64-year-old, $460,000 Macallan Scotch whiskey
When we last left you, you were chewing over PRSA’s final three choices for the new public relations definition of the millennium.
I have an alternate PR definition you can’t resist!
I know. I know. I just blogged about PRSA and my disappointment. Judging by my inbox, the proposed definitions were giving you indigestion too.
Pass the Milk of Magnesia or better yet a tumbler of 64-year old Macallan Scotch whiskey ($460,000 a bottle) while I give those definitions to you again:
- Public relations is the management function of researching, communicating and collaborating with publics to build mutually beneficial relationships.
- Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.
- Public relations is the strategic process of engagement between organizations and publics to achieve mutual understanding and realize goals.
Passion? Nope. Clarity? Clear as mud. Friendly? Cough! Memorable? Something about functions, process, publics and … oh I forget the rest.
At the risk of saying it again, let me quote my mentor Homer Simpson: “Blechhhhhh!”
It seems we’re now all getting mad as hell and we’re not going to take it any more!
Homer and I have taken it upon ourselves to serve up a much more palatable, alternative definition of public relations. It’s jargon-free, vegan-friendly, low-calorie, contains bio-proteins, is environmentally neutral and no small children or animals were harmed during its creation.
Drum roll, please.
Public relations is: Stronger relationships, the best communication, in the best channels, at the right time, to the right people…
Short, sweet and to the point. And it’s mother-in-law friendly. The ultimate measure of success!
How about if we have a write-in vote and campaign? Let’s crowdsource a better definition of PR before it’s too late.
Just go to Twitter and re-Tweet my suggestion or your own to #PRDefined:
#PRDefined: Homer Simpson and @The PR Coach have a jargon-free #PR definition for #publicrelations http://bit.ly/xh7XHr
If you insist, you can also vote here for your choice of the three PRSA candidates before Feb 26th. If you care, do something. Meanwhile, I’d better get back to that episode of Breaking Bad.
By the way, just for the record, here’s my original submission to PRSA just for the heck of it:
“Public relations monitors, creates, manages & leads conversations with key individuals & communities, connecting for mutual understanding and relevance.”
We want you to join our team. Sign up for The PR Coach blog for weekly PR tips, insight and occasional twists and turns in the path to better public relations. Or get the RSS Feed delivered straight to your favorite RSS reader.
Author: Jeff Domansky
Photo credits: Macallan Scotch whiskey, Amsterdamized
{ 27 comments… read them below or add one }
Mark, thanks for sharing your thoughts. The trust issue is big and PR is especially challenged to build it for its clients and organizations. Catch you separately.
Jeff ….
just read this post …. and I’m coughing too
I teach the commercial section of the real estate licensing course at the Calgary Real Estate Board and tell my students that people do busniness with people they:
- know
- like
AND trust
I think good PR does those three things!
I sent you another note .. hope to hear from you,
Cheers,
Mark
Brilliant capture Don. Thanks.
Coach is correct. It’s what you do that counts regardless of how you’re technically defined. Client: What do you do? Practitioner: I build mutually beneficial relationships. Client: Terrific. What are you going to do for me?
Don, I guess most of us will simply not rely on a definition but rather proving our management capability with results and wise counsel. Thanks for your thoughts.
I know it remains an aspiration in many organizations, but I wish the traditional “management function” criterion was referenced in the new PRSA definition. It has been a part of virtually every accepted definition since the profession took flight in the early decades of the 20th century. For me, that one phrase encapsulates precisely how PR should be viewed and operate in the organizations it serves. Identified as a management function, its role in building mutually beneficial relationships becomes clearer and more acute. We’re far more than wordsmiths and publicists, even if that’s what it often looks like on the surface.
Don, I agree it’s a positive when people engage. I’d be scared to ask some clients for their definitions though I can imagine the results would be very entertaining and the subject of posts for months to come. LOL Thanks for dropping by.
What’s amazing is that professional public relations grows year by year regardless of how we define it within the inner circle. Those who hire us seem to know what it is and what they want from it, almost without asking. Perhaps we should survey our clients and employers for their definitions. The comparison would be fascinating and insighful.
If nothing else, PRSA’s redefinition initiative got a lot of us to reconsider our assumptions and beliefs about the practice’s purpose and our role in it. The initiative also generated a lot of attention in the press and elsewhere among non-professionals. In either case, the result has been beneficial.
Arthur,
Many PR pros will be pleased that PRSA is extending the PR Defined initiative. It’s a smart decision and you’re to be congratulated. I’ve actively supported the effort and enjoyed contributing. In my view, PRSA has already had enormous success judging by the engagement and widespread opinions generated. It’s true there will never be one definition that will suit everyone but there’s no question we can communicate more effectively. I’ll be encouraging others to stay involved if their opinions and future suggestions are truly welcomed and considered. Thanks for your note and update.
Jeff, we know our Public Relations Defined project has caused some hand-wringing among communication professionals. We tried to approach the project in a new way using the new tools available to us. Sometimes such approaches work, sometimes they don’t. But, that’s how we learn to do better in the future.
We’ve read the articles and blog posts and comments like these. What they’ve told is is that we shouldn’t stop with the vote on three candidate definitions that currently exist. We’re going to keep our Public Relations Defined blog up after the winning definition is announced, with the hope that we can continue to engage professionals, including those who’ve commented in this forum and elsewhere, in a discussion about the definition of public relations.
Consider this your invitation and your opportunity to come up with something better. We’ll provide any and all data from the first go-round. Our minds are open. If we can collectively move closer to a consensus definition of public relations, PRSA will support it. You can read more about our plans for moving forward here: http://bit.ly/xKiHhd.
Don, thanks for reminding us of Griswold’s marvelous definition. The workaholic version is fun too. The quest continues.
Don, while I also oversee our marketing-comm function (which includes advertising), I don’t really consider that part of public relations. In fact, my office is called the Office of Corporate Communications & Public Relations. I do differentiate between the two. I do a lot of strategic message development focused on maintaining relationships and not that much publicity (even though I lost my media relations manager in a downsizing). Guess it’s where we need to put our efforts, but I’ve found the relational focus the most strategic, particularly in crises.
You’re in the game Coach.
Scott Cutlip and Alan Center, authors of the first textbook in PR, said, with the help of later co-author Glenn Broom: “Public relations is the management function that establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between an organization and the publics on whom its success or failure depends.”
PR pioneer Denny Griswold said: “Public relations is doing good and getting credit for it.”
I’m pitching an oldie but goodie although I don’t know the original source: “Public relations is what public relations people do.”
Yeah, we mostly do publicity work in one way or another, but everything in professional communications is fair game. PR people do advertising, marketing, packaging, web design, human resources, lobbying, election campaigns, community advocacy, etc., etc., etc. Several of these functions have nothing to with building mutually beneficial relationships, i.e., advertising, packaging, lobbying, campaigns.
There’s also the workaholic perspective: “Public relations is when you’re better to your publics than your relations.”
How many angels on the head of a pin? It depends on the eye or imagination of the beholder.
Bill, getting closer. Wish PRSA wasn’t locked on three bad choices. Cheers.
Steven, I like the comprehensiveness of your information. I put something similar together a few years ago when I taught my first college class in public relations. In other classes since then, such as corporate communication writing, I always ask students for their definition of public relations and usually hear lots about publicity. Jeff, I like the revision you made. It prompted me to go looking for the definition I had crafted for that intro to public relations class following our discussion. It was this: Public relations is the cultivation and maintenance of relationships between an organization and its publics focused on the greatest possible benefit for both organization and publics. That any better than the PRSA ones or just as jargonish?
Steven, your outline is all-inclusive but unwieldy as as an elevator pitch. Works when you have time and scope available. I still see value in a short form definition but we will always each fall back on our own customized versions. Especially given PRSA’s jargon-filled choices. Thanks for sharing yours.
Here’s the definition I always present to classes and professional lecture audiences, followed by my standard (fuller) description of our profession:
Public relations (PR) is a professional discipline of ethical, strategic communication processes used by organizations, businesses, institutions and governments to manage their interactions with target publics, either directly or through an intermediary (such as news and entertainment media), for the mutual benefit and satisfaction of all parties.
The goal of public relations is to create desired outcomes—whether for the public good or private gain—within particular target publics, such as greater awareness and/or knowledge, or changes in opinions, attitudes and behavior. Public relations can be used to maintain or improve relationships with internal and external audiences, as well as to limit or avoid scrutiny, and may include calls to action that generate significant public and/or private responses, both domestically and worldwide.
Common PR target audiences include voters, tax-payers and the general public; special-interest groups; (existing and potential) consumers, members, employees, customers, partners, competitors and shareholders; government officials; and foreign publics and governments.
Public-relations practitioners may work as independent consultants or freelancers; on a PR agency’s account team; for a business or commercial enterprise; within associations; at nonprofits; in health-care and educational institutions or organizations; or for government offices or agencies.
Public relations is a separate function from marketing, advertising or sales, and is often (erroneously) conflated with media relations or its publicity subfunction. Many PR practitioners stress that their work involves much more than simply interacting with journalists, media outlets and influencers to gain positive (or limit negative) publicity.
PR professionals are sometimes denigrated as nothing more than “spin doctors” who, often in the midst of a reputation crisis, try to influence public perception, or mitigate its (real or potential) impact, by presenting a client’s or employer’s position in a manipulative manner calculated to achieve maximum advantage while avoiding full disclosure. Yet, just as PR is more than publicity and media relations, it also is much more than techniques to sway public opinion or cast a client in the most favorable light.
The full range of public relations encompasses many subdisciplines and functions, such as public affairs, government relations and lobbying; rhetoric and propaganda; international relations; speech-writing and political issues management; building grass-roots activism; and special-events organization and management. It extends to online, mobile and social-media communication and promotion; thought leadership and reputation management; community relations and corporate social responsibility; investor relations/financial communication; labor, employee and member relations; educational and health-care relations; and crisis management. PR also includes efforts on behalf of trade associations, professional societies, nonprofits, charities and civic groups, as well as the activities of press agents promoting artists, entertainers and individuals, and of entertainment-media publicists promoting individual productions.
William, I agree PR is more than conversations but we must do better than PRSA’s choices. I was having a bit of fun to illustrate that point. Perhaps my original submission still works by substituting ‘relationships’ for ‘conversations’?
“Public relations monitors, creates, manages & leads relationships with key individuals & communities, connecting for mutual understanding and relevance.”
Appreciate your thoughts.
I have to agree (to an extent) with PRSA on this one. You are correct that the definitions lack passion and there are certain aspects of yours with which I agree, but public relations HAS to be about more than conversations. It is about relationships and that mutual benefit we seek … not just understanding. Public relations has shot itself in the foot far too long by being too closely identified with media relations and publicity.
Rodger, I liked your description of these choices: they “ooze lifeless corporate-speak. BARF!” Says it all. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I wrote on these PR definitions from PRSA a few weeks ago. My reaction them was viseral at best. Here’s my point: There’s nothing new about these definitions! And, no matter how much we throw a tantrum, Steve Crescenzo says it best, “Whoa!! Them’s a whole lot of fancy words!! Of course, that’s what happens any time you assign a “Task Force” to study something. You almost always end up with more words than you need. ”
It’s time to lead a coup of our own against an organization that is obviously out of touch. On my blog, one of my readers said, “PRSA has made the age old mistake of talking to themselves, interesting that none of the definitions mention anything about growth or positively impacting value perceptions for the intended audience, both are measurable.”
Time to tune out PRSA and tune into our clients. What do they say PR is? Your can read me contribution to this PR definition mess here: http://bit.ly/x8jlZp
Thanks for chiming in Susie. I have to ask you, as a marketing guru, what is your definition of marketing? Hopefully clearer LOL.
Hi Jeff, Agree! When did PR get so muddled and full of itself? Our job as communicators is to be clear. Great post!
Totally agree Buford. My definition was just a fun riff but what angers me is PRSA’s insistence on a jargon-filled set of choices with no real choice. Not good enough. A client would rip it up.
Erin, sometimes a little humor can go a log ways LOL. Thanks for dropping by.
I got tired reading the 3 options … but I love the alternative, it must have been the right message at the right time for the right people.
Jeff, no problem with your definition, but it’s useless until “stronger, best and right” are defined. Still believe not understanding message, publics, communication, and channels is the issue, not so much a textbook definition. Then we get to the inability to execute.
Should we go on?
{ 3 trackbacks }