A major public relations body is calling on the industry to unite and banish "a preconceived notion of what PR professionals do" in the eyes of the public.
In a comment piece on The Drum today, Gerard F. Corbett, chair of the Public Relations Society of America, says the industry as a whole needs to better communicate what it actually does.
"For a profession on which businesses spend billions of dollars each year, there is remarkably little understanding of what we do," Corbett writes.
"In essence, we in PR admittedly have a PR challenge."
The PRSA is running a campaign called 'Public Relations Defined' (hashtag: #PRDefined) to start a dialogue and debate about what public relations is, what practitioners do, how they do it and who benefits from their services.
Corbett said: "The ultimate goal of this initiative is to develop an intuitive and universal, dictionary-like definition befitting the modern role and value of public relations.
"In order to appropriately and objectively quantify public relations’ value, we must have a simple, universal definition that distinctly encapsulates our work. Anything else will perpetuate the continuing confusion and misunderstanding that exists; much of it of our own making for overlooking the evolving role and nature of our work."
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In my career, it has been difficult to satisfy the demands/desires of each new VP or CEO that comes along because each of these business leaders has a very distinct view of what PR is and should do.
I have fairly broad view of PR being engaged in the dialog with key "publics" across the spectrum, helping create a better experience for each as well as for my own organization. Some of my superiors, however, have viewed PR as little more than a machine to generate press releases and obtain news coverage -- aka "free advertising."
Some VPs and CEOs have viewed PR my way; others just wanted the press release. It would be good to have a consistent understanding out there, especially in the halls of "marketing," about what PR is and does for an organization.
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