A couple of months ago I spent some time with an agency trying to figure out their go-to-market plan. Historically, they’d been a successful PR consultancy but through a series of acquisitions now had many more strings to their bow. The expectation was that they would grow existing their clients, and compete for new ones that they previously wouldn’t have been considered for.
Unfortunately, results hadn’t gone their way and they were considering what to do next. When I spent some time with their senior management I heard many things that they believed they excelled at, but two letters I didn’t hear at all were ‘P’ and ‘R’. When I asked why, the CEO told me that they felt they already had strong PR credentials, but wanted to build their reputation elsewhere.
It’s human nature to be attracted to the new and different. And in an industry such as ours which places such a premium on creativity, we’re perhaps more attracted to it than most.
When I was at WCRS in its heyday back in the 90s, Robin Wight constantly espoused six principles. One of them was “it’s all advertising”, that we should treat every touchpoint with the same care and attention we would give a 60s TV spot. I’ve no idea if Robin invented the principle or not, but it was certainly one that we lived by.
Fast forward twenty years and the competition for consumer attention is more intense than ever. It’s no longer enough to buy cut through as the big consumer goods brands did, instead we need to earn it. That’s hardly new news, nor is the fact that pretty much every piece of communication now has to work in this way, regardless of content or channel. And earning attention, let alone talkability, has always been the very essence of PR.
It’s no surprise that the fastest growth in many integrated agencies is coming from PR. My old agency O&M, despite a hiccup or two, is now run by the excellent Michael Frolich, formally head of Ogilvy PR.
One would have thought then that a communications agency that’s built on PR skills, now applied to new channels and opportunities, would excel at generating cut-through, attention and talkability. I just wish they’d be more willing to talk about it themselves.