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7/18/2008 3:34 PM
On October 19, 1987 the Dow-Jones Industrial Index tumbled 508 points to 1739, a drop of 22.6 percent, the steepest ever. Five days later, Bill Schrier, Merrill Lynch CEO, in a “talking head” television commercial explained to a World Series audience why “Merrill Lynch is bullish on America.”
Soon other CEOs chimed in, proclaiming their belief in the strength of the U.S. economy and the will of American business to regain its forward momentum. It was the start of the most sustained economic boom ever.
Admittedly, the recent (and on-going) spate of precipitous write-offs by our largest, most successful and most trusted financial service institutions has deeper roots and potentially more severe consequences than the stock market plunge two decades ago.
Bad investment decisions and a failure of financial specialists to understand the ultimate consequences of newly-created financial instruments are in themselves enough to shatter the confidence of investors and the public alike.
But add to a deteriorating economic environment the ravenous appetites of today’s media for bad news and “perfect storm” and “self-fulfilling prophesy” become apt metaphors for present-day economic alarm. The unfortunate fact is that modern media – the all news television networks and the internet, especially – thrive on negative news – Gresham’s law run wild!
The pity is that our country’s resources are as bountiful as ever, our people possessed of the same skills and sense of enterprise that made our economy the most productive on the face of the earth over a relatively short time frame. Our failings are not that we lack resources, human or material; they result from bad decisions based on unrealistic economic expectations and a lack of political will and leadership in our governance process.
Business, particularly the financial services sector, perhaps more justifiably than not, will forevermore be blamed for the present economic instability. To date, the “fix” – the bail out – has been government-inspired and financed, led in large part by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, the latter a former CEO of the only giant banking firm to emerge whole from the recent debacle.
It is understandable that CEOs in the financial sector have not sought the public spotlight. It is true that many corporations in other businesses have failed to meet what likely are unrealistic earnings objectives imposed upon them by independent financial analysts. Companies which should have been applauded for lesser earnings than in previous periods are severely punished when they missed earnings expectations imposed on them by outsiders.
But it is puzzling that so many CEOs of major corporations are silent on the longer term expectations of business. Especially at a time when business in wide swaths of the world is, at the worst, growing at a slower rate than in years past and at a time when earnings outside the United States exceed those at home.
In the light of the importance of global business to American corporations, it is especially puzzling that business leaders are so silent in their defense of global trade, one specific instance being the trade pact with Colombia, by all measures an undisguised win-win for the United States.
In public attitude polls, business has never been so lowly regarded. There are many reasons – substantial layoffs, home foreclosures and automobile repossessions, cancelled credit cards, perceived outrageous CEO compensation, rising gasoline and household staples, mainly food, prices, higher co-pay for medical services and prescription drugs. That the “average” American family is under severe economic pressure is hardly debatable.
Which means that business must be more sensitive than ever in fashioning its behavior and communicating in a manner that, first, addresses the problems, and, second, restores confidence in the American market system that has work so well for so many for so long.
# # # # 6/12/2008 6:33 AM
You can just imagine how many e-mails and telephone calls I’ve gotten in the wake of the recent unflattering and untruthful CBS “Sunday Morning” diatribe on the behavior and characteristics of public relations professionals – and coming from a lawyer, at that.
Usually, I see “Sunday Morning” – I’ve been a fan since Charles Kuralt was its first host. I’ve been no less a loyal viewer since Charles Osgood took over. But I happened to miss the Sunday installment that featured CBS’s legal news analyst though by now I know by heart the content of his ill-tempered statement.
Never unemployed and engaged in public relations all my working life, I calculated that, in the context of his commentary, I have been lying for more than 60 years -- maybe a qualification for the Guinness Record Book.
This inference neither troubles me personally nor do I believe it harms me professionally. But I am highly irritated about what it says about the thousands of corporate executives, government officials, NGO advocates, and, perhaps most significant of all, editors and reporters with whom I have worked and shared confidences for six decades – not to speak of the millions of people around the world who have been the recipients of information I have had a hand in crafting.
I submit they’re smarter than what the CBS commentary implies. I don’t believe those with whom I have worked to disseminate my clients’ messages are so gullible (or so dumbly obliging) to be parties to the communication of lies. On the contrary, I think editors and reporters have played an important role holding public relations professionals like me to acceptable standards of fact and decency. Nor do I believe the recipients of those messages are so easily manipulated.
The grey area – as with all manner of media – is not in reporting facts. Rather, it’s in how those facts are interpreted.
Increasingly, news media are in the business of interpretation and commentary, areas once confined to the editorial page. Many if not most newsmen forget that we in public relations are not surrogates of journalists or media. Rather, we are the paid advocates of clients who have a point of view that may be questioned by affected parties. Our interpretation in serving our clients may differ from how a reporter reacts to the same set of facts. But this is nothing new in the world of journalism; editorial writers frequently have differing points of view than those expressed in a publication’s news columns.
But three score years of working in this arena have convinced me that, after all is said and done, the public gets it right. Brand names like Coca-Cola, Frito-Lay, Rolls Royce, Tiffany, Lipton, McDonald’s, Nestle, Hormel, Kraft, Budweiser, Shell and a hundred others retain their high market shares year after year because they deliver on their promise. They participate in an election every day for the customer’s vote at a time when the success rate of newly introduced competitive products is in the very low single digits.
The fact is, an individual, an organization, a product gets only one chance to lie to the public. Even in a nation of 300 million, the public early on arrives at a collective opinion – and lying over even the short run simply doesn’t work in a democratic society.
The greater lesson from the CBS incident for those of us in public relations is that it reminds us that we have done a terrible job explaining what we do. What’s the logic of claiming ethical standards when most people – including many in public relations – are unable to define the term?
Our collective failing has been in not being more specific about what we do on behalf of our clients and employers under the rubric of public relations and, more recently, communications. And making known that public relations has existed from the time humans began interacting with one another and, knowingly or not has been practiced for millennia – all the while a neutral discipline that can be used for what’s good for society and, from time to time, what’s not so good.
Given the will, there’s plenty of time to fix it – and forget about CBS “Sunday Morning.”
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3/31/2008 8:12 AM
It’s annual report time and you can be sure that many, if not most corporations, have made a special effort to report on their CSR (corporate social responsibility) initiatives, some with separate documents that highlight their actions to preserve the environment and maintain the planet’s sustainability.
CSR has, in fact, become an active subset of public relations in recent years, often touted by our trade press as a magic wand that solidifies relationships with stakeholders and brings about universal respect, maybe even affection, for the sufficiently committed corporation.
The fact is that some corporations, in the U.S. as well as Europe, recognized their responsibility as social entities before the dawn of the 20th Century. Think “mill” towns; think Hershey, Pennsylvania. Companies built livable and affordable housing, schools and medical facilities for their employees. Altruism was not the reason. They did it because it was good business. It gave them a nearby, stable and generally contented labor force. And it pointed the U.S. on the road toward creating the world’s most productive economy.
In the less complicated world in which business once did business the corporation’s role in society was relatively simple. It was to manufacture products and deliver services that were valued by its customers, provide steady jobs for employees, be a good corporate citizen in communities where it was located and compensate stockholders with a reasonable return on their investment. That, in effect, was the social compact between business and society – and it worked for many years.
Starting in the 1980s, the corporation’s primary mission veered in another direction. All one need do is look up annual reports of that era. Their avowed purpose, boldly communicated, became “maximizing shareowner investment.” Purging companies of unproductive assets (including extraneous people) became the prevailing priority. Corporate social responsibility took a back seat.
But one of this country’s wonderful characteristics is its innate ability to self-correct. This has manifested itself many times in politics, but it also happens in business. Once the pendulum sweeps too far in one direction, it begins moving counter-wise. The recent reintroduction of “corporate social responsibility” to the business lexicon is, I hope, one of those manifestations.
But let me offer a caution prompted by my recent re-reading of Charles Dicken’s satiric novel “Bleak House,” published in 1853. One of Dicken’s most memorable characters is Mrs. Jellaby. She espoused every imaginable worthy cause, her latest the plight of the natives of Boorie-goola-Gha on the left bank of the Niger. She called it her African project and it occupied her near full time.
Then Dickens tells us the state of Mrs. Jellaby’s personal and family affairs. Her house is strewn with paper and other rubbish, the furniture and floors covered with dust and grime. Her children are in a dire state of neglect, badly clothed and unfed. Her son’s head is stuck between the banister railings. But Mrs. Jellaby doesn’t seem to notice, much less care. Mrs. Jellaby is obsessed with her African project.
The lesson of Mrs. Jellaby – as I have said before in articles and speeches -- applies not only to social critics and reformers, self-appointed or otherwise. It applies also to executives who must balance the many obligations confronting the modern corporation.
A corporation’s first duty, as I see it, is to manage its affairs properly and profitably. It must, as indicated earlier, deliver products and services that fulfill the customer’s need and meet stringent tests of safety and reliability. It must compensate employees fairly and provide fulfilling career paths and a safe working environment. It must reward stockholder/owners with a satisfactory return on their investment. And, yes, it must also support schools and hospitals and cultural institutions that serve its numerous stakeholders. It should recognize that its greatest payback from its CSR investment will come from initiatives that benefit those with the closest business connection to its growth and profitability – mainly its own employees.
Corporate participation in meritorious public service undertakings – local, national or global – is, of course, to be commended. But those that gain goodwill and enhance corporate reputation most are still those with a business connection to the donor. That’s why large corporations with mega-buck philanthropy budgets employ professionals to decide where they spend their money. Charity without a business purpose is not a prudent use of stockholder funds; there must be a business purpose, a meaningful business rationale.
It’s the reason Coca-Cola is directing millions of dollars to provide water to Darfur refugees, why Exxon supports teaching engineering and sciences in colleges, why Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Merck and other pharmaceutical companies focus on health and disease. Coca-Cola sells water and uses it in its soft drinks; Exxon employs hundreds of engineers and scientists every year; health care and treating disease is central to pharmaceutical companies. Numerous other companies are working effectively with NGOs on initiatives in which the two parties have addressed mutual issues (McDonald’s was a pioneer with highly successful results.) In all these instances employees, customers, the public, even stockholders get the connection between corporate social responsibility and good business practice. It’s easy to understand.
What’s the point I want to make? Simply that there’s more to corporate social responsibility than do-goodism. When implemented correctly, it’s an important part of the reputation building process. It adds to the bottom line with greater sales and consumer satisfaction. It serves as a positive differentiator from competitors. It’s a form of corporate behavior we in public relations should embrace whole-heartedly.
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Harold Burson
March 31, 2008
2/28/2008 8:05 AM
My only thought on how long I was going to live was that, with luck, I would make it to the biblical three score and ten. Genetically, I had a good shot: my Father fell short by two years, my Mother made it to a couple months short of 90.
Nor did I ever give much thought (really none) to retirement or what I would do after reaching the magical year of disengagement, 65, in my case, February 1986. Having joined Young & Rubicam seven years earlier, Burson-Marsteller was on the road to becoming the world’s largest public relations firm in 1983. My fellow Y&R board members asked me to stay on and I remained CEO through 1988. Jim Dowling, a colleague of 20-plus years, succeeded me. He had no interest in my departing and I stayed on with the stipulation that I wanted no part of day-to-day management, especially anything having to do with budgeting and the bottom line. It’s been that way for 20 years.
Longevity and staying on the job is not that rare in public relations. Edward L. Bernays, who literally defined public relations counseling and began its institutionalization as a business discipline, reached 103 before packing it in. My close friend and competitor John Hill was still on the payroll when he died at 85. Tim Traverse-Healy, a friend since the early 60s, is still active as one of the UK’s most respected counselors – and he’s a wee bit longer of tooth than I.
Closer to home are two long timers who, like me, started their businesses after World War II and are still active (though, also like me, no longer CEO). One is Dan Edelman, founder of the firm that nears his name; the other, David Finn, is the Finn of Ruder Finn (as a matter of fact, Bill Ruder, the Ruder of Ruder Finn, is also still active though for many years as an independent counselor). Dan, David and I were born within a year of one another, and I can never keep straight who among us is eldest and who is youngest. Al Golen of Golen Harris is still a kid; he’s not even 80.
Many with whom I come in contact – especially retired former colleagues, clients and competitors – seem curious about an octogenarian’s worthiness in a fast-moving global public relations enterprise whose median staff age is, at most, 32. Usually, the discussion starts with a polite “do you actually go to work every day?” My response is “well, I go to the office every day – unless I am traveling and that’s usually for business reasons.” (Note the subtlety of not claiming to go to work every day!)
The more difficult part of the conversation is explaining what I do at the office. (Remember that no one in the past 20 years has told me what I am supposed to do.) So, as a starter, I am available to fellow employees across the broad spectrum of Burson-Marsteller; they know that I personally answer my telephone (unless I am speaking to another caller) and that I respond (usually quickly) to e-mail messages; also, that my office door is always open. As one may expect, many of the calls are along the lines of “when did we open our Singapore office?” or ”have we ever worked for a company that builds aircraft carriers?” But some actually want my input on real-life client situations. Second, there are a few long-time clients with whom I have an ongoing relationship – though, admittedly, my role nowadays is more talk than walk. One of them is the U.S. Postal Service, a remarkable institution whose entire business is built around the concept of customer service. Two others are Coca-Cola and Merrill Lynch, with whom I have had quarter century relationships.
Another activity is what I describe as institutional and ceremonial events. In addition to banquets and the like, I attend Burson-Marsteller anniversaries and other happenings of note. Last year, for example, I was at our 30th anniversary in Oslo, our 30th anniversary in Sao Paulo, our 40th anniversary in London and, in January, the 50th anniversary of our Pittsburgh office. Usually, I make a short talk, but the most fun is renewing acquaintances with former B-M colleagues and clients, past and present. (I reckon there are some 20,000 Burson-Marsteller alumni in 35 countries).
Spending time on college campuses with public relations and journalism majors, and occasionally at graduate schools of business, is a special treat for me. I do three or four a year and usually spend a full day talking with students and faculty and, increasingly of late, getting rock star treatment from the students (now mostly female). In the past few months, I was at the University of Georgia Graduate School of Business in Athens, GA and the James Madison University College of Communications in Harrisburg, VA (not the easiest place in the world to get to!).
I get lots of invitations to speak at public relations conferences such as the 10th Anniversary of the Russian Public Relations Association in St. Petersberg a couple years ago. It was my first visit to the former Leningrad and my host, Andrey Barranikov, made it one our most memorable travel experiences (my wife, Bette, was with me). Since then, I was a keynoter for the IPRA world conference in New Delhi and the annual meeting of German political consultants in Berlin. Coming up is the IPRA world conference in Beijing in November.
All in all, it’s a fairly active agenda, especially when one must also be “on show” as a relic of the past for visiting clients, visiting Burson-Marsteller employees and the occasional news person who hasn’t much else to write about.
After all, it’s a job – and I like every minute of it.
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Harold Burson
February 28, 2008
1/4/2008 8:00 AM
Not long ago at a Q&A session following my talk to college majors in public relations, one of them asked, “Mr. Burson, do you think the Internet will replace public relations?”
Along a similar line of thought, PRWeek recently published an article headlined “Word of Mouth, PR are a good fit.” It described a survey whose findings were said to “validate word-of-mouth marketing as an industry and should make PR pros take notice.” It admonished PR to “take a leadership role in the word-of-mouth marketing movement.”
This reinforces a belief I have held for some time: that many who should know better, including public relations professionals, don’t know the definition of the term “public relations.” And because of their ignorance, public relations risks being re-defined in a manner that fails to recognize its totality and, therefore, results in its devaluation in the eyes of our bosses and clients.
To me, public relations is an applied social science. Its goal, in the broadest terms, is to reconcile institutional or individual goals with the public interest with the purpose of motivating specific audiences to a specific course of action. It’s a two-step process: first, strategic, i.e. counseling decision makers to help them evaluate the environment in which their decisions are being made and the likelihood that those decisions will result in the desired response: and second, tactical, i.e. to communicate effectively the information that will motivate the audience to the desired course of action.
Note especially that public relations has two components: one strategic, the other tactical. The first encompasses the thinking and knowledge that go into planning an effective course of action that takes into account presently-held attitudes and externalities that affect acceptance of the desired objective. The second, while tactical in its overall impact, also includes such strategic considerations as honing messages that communicate the objective in a convincing manner. And, of course, it encompasses information dissemination skills and the ability to present that information in a manner that commands the attention of those media which most effectively reach the target audience.
The strategic component of public relations, once referred to as “counseling,” requires a broad knowledge base – both general and specific. The public relations counselor must be a close observer of trends in business, politics and social conditions; he/she must also have deep knowledge of the subject-at-hand, whether it be an issue like the environment or health care, a business transaction like a merger or a new stock issue or a specific industry. Ideally, the public relations counselor will have, at the least, an understanding of behavioral psychology, sociology, cultural anthropology, history, economics and political science.
Each of these disciplines plays some role in achieving the basic objective of any public relations exercise. But most important of all, the effective counselor is a person possessed of good judgment – possessed of an intuitive sense of what is right and what is wrong, and a deep sensitivity to how people behave and react.
Public relations is both an umbrella term that 1– defines the discipline that deals with relationships with the public and that 2– measures the “standing” or regard in which a person or an institution is held by others in contact with that person or institution.
Here’s how a collegiate level dictionary defines public relations: 1. the art or science of establishing and promoting a favorable relationship with the public. 2. The methods and activities used to establish and promote such a relationship. 3. The degree of success obtained in achieving such a relationship. (My now deceased long-time friend, Denny Griswold, a co-founder of Public Relations News, put it this way: public relations is doing good and getting credit for it.)
As a discipline used by business, government and individuals, public relations is strategic in its application. It enables the user of public relations to evolve a strategy that will facilitate the achievement of a goal involving a specific audience. Its leverage is public opinion. Simply put, public opinion can be affected in only three ways: 1) public opinion can be created where none now exists; 2) existing public opinion can be reinforced; 3) existing public opinion can be changed. Whether we as public relations professionals succeed or fail depends on how we impact public opinion.
Publicity – a word seldom mentioned in today’s world of communications -- has and will continue to be one of the principal information dissemination “tools” of public relations. Publicity or nowadays “earned media” comes about when the aspirations of a person or institution are of interest to readers of newspapers, those who listen to radio or watch television and, more recently, those who depend on the internet for most of their information. (Effective publicists are people I have long valued – even admired; they have a unique talent.)
Word-of-mouth has long been recognized as one of the most effective influencers of public opinion. Contrary to the PRWeek article, it was likely the very first way information was disseminated, even before the primitive cave drawings and the development of a written language. From the time public relations was formalized as a business discipline, word-of-mouth has been prized as an effective way to deliver a message.
Although a mammoth industry in itself, magnitudes larger than public relations, advertising is often a tool employed by public relations specialists to reach audiences with specific messages. There is no more effective way to control a message or to deliver it to a specifically targeted audience.
Digital is the newest of the message delivery systems that have evolved to disseminate information. In a real sense, it is the latest in a technological continuum starting with Gutenberg’s printing press in the late 15th Century. To be sure, it is different from newspapers, magazines, radio and television. It reaffirms Marshall McLuhan’s “the media is the message” dictum of a half century ago. The same message delivered by printed word affects our sensitivities differently than when delivered by radio or television. Even within the print media category, the same article in one newspaper impacts the reader differently than in another, depending on the reputation of each. And so it will be with the Internet.
The answer to the question, “will the Internet replace public relations?” is, therefore, “No, Virginia, but it will most certainly enhance its effectiveness and, to some considerable extent, change the way messages are delivered to various audiences.”
And, so long as its objective is to motivate an audience to a desired course of action the process will continue to be under the public relations umbrella.
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- Harold Burson
9/19/2007 5:45 PM
An article in a recent New York Times Magazine (Sept. 2) about Mark Penn’s compelling new book “Microtrends” described Burson-Marsteller as a firm “which likes to call itself the world’s largest public relations firm.”
Admittedly, there was a time when we used those words to describe ourselves. But for the past five years or so, the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation has prevented us from knowing which firm is the largest.
Nine of the 10 largest firms no longer disclose their annual revenues. But we are relatively certain that Burson-Marsteller is not now at the top of the heap.
We lost that position the past few years as many of our competitors went on acquisition sprees to bolster their specialized offerings and their geographical spread. In contrast, Burson-Marsteller, from its outset 54 years ago, has been sparse in making acquisitions. Our 2006 acquisition of Genesis, India’s largest public relations firm with 200-plus employees in five offices is a notable exception.
At this point, I believe nearly all the top 10 firms have a sufficient revenue base to support a global public relations infrastructure capable of serving even the largest clients. Another 10 million – even another 50 million – in revenues is no longer a significant reason to choose one of the big firms over another.
This is not to say that we at Burson-Marsteller do not prize growth. Growth is a metric for success both internally and externally; it makes possible retaining and motivating staff professionals. Only with growth can those professionals achieve greater responsibility, greater challenges and larger munificent rewards. Nor have we been outsiders in the growth process.
In 1953 our first year revenues were about $100,000. Our first million dollar year (about $4.5 million in today’s dollars) came 10 years later.
It took us another 20 years (1983) to surpass the long-time industry leader Hill and Knowlton and become the world’s largest public relations firm with revenues of $63,667,000.
Two years later, in 1985, we were the first public relations firm to reach a hundred million in revenues.
Ten years later, in 1995, we passed the two hundred million mark, again a first.
Five years later, in 2000, we soared to more than three hundred million, a result, to some substantial extent, of the unnatural Silicon Valley bubble. And, admittedly, like most, if not all, of our major competitors, we lost ground during the subsequent recession years.
From that time onward, lacking specific knowledge of competitor revenues, our descriptor is that we are “one of the leading global public relations firms” or “a leading global public relations firm.”
But as a “positioner” of the firm that bears my name, I like the words Paul Holmes used in one of his early annual firm ratings. Simply, that "Burson-Marsteller is the public relations firm against which all others are measured."
Regardless of the amount of revenues, my associates around the world work hard to continue deserving that distinction.
7/30/2007 12:00 PM
The First Amendment to our Constitution – the first of the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights – reads as follows:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, or to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The same forty-five words that guarantee a free press also guarantee the right to make one's views known to the Congress and the Executive branches of government – in today's parlance, to lobby. Journalists correctly and regularly defend their right to a free press; some, one of them only months ago, have even served jail time defending this Constitutional right.
But it's ironic that the same journalists who staunchly defend freedom of the press are quick to denigrate – even deny – the people's right to petition the Government – the right to lobby Congress and communicate with the numerous government departments and agencies.
The media – as reflected in the near-unanimous pejorative "spin" in their news stories and opinion columns – would have you believe "lobbying" is a dirty word despite its Constitutional guarantee. To be sure, lobbying is not immune from skullduggery.
That's why there are laws and regulations that define the bounds of lobbying, drawing lines that separate the legal and legitimate from the illegal and unlawful. Throughout our history, illegal lobbying scandals have resulted in prison time for the unscrupulous rascals who corrupted the administrative and legislative processes of government.
It's a mark of human nature that each generation believes both the apex and the nadir of human events happen within that generation's allotted time frame. Corruption has been top-of-mind from the earliest days of our Republic – just do a bit of reading about the use of influence in the administration of John Adams or Andrew Jackson. Or the Civil War era as suppliers of all manner of merchandise got richer and richer. It popped up again in a big way in the late Nineteenth Century as railroad robber barons made land grabs clear across the country from the Erie Canal in New York to the Columbia River in Oregon. Followed by the Teapot Dome scandal in the early Twentieth Century and, more recently, the unsavory antics of lawyer Jack Abramoff and his well-placed government pawns.
Money, of course, has always been the root of the evil – an implied (in some instances actual) payoff to elected officials for personal or institutional gain. A big difference nowadays is the once-unimaginable magnitude of the sums that move from supplicant to benefactor. Just a few decades ago the much smaller contributions from lobbyists to office holders seeking reelection or their challengers was regarded as a way to assure access should a specific issue arise that affected a donor. A donor's total contribution in an election cycle was often measured in the tens of thousands of dollars. The public presumption was that an elected Federal official could not be bought for just a few thousand dollars.
Today there's timely transparency in the political contributions process. Within days of the end of a quarter, the public knows who gave how much to which candidates. Using a legalized process known as "bundling" (assembling maximum allowable individual contributions and delivering them as a unified total) millions of dollars are attributed to a single individual donor or institution.
It's not a far stretch to assume one doesn't contribute sums of that magnitude unless there's an expectation beyond simple access. But the Supreme Court has ruled that so long as monetary donations comply with the laws governing reporting and specified dollar limits, the practice is Constitutionally protected as an exercise of free speech.
The real issue is recognizing that our Constitution guarantees the right to petition government and that the word we apply to that process – lobbying – is in no way a negative, rather the term applied to a methodology that connects citizens (both individual and institutional) to their government.
As for those who make illicit or illegal use of the process, there are laws that can be used to punish their aberrational behavior. If the laws are no longer as protective as they should be, new laws should be passed. One good place to start would be to make the election process much shorter – Congressional as well as Presidential – a move that would make elections less costly.
As for continuing to beat up on lobbying and lobbyists per se, those reporting the news from Washington and other political centers really know better. Lobbying should not be regarded prima facie as a pejorative. 6/7/2007 1:56 AM
The notion of "free publicity" or "great results with a ridiculously low budget" troubles me. It troubles me even more when public relations media make a virtue of the cost advantages of public relations (publicity) over advertising and other methods of disseminating information. My concern is that it discourages the best and the brightest to embark on a career in public relations.
In real life, there ain't no such thing as "free publicity" any more than there's "free advertising." When something appears in print or on television or on a no-pay web site, it's the result of someone's creative effort. The act of creation and implementation takes time; time equals money; ergo, there's a cost.
The problem with "great results with a ridiculously low budget" is somewhat different. "Great results" imply extraordinary creative input and flawless execution. Performance at that level, it seems to me, merits a premium rather than a bargain basement level price. In fact, boasting of low cost diminishes the value of services we public relations professionals provide. Like other professionals, we deserve to be compensated at a level that equates with the value we add rather than seek praise for how little we charge.
There is demonstrable evidence that public relations has never been so highly regarded at the CEO level. At many, if not most, FORTUNE 500 companies the senior public relations officer bears the title of senior vice president (increasingly, executive vice president); he/she sits on the company's management committee; total annual compensation is often in the medium to high six figures or more.
Yet, at the marketing level, agency selections are often based on the lowest hourly aggregate fee – a practice that can't avoid motivating the agency to assign its lowest salaried professionals. Or when creativity, experience and chemistry are set forth as metrics on which agency selection decisions are made, client procurement departments are often called in to "negotiate" compensation terms.* It goes without saying that this means paying the lowest possible fees.
When it comes to selling consumer goods or services, I have never believed that publicity (we call it "earned media" nowadays) is a substitute for paid advertising. However, editorial coverage and other activities within the rubric of public relations have the potential to make advertising more effective by enhancing credibility and increasing reach. But in spite of the strong positives derived from publicity's third party implied endorsement, marketing support budgets are all too frequently at inadequate levels. The case I would make is that if publicity can enhance a $10 million advertising campaign 20 percent, it's worth an investment commensurate with such an objective.
Both clients and public relations firms have come to regard marketing support programs more as a commodity than the specialty that strengthens the bond between marketer and customer-consumer. Moreover, breaking into the major media is increasingly difficult nowadays because of more intense competition for time and space. The editorial bar keeps rising and the creativity needed to convince an editor must keep apace. It seems to me there's an irony in devaluing the public relations service that actually makes the cash register ring.
Professionalism comes at a price. It's no different in public relations than in law or medicine or engineering or management consulting. Our objective, whether as client or agency, is to attract the very best people to our ranks. Boasting that the professional service we deliver is low cost does nothing to attract the best and brightest of our college graduates. To meet today's challenge – in marketing support and the numerous other subsets of public relations – we need those who excel and we must be prepared to pay the price commensurate with their value.
When buyers of public relations services make their selection on the basis of price, they are selling both their chosen agencies and themselves short. That simply doesn't make sense.
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*Some twenty years ago, I could expect a year-end annual telephone call from the CEO of one of our largest clients asking if we were satisfied with the profitability on our work for his FORTUNE 100 company. After a couple years, I asked him why he did this. He answered. "I figure the more you make on our business, the more likely you will be to assign us your best people." They don't make CEO's like that any more!
5/21/2007 1:42 AMAt this time of the year, literally thousands of newly-minted public relations practitioners are entering the work force, most of them who describe themselves as communicators. The fact is, attendance at schools of communications is at an all-time high and public relations - usually one of three courses of study alongside journalism and advertising - is most often the calling of choice.
Somehow, most of these graduates get jobs - entry level public relations jobs - many with not-for-profit organizations and others with corporations and public relations firms. That they do so in annually accelerating numbers is concrete evidence recognizing the role of public relations in today's complex social and economic environment.
Early on in our existence at Burson-Marsteller - starting in the 1960s - we instituted our Summer Intern Program. It has been an unqualified success, not only from the standpoint of the student intern but as a source of bright entry level staffers who were able to demonstrate in real time - often in real client situations - their capability. A win-win situation for both parties.
For most of my career, I have happily accepted invitations from schools of communication to address students. In more recent years, I have regarded such opportunities as a "pay back" recognizing what public relations has meant to me in terms of career satisfaction as well as financial reward. Earlier, my objective was that sharing my experience could have the potential of "bettering the breed."
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The question most often asked me by both students and interns is along the lines of:
"Mr. Burson, based on your experience, what is your best advice for us as we start out careers in public relations? What are the three or four things you think will count most?
This is what I tell them:
- Networking is the most important activity you can undertake, starting now. Approach it in terms of building a support infrastructure that you can tap into as your career and your life goes forward. But never think that networking is simply a matter of knowing people. To be effective, it takes an underlying relationship - shared experiences -- and you've got to work at it. Just one example of the payoff: when I ask newly recruited employees how they happened to come on to Burson- Marsteller, no less than half say "I knew someone who knew someone" - you get the point!
- Working as a member of an organization - a team - is an essential in most careers, especially business. My successor as B-M CEO, Jim Dowling, put it this way: "We prize the individual; we celebrate the team." It is essential that you earn the trust of those around you: not only your boss, but also your peers and, equally important, the people who work for you. My late partner Bill Marsteller maintained "your direct reports are the ones who really 'nominate' you for promotion to higher responsibility." At Burson-Marsteller more than half of all involuntary separations of professional employees is caused by an employee's inability to work with his/her teammates - to "fit in" as a member of the organization.
- Never cease working to become a better writer and a more effective speaker. One of the scarcest commodities in public relations today is the scarcity of competent writers. My observation is that the newly-hired staffer who demonstrates a strong writing ability soon becomes one of the office's most billable employees. There is always a need for good writing, and word spreads fast.
- Develop as broad a knowledge base as possible. In our kind of work, all kinds of problems arise. And as consultants, in all fields of social, political and economic endeavor. Strive never to be caught tongue-tied for a total lack of knowledge even on a subject remote to your every day existence. The old fashioned way of doing this has been by reading - traditionally, newspapers, magazines, books and, of course, television and radio. The new way is the internet - about which most of you are far moré au courant than I. The best advice my Father ever gave me was "try always to be in the know."
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My good wishes to all recent graduates seeking a career in public relations. Even after so many years, I well remember my early years and the many individuals who contributed to whatever success has been heaped upon me. I could never have done it alone - and I believe, at the end of the day, many years from now, you will feel as I do. 3/28/2007 3:30 PM
Today's challenge for global corporations and their CEO's, especially those of U.S. origin, is finding safe harbor from an amalgamation of circumstances that are the equivalent of a perfect storm.
Consider the following:
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At no time in more than two centuries of nationhood have overseas public attitudes toward the United States been at so low a level. This lack of favor has perpetuated for five years, with the likelihood it will not soon abate. This has special meaning for any company depending on overseas markets for a large portion of its revenues.
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At no time since corporations came into being have they and their CEO's been held in such low esteem by the American public. The reasons are well documented -- starting with the misdeeds of Enron, WorldCom, Tyco et al and the more recent public perception of over-compensated chief executives. Regulatory and legislative oversight is sure to accelerate with the Democrat-majority Congress and from major investors like public pension funds.
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Modern technology now disseminates news more rapidly, in greater depth and to a larger more diverse audience. Today's 24-hour news cycle works at the speed of light, recognizing no national boundaries, no oceans, and non-discriminating on the receiving end. This creates a "time frame compression" that demands immediate response. Even the largest corporations are usually ill-equipped to respond as quickly as necessary.
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Technology also makes any computer owner a potential news source -- at minimal cost and with the capability to reach thousands, even million | |