Tools and approaches may changes – but PR is still the same as it was in 1990!

I remember it vividly.  My first day in PR was 23 July 1990. I’d joined a leading Belfast firm and chosen PR as my new career.  After a couple of years as  editor of my local weekly paper in South Down I fancied a change.

A respected media figure had convinced me over the space of Senior League hockey match on which we were both reporting that ‘a young lad like you should be in PR’.

As I celebrate 20 years to the day in the PR business – with a five year sabbatical in the early Noughties – it’s fascinating to see how the profession, its people and its tools have evolved, but the fundamentals have remained.

In 1990 much of what we did was much, much simpler. PR was synonymous with publicity and that about summed it up.  Success or otherwise was based on the clippings’ book you could generate at month end and it was the ‘in thing’ to have a PR agency.

Those early days learning the ropes were days when PR very much played second fiddle to advertising. All the effort (and most of the budget)  went into finding the ‘big idea’ for the ad and PR was something from which you got  extra ‘free’ coverage. That made PR difficult to monetise and often relegated it to ‘a nice thing to do’ status.

I suppose one of the most significant changes in the communications’ world over the past two decades has been the elevation of PR as a major brand-building and brand protection  tool – to the point where it is given serious attention within boardrooms across the world.  Yes, PR has grown up.

The ways in which campaigns are developed, delivered and accounted for have all moved on too.  Detailed stakeholder mapping, research, useage of online and offline communications’ channels, scientific evaluation techniques have all served to increase the credibility and attractiveness of PR as a key marketing discipline.  And rightly so.

The speed with which reputations can be tarnished thanks to the plethora of modern day communication channels from twitter to blogs and 24 hr news means PR professionals have got to be on their toes 24/7.  Furthermore, it is all the more important that organisations work hard on building reservoirs of goodwill so if and when things go wrong they will have something on which to fall back.

While the way in which we ‘do it’ has changed there are, however, (at least) three abiding principles that I suspect will still be here in another 20 years when (hopefully) I’m retired!

1. PR is still about markets, messages and media – just like it was on my first day in summer 1990. There are just more markets and media nowadays!

2. Good communication is still vital for organisations seeking to grow their businesses.

3. Organisations who don’t take communication seriously will suffer or never reach their full potential.

I’ve been interested to observe how one of the world’s leading brands, Apple, have handled their recent Iphone 4 antennae crisis.  20 years ago a similar scenario would, no doubt, have been handled by issuing customer letters over a number of weeks and maybe taking an ad or two in the daily papers to explain the problem and proposed solution. They might even have used the odd fax (remember those?). Today they do an online press conference, supported by powerpoint, put up links on their website and then produce an app which you download to order your new ‘free’ protective case.  Within seconds the info is flashed all over the world.  Both good solutions for their time and, in my view, reflective of good customer service and communication strategies.

What intrigues me is how they would handle it 20 years from now?  Wow! Time to dream a little …

Here’s to the next 20!

DMcC