It was just about three years ago that I listened to a digital guru (dressed in all black, of course) predict that public relations would be dead by now. He went on to state that, unless PR professionals immediately transformed themselves into digital gurus, they would either end up as Wal-Mart greeters or baristas at Starbucks.

Well, a funny thing happened on the way to the cemetery. PR didn’t die. In fact, it not only survived, PR thrived. Today many industry pundits and gurus see public relations as THE dominant marketing discipline.

The reason is something so obvious that it’s eluded countless, nattering nabobs of negativity such as the guru mentioned above. The most sophisticated programs, dashboards and automation are useless if they exclude the need for basic human interaction and, critically, great storytelling.

Two recent articles in the marketing and PR trade press illustrate the point.

Marketing Dive reported that Keith Weed, the long-time chief marketing officer of Unilever is retiring AND the corporation may retire the CMO title along with the high profile executive.

I’ll let you peruse the entire article, but here are some key takeaways:

• “Recent history shows the move away from the CMO role is not beyond the pale, even for organizations that have built a reputation around the quality of their brands and advertising. Coca-Cola got rid of its CMO title in 2017.”
• “The CMO role for many organizations does not necessarily go away, but rather, gets reshaped, with the ‘M’ sometimes losing relevance based on industry trends.”
• “Unilever’s…course of action will almost certainly reverberate across the industry and light a fire for many marketers looking to preserve the relevance of their job.”

In other words, paid content alone, driven by digital and data, isn’t making the cash register ring fast enough. And CMO’s (and their function) are being replaced faster than White House appointees.

Now let’s pivot to a recent PR Week piece that featured the subhead, “Earned media still reigns supreme in the complex communications industry as overall revenue continues its upward trajectory.”

Here’s a link to the entire article.

Allow me to lift a few quotes:

• “There’s no doubt earned media is at the heart of an ever increasing number of campaigns, whether they’re overseen by advertising, media, digital or PR firms.”
• “Look at the work honored each year at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity…..most relied on earned media.”
• “Paid should be the support element. Ogilvy PR doesn’t exist anymore, neither does MSL. It’s (just plain) Ogilvy.. They’re (the advertising & digital services) coming to us,” said Richard Edelman.

The self-proclaimed digital prophet who extolled the limitless future of data and technology completely overlooked our basic human need to tell, and listen to, interesting, educational and exciting storytelling (read: PR).

The other problem I had with the faux prognosticator sporting black shoes, pants and shirt and warning an audience of PR professionals in 2016 that they’d soon be lucky to earn a minimum wage was his recklessness. He hurt people, made them rethink the path they’d carefully chosen and has been held unaccountable for his misdeeds.

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