Of Babies and Bathwater

This blog post, ‘Fire Your PR Agency’ by Jason Calacanis, founder and CEO of Mahalo, was sent to me by a client and I thought it’d blog well, so I’ve taken what was to be my email response and posted it here.

I agree that you can, conceivably, do PR yourself. But I think the value in the article is more useful if titled “How to support your PR firm’s efforts”. Better to keep the baby and change the bathwater, as it were. Jason is a natural press agent himself even if he doesn’t own up to it - so PR comes easily, naturally to him… and what he is suggesting requires a completely different set of skills than most entrepreneurs have and therefore they do require the support of a quality PR outfit.

I know plenty of PR firms, however, that can do more harm than good. In fact, I can provide a list. I’ve hired and fired several. Often because my colleagues and I were their lone source of ideas, which flies in the face of what Jason is suggesting, as he thinks this is a good plan. I don’t. While I appreciated the recognition that I was, in fact, brilliant, I’d have liked to have other ideas heard as well. It gets lonely when the only voice you hear is your own. This is not the same as providing your PR firm with information, resources, and access, which is critical and as this blog goes on to recommend. It is a partnership between client and agency.

Still, although I believe his premise – that you can do this yourself – is flawed, he makes some excellent points:

1. Be the Brand: It is easy for Jason to say this, he is his brand. This is useful if the leadership is savvy, well-spoken and political, or at least enthusiastic. Not every CEO is, and in fact, it is sometimes dangerous for firms to become too attached to their founder as it limits later growth, flexibility and potential M&A activity.

2. Be everywhere: This is simply blocking and tackling for start-ups. Too many engineer types think their better mousetrap will drive people to their door. Well, for that I have one word: Betamax.

3. Always pick up the check: The most important point Jason makes in the entire blog post is here: “If you're not a social person, learn to be, because it's your job if you're at a startup company.” See my comment above, #1.

4. Pitching as Jason uses it here is a euphemism for selling. The best PR opportunities aren’t ‘sold’, just like few of the best products are actually ‘sold’. That’s just PR 101. But I know that too few PR types have graduated that class, and others, while aware of it, are pressured by their clients or bosses to do just that. Sell, sell, sell. Ink, ink, ink. I once had a PR agency drop a couple of three ring binders on the conference table to indicate the amount of press they generated for a similar firm. Leafing through it, it amounted to page after page of one paragraph reprints of press releases. And this was a nationally recognized PR firm. Oddly, scrolling to the end of his post, Jason comments to measure press by the pound. Bullsh*t. You can’t blog about targeting appropriately and suggest measuring success by the pound in the same post. That’s oxymoronic.

5. The critical comment in point #5? “Spend just 30 minutes researching the journalist you're pitching.” PR folks can be lazy. Hire ones who aren’t.

6. His point #6 essentially states to make certain the client, not the agency, has the journalist relationship. Actually, both is important, but once again, good common sense is so rare it bears repeating.

7. Number 7’s key takeaway: “Your job as a subject is to say things concisely and with few words.” Not a reason to fire a PR agency. A good reason to have one, even if they only act as editors.

8. Invite people to "swing by" your office. Of course. Journalists are supposed to become your friends. Invite your friends for a visit. Remember what we learned in Kindergarten: To have a friend, be a friend.

9. Attach your brand to a movement - absolutely. But this works only if the environment allows for it. Generally good business advice, but certainly not a reason to fire a PR firm. A good PR firm can find opportunities to do just that.

10. Embrace small media outlets. Again, PR 101.

Further, don’t mistake media relations (making certain you are visible, acting as a resource for reporters, etceteras) for public relations. The former is easier and often used by weak PR firms as an indication of progress. It isn’t. Media relations is a tool, not an objective. Also, regarding hiring PR firms: The key is in the evaluation, and in the evaluation, the key is the people. Make certain it isn’t the A team selling the agency and the B team doing the work. Know who is on the account and their backgrounds, and hold them to their commitments. They need to be savvy, connected, creative, inventive. This needs to be determined upfront, because success or failure in PR can only be measured on the back end.

The Antique Selectric

A recent back-to-school shopping trip with my pre-teen son did plenty to remind me of the widening generation gap between us. Navigating through brands I'd never heard of and styles that will, one day, define the cultural lowlight of his generation (just as parachute pants defined mine) – helped me acknowledge that the pigment had indeed left my hair, never to return.

An annual report called the Beloit College Mindset List – you may recognize it as common fodder for chatty 'lite rock' morning radio hosts – reminds us all not only of the generation gap and differences in our cultural context, but the pace of change in today's world. This year's study calls out sixty points of reference that the typical 18-year-old, born in 1990, takes for granted. These include:

• Universal Studios has always offered an alternative to Disneyland in Orlando.
• The Tonight Show has always been hosted by Jay Leno.
• Caller ID has always been available on phones.
• IBM has never made typewriters.

Had the Beloit study existed when I entered college, my elders would have likely been reminded that I never knew the country without a space program, had never listened to radio for anything but music, and automobiles always had air conditioning. In turn, upon turning 18, my son will have never known mobile phones without cameras, grasp the concept of a paper map, or have enjoyed music on anything larger than an iPod.

And forget the iconic Selectric… he won't even know IBM as a consumer brand.

The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce

This, from the New York Times:

"...nearby was Anton Zimin, 26, an advertising copywriter, who said he was quite familiar with (a recently deceased novelist, radical, and historian) but doubted that others in his generation were. He said people his age have lost touch with the struggles of their parents and grandparents.

"The problem is that now, it's all about consumption - this spirit that has engulfed everybody," Mr. Zimin said. "People prefer to consume everything, the simplest things, and the faster, the better."

The radical author to which the 26 year old refers is Solzhenitsyn. The consumerism he laments is not American, as the young copywriter is Russian. He speaks of the consumerism of Russia.

In this age of instant gratification and the global village of modern communication, what it took America to bring upon itself in 50 years of mass consumerism, Russia has done in half the time. In the dog years that technology offers, I figure they'll be mirroring our insurmountable national debt, credit crisis and housing crunch by next May. Sarcasm aside, there have always been those who looked to burgeoning economies abroad and spoke of the opportunities to be had there - and these still exist. Moreover, so do opportunities to do it better this time, correct old mistakes, and find new solutions. Unfortunately, between China's dismal environmental record and Russia's corruption, this opportunity may already passed for those countries' leaders, but not yet for the companies looking to build a better world there, and back here at home.