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The Future of PR lies in Collaboration - Joyce Lorigan, Golley Slater PR
INSIGHT ARTICLE
Joyce Lorigan is CEO of Golley Slater PR and Margaret Street PR
There are those who will always want to buy what you sell. There are those who will never buy what you sell - and then there are the rest. The role of public relations is to find and talk to this group - in political terms, the floating voter. Just as the political strategists strive to find messaging that resonates and motivates this group to leave their homes and go to the voting booth, we need to motivate our clients' floating voters to change their behaviours' too.
There is another interesting PR lesson that we can learn from the electioneering process. When the stakes are high and the timeline imminent, necessity dictates that all of the marketing disciplines fall in line behind a common political message. There is no place for silo-ed thinking. The entire communications group needs to be banging the same drum whilst at the same time staying nimble enough to tweak the messaging or even change tack if required. This process necessitates constant reevaluation.
As PR people, we have all represented companies that operate in highly competitive marketplaces. There are plenty of sectors to choose from. Why then do we not think in terms of winning or losing the floating voter? Why do we still see PR people quantifying success by the volume of press cuttings alone? This is not effective PR - it's not even effective media relations. We must change our mindset and get better at working alongside our marketing brothers and sisters to find a position that can really effect change and move our clients business forward.
We need consumer insight and not just media insight to really understand what drives and motivates our floating voters. We need to be able to amplify the advertising positioning, which means that we also need to believe in it. We need to ensure that our party, our agencies and our clients' staff, buy into to it. We need to provide compelling content for all applications. Fabulous digital channels can be created and audiences found but we need to help create the news which fuels engagement.
With this blurring of lines between disciplines and the new emphasis on connecting companies, brands and their communities, there is undoubtedly a huge opportunity for PR. We have always been at the forefront of stakeholder engagement - ask anyone who has ever been involved in consulting with local communities about the location of phone masts or new parking restrictions! Also PR people are totally sensitised to how messaging plays out and the need to change tack if necessary. We can be nimble and have developed a creative thick skin due to the fact that our ‘content' has always had to earn its right to exist from an army of consumer, corporate and trade media.
Whilst I agree that today's focus on messaging and content creation is the perfect environment for PR professionals to play a wider communications role, we must have the confidence to seize the opportunity with both hands. If we don't, then there are plenty of direct, media and advertising agencies that are.
The future of PR, and I believe of other marketing disciplines, is to work in active collaboration with their fellow marketing experts and most importantly, in collaboration with the client and the client's voters. At Margaret Street and throughout the Golley Slater group, we call this collaborative approach ‘United'. One leader brings a hand-picked team of experts from various communications disciplines together and then together, they develop one campaign with a common goal. Each player has a good understanding of the others skills but we also know that none of us are as smart as all of us.
So, looking forward client marketing will be driven by a team of like minded experts that can work well together and agree the best approach to win the floating voter. In short, this means leaving egos at the door. It also means that the starting point is not somewhere south of media spend. What's needed is genuine collaboration right at the beginning of the process - and then continuing re-evaluation throughout. Political parties may breathe a sigh of relief when they've won the vote, but on the high street the brand needs to continue to engage with its voters and continue to earn more votes if it is to grow and prosper.
There are those who will always want to buy what you sell. There are those who will never buy what you sell - and then there are the rest. The role of public relations is to find and talk to this group - in political terms, the floating voter. Just as the political strategists strive to find messaging that resonates and motivates this group to leave their homes and go to the voting booth, we need to motivate our clients' floating voters to change their behaviours' too.
There is another interesting PR lesson that we can learn from the electioneering process. When the stakes are high and the timeline imminent, necessity dictates that all of the marketing disciplines fall in line behind a common political message. There is no place for silo-ed thinking. The entire communications group needs to be banging the same drum whilst at the same time staying nimble enough to tweak the messaging or even change tack if required. This process necessitates constant reevaluation.
As PR people, we have all represented companies that operate in highly competitive marketplaces. There are plenty of sectors to choose from. Why then do we not think in terms of winning or losing the floating voter? Why do we still see PR people quantifying success by the volume of press cuttings alone? This is not effective PR - it's not even effective media relations. We must change our mindset and get better at working alongside our marketing brothers and sisters to find a position that can really effect change and move our clients business forward.
We need consumer insight and not just media insight to really understand what drives and motivates our floating voters. We need to be able to amplify the advertising positioning, which means that we also need to believe in it. We need to ensure that our party, our agencies and our clients' staff, buy into to it. We need to provide compelling content for all applications. Fabulous digital channels can be created and audiences found but we need to help create the news which fuels engagement.
With this blurring of lines between disciplines and the new emphasis on connecting companies, brands and their communities, there is undoubtedly a huge opportunity for PR. We have always been at the forefront of stakeholder engagement - ask anyone who has ever been involved in consulting with local communities about the location of phone masts or new parking restrictions! Also PR people are totally sensitised to how messaging plays out and the need to change tack if necessary. We can be nimble and have developed a creative thick skin due to the fact that our ‘content' has always had to earn its right to exist from an army of consumer, corporate and trade media.
Whilst I agree that today's focus on messaging and content creation is the perfect environment for PR professionals to play a wider communications role, we must have the confidence to seize the opportunity with both hands. If we don't, then there are plenty of direct, media and advertising agencies that are.
The future of PR, and I believe of other marketing disciplines, is to work in active collaboration with their fellow marketing experts and most importantly, in collaboration with the client and the client's voters. At Margaret Street and throughout the Golley Slater group, we call this collaborative approach ‘United'. One leader brings a hand-picked team of experts from various communications disciplines together and then together, they develop one campaign with a common goal. Each player has a good understanding of the others skills but we also know that none of us are as smart as all of us.
So, looking forward client marketing will be driven by a team of like minded experts that can work well together and agree the best approach to win the floating voter. In short, this means leaving egos at the door. It also means that the starting point is not somewhere south of media spend. What's needed is genuine collaboration right at the beginning of the process - and then continuing re-evaluation throughout. Political parties may breathe a sigh of relief when they've won the vote, but on the high street the brand needs to continue to engage with its voters and continue to earn more votes if it is to grow and prosper.
