PR and Marketing: is the wedding imminent?
January 10, 2008 by Gary Schlee
The advent of social media tools has ratcheted up the discussion about the ‘inevitable’ marriage of public relations and marketing.
In his excellent social media primer — The New Rules of Marketing & PR — author David Meerman Scott includes the new rule that “on the Web, the lines between marketing and PR have blurred.” That rule is largely driven by the fact that the book tends to restrict PR activity to one audience: buyers. He maintains that the old rule that positioned PR and marketing as separate disciplines with separate practitioners, goals, strategies and measurement techniques is no longer true.
Lending support is Kirk Hallahan, professor of journalism and technical communication at Colorado State University, who recently received the Pathfinders Award for research from the Institute for Public Relations. In accepting the award, Hallahan noted , “The disciplines truly are converging. We’re seeing that at the university level and it’s an indicator of what’s going on in the market overall.”
My dean would readily concur. We are always exploring ways in which our Advertising programs can work more closely with Corporate Communications and Public Relations (sidenote: marketing is in a different school at our college and cross-pollination rarely occurs).
Even before social media, the links between the two disciplines have usually been strong. Integrated marketing communications often ensures that there is a PR dimension in many ad agencies. Many campaigns launched by PR firms are more about marketing than PR.
Both Scott and Hallahan boast careers that have embraced not only PR, but marketing, and that certainly helps to explain some of their observations. But, although I’m happy to see that Web 2.0 has meant PR and Marketing are dating even more, I’m less excited each time I hear they’re sleeping together.
Ultimately, marketing is about selling, PR about relationships. Marketing is about buyers, PR about all audiences. Nothing should discourage either group from engaging in pieces of the other’s domain, but the joint ventures are often not wedded bliss.
A Marketing and Communications Department (note the order) usually means PR has been parked in a marketing milieu. Selling the product or service is the priority. Communication with employees, the community, the media and others is often an afterthought. The strength of PR activity in such departments usually has more to do with the forcefulness of the practitioner’s personality than with any particular appreciation of the discipline.
Social media represents new tactics each of us can use to accomplish our mandates more effectively. If that means experimenting with more collaboration, I’m all for it. If it means bumping the relationship up to a new level; sorry, I have a headache.
I had a similar concern when I read that Hallahan interview in the Daily ‘Dog. But I find a lot of so-called “PR” agency staff claiming that public relations *should* report to marketing and that PR is ultimately a marketing function. (I say so-called, because I think a lot of those agencies really focus on marcomm, not PR.) Perhaps that’s the perception one gets when servicing multiple clients. I think (hope) that orientation/attitude isn’t replicated in most client-side positions. (If anything, public relations challenge is to fight to keep the title of PR, as “strategic communications” appears to be gaining headway as the position du jour.)
In my organization, the marketing department works on projects and with people that public relations doesn’t. Likewise, public relations develops (d’oh) relationships with groups that our marketing folks don’t go anywhere near. Then there are the common publics that we both interact with, TOGETHER, including targeted groups and media.
I’m happy to say that in my case it’s a very cordial/respectful relationship, of recognizing turf, authority (budget) and unique skill sets. The marketing manager happens to be one of my favourite water cooler/lunch companions. (Today he proposed fajitas for next Tuesday….) So, unlike Bill Sledzik, I don’t feel the need to refer to marketing as an “evil twin.”
I have ongoing debates with many of my (real) PR blogger buddies about what function/role social media is best suited to fulfil. Generally I think it is marketing…but then Eli Singer demonstrates a couple of case studies for the inaugural CPRS webinar, and I can see how social media really can have a public relations slant in developing authentic, niche relationships. So, I leave the door open to possibilities.
Quick correction — it’s Hallahan, not Halloran. I know ’cause I went to grad school with him.
Karen,
Thanks for pointing out the error in Kirk’s last name. It was only a few days ago I was telling our new group of postgrad students how absolutely important it is to get people’s names right. Now I’ll have to remind myself. Your heads-up means I’ve also changed the spelling of his name in Judy’s comment, since she was clearly relying on my supposed accuracy when posting.
Judy,
In many ways I believe that PR is best suited to use social media effectively (we build relationships, social media build communities…), but, like you, I remain very open to possibilities. In fact, over the next few years, both PR and marketing will likely find compelling ways to use social media tactics to help them accomplish their different objectives.
I believe the differences between PR and marketing are largely artificial. That is to say, PR is a specific aspect of marketing that deals with certain kinds of audiences and certain kinds of buyers.
Perhaps marketing departments offer less pretensions about their fiduciary relationship to the overall goals of the company. I think it obfuscates the issue to say that marketing is about selling and buyers while PR is about relationships and audiences. What kind of relationships are we building? Why are we trying to reach these audiences? We’re selling to media or the community or those audiences which evaluate the reputation of our organization before buying our product, engaging in our service or voting for our legislation. Yes, PR can be specialized in practice and it is certainly specialized in skill. But to proscribe the marketing function of PR and try to separate communications as being loftier in intention than marketing is an argument that will ultimately fail in the jostle for corporate dollars.
Instead, the increased integration of all aspects of the marketing mix should lead the public relations industry to study from other marketing streams. Can we measure results like marketing? Can we build a strong brand like advertising?
The maturation of public relations should not automatically assume that the practice will become more independent — it probably won’t. Our best bet is to continue to advocate the strengths of PR campaigns as cost-effective and credible ways to further the marketing and corporate/government/non-profit goals of those we represent.
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Mr. Schlee, I love the topic - and the writing style is one I enjoy reading time and time again. I disagree, however, with the main point I pulled from your blog - that when PR and Marketing tie the knot, you won’t be sending a gift.
I am just a student at Towson University. I have no credentials and what I am about to post is purely based on opinion (a fact that surely should deter me from posting).
From a student’s standpoint, PR and Marketing (and dare I say Advertising) are ready to combine into one field of Integrated Communication. Surely a practitioner who hopes to connect with an audience (internal employees or external consumers) must understand the product or service he or she will be communicating about and how to sell it.
While I agree that “a Marketing and Communications Department (note the order) usually means PR has been parked in a marketing milieu,” I disagree that is HAS to be that way. I believe that anyone stepping into this field at this point in time should be ready to communicate with internal and external publics while best representing the product or service about which they are communicating.
As I near graduation, I can see the colliding of the fields as vividly as if I were watching Titanic. Looking for jobs highlights a whole new world of understanding (and lack thereof) of just what it is we do. The words “Marketing” and “PR” are mismatched, splotched and plopped down wherever potential employers think we want to see it.
In the end, I guess I should be grateful that employers don’t make that big mistake and confuse PR and Marketing with the dreaded S word… sales.
Oh wait, they do.
Thanks, Adam and Angela, for some great thoughts. Perhaps PR and marketing are inevitably destined to fuse.
I’d like to think that marketing will keep its focus on the customer while PR will put its energy into all the other relationships that will maintain an organization’s viability (and, yes, ultimately support the organization’s goal to sell products, services or awareness). Maybe you’re right, Angela. We should probably spend less time worrying about the definitions and nuances of public relations, corporate communications, marketing and sales, and worry more about using clear, credible communication to make our organization’s case.
Semantics 101: meanings of words reside within the people using them, not the dictionary.
As someone who recently conceptualized and designed an undergraduate program in Marketing Public Relations, I am truly happy to see that this impending “marriage” between the two fields is being discussed. It is apparent that there are those who are anxiously waiting the arrival of the “wedding” date and that is great news.
You see, I was hoping that it would not have to be an arranged marriage, but that at some point the two traditionally competing fields would one day recognize the beauty in each other and decide that they would be better of together than alone. That day has come!! It is here!! Now, we have got to condition those of us who are practitioners/professionals of either field to join the quest to merge and to quit our constant attempts to keep distinguishing the fields. That is where authentic integration must begin.
My vision with the marketing public relations program is to generate a cadre of new professionals that has not been affected by the constant quest to distinguish and separate the fields. My hope for them is that when they approach a problem/need they are able to, without distinction, have an inherent understanding of what is needed to solve/treat the situation. In other words the functions of both fields are so intrinsically integrated in their minds that they are able to offer their client a more superior product than their public relations- or marketing-trained counterparts could.
Am I living in a fantasy world? Some may think so….But the first graduates of this program don’t!!
I think the “wedding” date has come and gone, and marketing and public relations are currently carving out a wonderful life for themselves with very impressive offsprings!