As Judy states, marketing and public relations are related functions and they don’t tarnish each other when adequately addressed.

Personally I believe that public relations support marketing related objectives as much as they support corporate related objectives.
Both (marketing and corporate)can be good, bad or indifferent and our reputation can be weakened or strenghthend according to how, in each case, we perform.
So the buck comes back in our territory.

Sounds simple, but rational.

PR pros said to us, “You’re not only our friends, you’re family.” I personally went to a least 30 homes of PR people and knew their children and their children’s problems. They knew my children and often came to my house.

Big companies and agencies had numerous events throughout the year (breakfasts, dinners, cocktail parties, golf and tennis outings, etc.) at which PR people spent “quality time” with reporters. Holiday parties were numerous in New York. PR pros saw themselves as “salespeople” and followed the rule that the first sale of a salesperson must be him or herself. The object was to build trust. Trust meant nothing could happen at the PR person’s company or client without the reporter being told and reporters would not write about the company without first checking with the PR person.

In the last decade or two, PR pros have “disappeared.” Reporters rarely see them in person. All company lunches, breakfasts, etc., stopped. Even stray lunches stopped as PR people developed a great fear of even being seen with a reporter. Having friends in the press, once a goal of all PR pros, became career-threatening.

PR depts. lost the trust of the rest of the company. To prevent being seen as a leaker of company secrets, PR pros stopped seeing press altogether. PR is now mostly mechanized and made transactional and impersonal. PR is now like using an automatic teller at a bank or buying coffee from a machine. PR pros used to last decades in their jobs but now they are flipped every few years. Maybe management is afraid they’ll develop relationships.

In many cases the real duty of a PR is to protect and promote the CEO. The PR will advice the CEO, and if the CEO is in boiling water for some reason or another, the PR is sent out to the front to sell a half truth, at least a streamlined truth. And in these high times all the public focusses its attention on the CEO and sees the PR doing the best he can – but they know: he’s paid to say something nice. And in this moment a PR is being seen and realized by the public, in quite times a good PR isn’t noticed very much anyway.

Another duty of a PR is to maintain or establish good relations with certain interest groups. These interest groups know they will hear from the PR only that what the PR thinks is acceptable for them. So if they want to know the real Mc Coy they will definitely look for other information channels or terminals. So therefore PR per se isn’t authentic. That’s why people refer to e.g. Blogs, journalists etc. and not to PR issues.

To top it – there is a hidden reason why PR isn’t that much important in public opinion. A PR cannot decide because he has no budget to manage the company. A PR spreads only words, a CEO decides! And the PR is always being seen in conjunction with the decision makers.

First, I didn’t say that we should dump the term PR altogether like Kristen is referring to my comment. No, definitely we should stick to PR. Toni is right the words PUBLIC RELATIONS explain themselves. I just wanted to explain, if we think of the result of PR may be it is much more obvious how PR should be seen.

A farmer is farmer because he grows crops. Right! What does a PR professional grow? Reputation! Very simple. Markus would say that others also could claim that they are responsible for reputation. But this is like when I am growing some tomatoes in my garden. I can not say I am a farmer. We are professionals who grow reputation. We are doing it by relating. In our studies on reputation we see that trust is the main driver for reputation. Relating to the stakeholders is essential. There is almost no reputation without trust, at least no good reputation. Trust is built on relating.

We study our stakeholder’s expectations; we communicate our expectations to the stakeholders and we tell our organizations how to behave so that the stakeholders trust us. By doing so, we produce reputation. Reputation is the reservoir that activates the license to operate, the selling of products, the provision of good legislation, the performance of the share price, the interest of the smartest people to work for us and so on. This is like a water reservoir, like we have it in the mountains to produce electricity. Water is pumped up or is collected by the rain ore snow fall. In PR we communicate (pumping the water up) and we behave and collect the respect of the stakeholders. And reputation is raining on us. Some times we are standing in the rain. That is also part of the game.

I don’t’ worry how we name ourselves. If a group said, we call ourselves Seminar, and not PR Seminar any more. So what? My job title is head of communications. My colleague’s job title is head of legal department. But he is a in-house lawyer. So he is a lawyer. I am an in-house PR manager and my job title is head of communications.

There is another reason why I love to explain PR by its result reputation. You can measure reputation. You are getting figures and you are able to report that figures together with marketing figures. Doing this we are getting recognized. In our reputation model which we have developed with Prof. Diana Ingenhoff, (Diana has developed it, we helped) we do not only measure reputation, we also measure the impact of reputation on our most important stakeholders. (employees, customers, stock market, and politicians)
The bible tells us that you can only judge a tree by its fruit. For me the PR Tree is full of reputation.

I am a PR Professional ho helps my organization to be much more successful by managing the reputation and my job title is head of communications.

PR Seminar Drops “PR”
A committee of the elite private PR group headed in 2007 by Jon Iwata of IBM finds too few members have “PR” in their titles. The 55-year-old group is now, “The Seminar.”
Tues., Nov. 20

PR SEMINAR ABANDONS “PR”
A committee of PR Seminar, the annual gathering of heads of blue chip corporate PR depts. and about a dozen CEOs of major PR firms, has decided to rename the group as simply, “The Seminar.”
Founded in 1952 by corporate PR people who attended annual meetings of the National Assn. of Manufacturers, Seminar had retained “PR” in its title although most members had dropped it decades ago in favor of “corporate communications,” “public affairs,” etc.
Only one of the 33 new members of Seminar this year had a title with PR in it—Jane Garvey, VP, corporate communications & PR, Convergys, Cincinnati, $2.7 billion company that grew out of Cincinnati Bell.
Only five of the 42 new members in 2004 had “PR” as part of their titles.
A committee headed by 2007 Seminar chair Jon Iwata, senior VP, worldwide communications of IBM, did a survey earlier this year of titles used by members and also discussed the matter at length.
Sources said there was “heated discussion” on both sides but that the weight of evidence (the nearly complete abandonment of PR by members) proved decisive.
One topic of discussion was whether PR is a subset of corporate communications or vice versa. Some Seminarians argued that PR involves a number of activities that are not strictly communications and therefore, communications is a subset of PR.
Don’t Want “Relations with the Public”
Some PR veterans said the meaning of the switch is that many companies, and particularly the biggest ones, “simply don’t want relations with the public any more.”
They particularly don’t want relations with the press, others added.
Some educators worried that there will be fewer PR majors now that Seminar, whose members have the highest titles in corporate and agency PR and communications, have dropped the term. Corporate PR policy throughout the U.S. is heavily influenced by discussions among the members of Seminar both at the annual meeting and at sessions of the executive committee throughout the year. At one point, monthly meetings of the committee were held at the Harvard Club in New York. There is no press contact at Seminar to field questions.
Attempts to reach Iwata earlier this year and for this story were unsuccessful. Staffers will not provide his phone or e-mail.
With “marketing communications” in ascendancy, the current fashion is to aim “messages” at “target audiences” and subsets of the public such as employees, customers, potential customers, stockholders, retired employees, legislators, etc.
The audiences are further defined by age, gender, income, religion, status of health, geographical location and other demographics.
Effectiveness of messages aimed at the target audiences is measured as closely as possible to determine the impact of the messages on the “bottom line.”
Press relations has become defensive at many companies. Incoming calls are handled with great caution and outgoing press calls rarely initiated unless there is certainty that the corporate “message” will receive proper treatment.
Seminar Is Hush-Hush
Seminar’s four-day meetings, at many of the finest resorts in the U.S. (the Bacara Resort in Santa Barbara, Calif., was the scene of the 2007 meeting), are highly secretive. Members are warned that if they report any of the doings to the press they will be banned for life.
Paid speakers, including academics and those from major media such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Fortune, Forbes and Business Week, also swear not to write about Seminar. Corporate communications executives usually have control of the corporate ad budget.
With attendance of more than 300 (including spouses) upwards of $750,000 and more is spent on the meeting each year including registration costing several thousand dollars.
Page Continues to Use PR
Roger Bolton, president of The Arthur W. Page Society, said Page will continue to use the term “PR” and that he considers “corporate communications” to be part of PR.
PR, he said, not only involves communications but building relationships with various audiences. He noted that the chief principle of Page is “tell the truth.”
Page hosts on-the-record meetings at which reporters are invited and also publishes numerous studies and reports on PR-related topics (www.awpagesociety.com).
Tom Nicholson, executive director of Page, noted that only eight of the current 340 members of Page have PR as part of their titles.
Some don’t use PR because they are heads of PR firms or are academics, he noted.
Class of 2007 Listed
Seminar inducted 33 new members in 2007 including 19 women. Only five women were present at the 1969-70 meetings. During the 1960s and 1970s, fewer than ten new members were added each year. The high turnover today reflects high turnover in corporate CEOs.
Many members of Seminar also are members of Page and “The Wise Men,” a New York group of about 80 PR executives that was founded in 1938 by John Hill, founder of Hill & Knowlton. It conducts private meetings each month.
Joining Seminar in 2007 were:
Shelly Ann Bird, chief communications officer, NCR Corp.
Michael Busselen, VP, corporate communications, Solectron Corp.
Fred Cook, president and CEO, Golin Harris
Tim Cost, listed as with Aramark as XVP, corporate affairs, although he has left Aramark
Donna Cox, VP, comms., MeadWestvaco
Debra DeCourcy, VP-CC, Fifth Third Bank
Valerie DiMaria, Willis Group Holdings, London-based insurance brokerage
Frances Emerson, VP-CC, Deere
Kimberley Goode, VP-CC, Visteon
Mark Hess, CEO, Manning, Selvage & Lee
Denise Hill, VP-C, Quest Diagnostics
Kathleen Lawler, VP-C, Harley-Davidson
Mary Linder, SVP, corporate brand & communications, Northwest Airlines
Gerard Mauchner, director and VP-comms. & PA, Eastman Kodak Co.
Anne Nobles, VP, corp. affairs, Eili Lilly
Thomas Noland, SVP-CC, Humana
Helen Ostrowski, Global CEO, Porter Novelli
Andrew Polansky, pres., Weber Shandwick Worldwide
Bonnie Racquet, corp. VP, PA, Cargill
Steven Rautenberg, SVP, CC, NY Life Ins.
Chip Rouse, VP, U.S. comms., Sanofi-Aventis
D’Arcy Rudnay, VP-CC, Comcast Corp.
Robert Sherbin, VP, external comms., Hewlett-Packard Co.
John Spelich, VP-CC, Walt Disney Internet Group
Michael Stewart, dir., external rels., McKinsey
Jessica Stoltenberg, VP-CC, Wyeth
Mary Stutts, sr. dir., CC, Genentech
Daniel Tarman, mng. dir., CC, Countrywide
Loretta Ucelli, SVP-CC, Pfizer
Melissa Zorkin, pres., Waggener Edstrom Worldwide
Ann Marchant, CEO, Walker Merchant Group
Robert Wynn, VP, global CC, Oracle

Public relations and marketing work best together when they are recognized and treated as distinct but equal and complementary disciplines, recognizing one another’s purpose, strengths and skill set. That’s why I (respectfully) disagree with Andrew that we are in the marketing “business,” although some of the time I can (and do) work amicably with our marketing personnel and their defined publics, mainly strategic communication management and media relations. But they are certainly not the only area I work with, nor are my objectives limited to marketing ones.

I’m of the opinion that at least some of the blame rests with agencies that really focus on marcomm projects/clients billing themselves as PR agencies, thus muddying the waters of public opinion. And now you have the social media boutique agencies, wanting the whole enchilada. (LOL! Maybe they can eat an enchilada as they navel-gaze and evangelize into the hall of mirrors that is the blogosphere.)

Maybe we should just get used to the fact that we’re in the marketing business.

Maybe we just need to get over ourselves and our navel-gazing in the hall of mirrors that is the blogosphere.

After all, how many times do you hear marketing people complain that PR is messing up their public image?