A Class Act

In a business devoted to establishing relationships, it has always seemed rather unusual that PR folks so readily embrace military terminology to describe their craft. One wonders what our various audiences (oops, sorry, make that target audiences) must think of it all. Our messages attempt to be inviting, conversational and empathetic. Our management of them reduces it all to a campaign.

It’s a process built around strategy and tactics, the very stuff of enemy engagement. Come to think of it, we do love to talk about employee engagement these days. We also love to talk about a course of action or containment or a news embargo or a media briefing. Some of us refer to the pieces we produce as collateral. Some see their jobs as keeping their organizations under the radar. This hardly seems designed to encourage dialogue with our clients, employees, media or community.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that a common job title in the biz is public relations officer, or the derogatory flack (presumably from flak).

On another front, our terminology has also taken a direct hit thanks to marketing. Everything is about branding. Even our employees are a brand, or perhaps seen as consumers or clients. Just how long and how often employees enjoy being marketed to by their own organizations remains to be seen.

We’ve usurped marketing’s key messages.

And the key message here? PR is war, my friends.