What Is PR, Again

Are we having this discussion again, all over again? You know, the one where we redefine PR. Is this a sign our profession continues to have an identity crisis? You decide.

The Public Relations Society of America has been working through a process to redefine public relations. In the organization’s latest post, Candidates for a Modern Definition of Public Relations, we are given three, new, modernized versions of our profession. (I italicize modernized to be snarky because the following proposed definitions are far from that.) Okay, here they are:

Public relations is the management function of researching, engaging, communicating, and collaborating with stakeholders in an ethical manner to build mutually beneficial relationships and achieve results.
Public relations is a strategic communication process that develops and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their key publics.
Public relations is the engagement between organizations and individuals to achieve mutual understanding and realize strategic goals.

Well, I have a problem with all of these definitions. Yes, we know public relations is a management function. Yes, we know it is there to build mutually beneficial relationships and achieve results. Yes, we know it is a strategic communication process. And, yes, we know it’s design is toward realizing strategic goals and achieving results.

Here’s the problem. There’s nothing new about these definitions! They are written without any creative thought. (Seriously, words like management function, and strategic communication process, ooze lifeless corporate-speak. BARF!) And they don’t persevere toward the core value of a public relations professional.

We build community. And we build that to cultivate fellowship around a brand. These work hand-in-hand toward a larger goal that should be much bigger than the bottom line and much more important than the people involved. A better definition of public relations might read something like this:

Public relations nurtures community and fellowship between brands and people, which is larger than the bottom line and more significant than the people involved.

I’d like to open this for debate. What is your definition of PR? Should it excite those affected and speak to the core value of the profession, instead of regurgitating list-less, lifeless strings of corporate speak that say nothing new. Please share your comments below and retweet to your colleagues.

http://www.3hatscommunications.com/blog/ davinabrewer

These are very generic and bland sounding Rodger, and while I don’t want to see PR defined just against what it’s not (advertising, direct marketing, marcomm) I’d still prefer something that’s clearer about what it is, entails and and what it isn’t. I didn’t submit one, but these aren’t anything ‘new’ or more clear.

As for modern, I don’t see anything in here about integration, any references to digital and most importantly, what it’s all about: communication for business. “Achieve results” and “realize strategic goals” .. about what exactly? No I’m not subjugating PR under Marketing, but I can’t ignore that fact that any such endeavor is about serving the company’s business goals, not just the communications ones. FWIW.
Anonymous

Davina, thanks for weighing in. I understand your point about the lack of any reference to digital, social, or online communication in the definitions PRSA is putting out there for discussion.

But I don’t think that’s at the heart of what we do. The heart is community building between organizations and the people an organizations impacts.

I’d like to see PRSA executive dig deeper to the core of what we do.

http://twitter.com/helenabouchez Helena Bouchez

For one, I think the label “public relations” is constraining and rife with negative connotations. Maybe it just needs to be retired. But more problematic is that the PRSA is about to have a PR problem, because evidence is mounting that an organization composed of communicators can’t seem to figure out how to clearly articulate its value to business. To get this right, the organization needs to back up and figure out its strategic story and then communications efforts (including the skills of members) to get that message out. (Most organizations need help with this because they’re too close to it to see the bigger picture.) Crowd sourcing a new “definition” and slapping it onto a mousepad, isn’t going help the profession move forward, in fact the way it’s playing out, it may do just the opposite.

http://practicallynothing.wordpress.com/ Kenneth Lam

The term “PR” has been so misunderstood and misused for so long that most of us are so tired of defining it. While it is suppose to be a high level strategic function, most only see the tactical uses of it.

Years ago, I met someone who asked “So how many lunches must I buy a journalist before they will write about my product?”

Well, at the agency, we later defined PR as “anything under the sun that the client does not want to do for themselves.”

Jokes aside, I agree that the industry should drop the PR jargon when defining the function.
http://www.tracecohen.me/ Trace Cohen

We are in the bridge building business to create understanding for a complex world. Another way of reiterating all three definitions.

As much as I want to add social media to the definition, I agree that no all PR professionals engage in it and it is just another form of communication and community building, which is already covered.

Unfortunately as we do live in a 2.0 world now, resorting to an “old school” sounding definition is not going to cut it. I think the PRSA is going to have a little bit of a crisis on their hands for attempting this.

Anonymous

On the crisis for PRSA, I agree. I do like your metaphor of bridge building. Very descriptive. One point I’d like to add is that a definition must be descriptive for it to be effective. Bridge building brings us closer to that. And it ties nicely with community and fellowship.

Thanks for weighing in.

http://www.tracecohen.me/ Trace Cohen

Thanks for the response. Bridge Building is the way that my father always described it because as much as we want to build “relations” with the writer, these days you’re one in a million “friends” they have. The idea of bridge building also implies the idea of process, strategy and ultimately bridging the gap and getting across it.

In PR, we are all about the truth well told and these definitions are on the safe side because they are board and all encompassing. If you took out “Public Relations” and put in a fill-in-the-blank, there are a lot of other words that would fit this definition. Almost there!

http://twitter.com/MyCreativeTeam Harry Hoover

Rodger, my definition of PR has always been short and sweet:
PR is the management and development of relationships with any group that can materially affect your organization. That being said, I do like the addition of community and fellowship that you have brought into the definition.

Anonymous

Thank Harry. I like your definition too. Yours is direct.

http://twitter.com/Chris_Bass_ Chris Bass

Hi Rodger,

As one of my mentors told me you don’t really have a strategy until you define what your not going to do. The definitions given remind me of this great lesson. One of the age old things CEOs, CFOs, etc., are interested in are initiatives that help create consistent and reliable growth for the organization. This is the crisis of all agencies today whether PR or Advertising or whatever they are calling themselves. 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. In the end what difference does the definition make? PRSA gets to feel better about itself? Feels like folks are getting caught up in their own mess and playing to their egos. Forget the definition and define great PR work that gets measurable results. We’ll all be better off including the clients we serve.

Anonymous

You’re right. What we do defines what we are better than anything else. Action over words.

http://twitter.com/brittzyh Brittani Hensel

The problem with PR isn’t that we don’t know what it is. The running joke with this whole defnition debate involves “What do I tell my great Aunt Susie that I do when she asks? She won’t understand if I say I’m in PR.” My answer is always been “I build relationships in the media and give them content they want to know about”. Although very elementary, I think it has to be to help answer the question my great Aunt Susie wants to know. What to do you do all day? Fostering relationships doesn’t really answer her question.

Are we coming up with definitions because we don’t know what it is? No, we’re coming up with definitions because we don’t know how to describe it to people who don’t do public relations everyday.

I agree – the PRSA definitions thus far have been corporate, stuffy, and full of business jargon. But I think making it more abstract is worse. We’ll just be re-defining PR next year.

Anonymous

Thanks Brittani for weighing in.

Anonymous

There are lots of good thoughts here, Rodger, so I’m not sure how much I can add, but PR is such a broad title that any one sentence is simply not going to cover it all. While I agree that PRSA’s new attempts to redefine the term are all too stuffy and corporate, they are still an improvement on what they’ve been using and I particularly like the attempt to include “ethical” in the definition.

I’m in Harry’s camp, simple and direct. … PR is the ethical process of engaging people through varied communications to uphold or enhance reputation and achieve other positive, measurable results.
http://twitter.com/PRhoosier Amanda Dorman

Like someone mentioned, there is no one sentence that can sum up a definition of PR – since it can entail so much and work in so many ways depending on the field/interest. I do, however, love the definition offered here. It is the first definition that I’ve seen in quite some time that really “speaks” to me and isn’t filled with “jargon and fancy/generic words that can mean so many different things. For example, relationship building” and “development of relationships” are words often used when defining PR. But what do these phrases really mean? They are so broad and generic and could apply to so many fields! Rodger Johnson offers many great key words in a short and concise sentence that is neither too broad nor too narrow: nurturing, community, brands, people, larger than the bottom line. Bravo!

http://twitter.com/getsocialpr Rodger

Thanks Amanda for weighing in. Again, I believe definitions should be descriptive and bring clarity to those who need it most. As with others here, I firmly believe that a combination of good work and clear explanations that speak to the values of people defines PR more than corporate-speak and the PRSA ballyhoo.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_4BIRIYXPYZSWRTBVJINIEOWLPI Sascha

Rather than debating about a definition of what PR is – if have raised my voice over at the PRSA-Website – I would like to throw in a thought:

PR to me is the only communications discipline, which bears its end in the name not the means. We help to establish, maintain and develop public relations – between individuals, between corporations, organizations and professional bodies, and all thinkable constellations in this field.

Compare this with advertising, direct marketing, social media, etc. I would call this self-referential, to say the least.

I wasn´t surprised that my “definition” of PR, which I filled into the PRSA form was rejected, as it read “Public Relations publicly relate publics to publics to create public relations.” Sounds weird? It´s not, as I understand my task as a PR professional – in a sense of a modern communications management – to employ the strength of any communications to a clearly defineable end: the relation of my customer to its relevant publics.
http://twitter.com/Kelly_PR Kelly Vance

“We build community.” Yes. Seems to me that all PR practice supports this simple purpose. Well said.

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