity crisis, like so many other professions and industries. The evolution in the last twenty years of the traditional media landscape into a disparate, digital mess begs that for those entities to stay viable they have to think commercially. Hello advertorials, hello advertising sales execs influencing editorial direction, hello ‘influencers’ *shudders inwardly*, hello social media; goodbye independent journalism, goodbye mastheads, goodbye media diversity.
And then you have the party PRs, who think the definition of brand building is holding a party in some bar, inviting a few D List celebs and posting the photos on social media.
“Empty suits “ a friend of mine in PR used to say, “mostly just suits wandering around with nothing inside them.”
And a more serious quote “ It’s not what you get in the paper , it’s what you keep out”
This debate about a universal definition for PR is being had globally right now. Check out the Dublin Definition https://www.prplace.com/resources/research/the-dublin-definition-22-may-2018/ and this Podcast with Andy Green who is leading this debate https://smokesignalpodcast.com/2018/07/12/a-public-relations-podcast-smoke-signal-episode-5-creating-a-tribe-of-change-makers/