Pay-for-Performance PR...why, what, and how...or how not

One truth is not so self-evident…all PR firms are not created equal. This certainly goes for those of us in the profession dedicated to the proposition that charging by the hour might be appropriate for a hot masseuse, but probably not for public relations…and absolutely not for media relations. It seems the economic disaster of the last three months has once again turned attention within our profession toward something “unique,” something “new,” something almost “revolutionary”…pay-for-performance PR. Once more, a compensation model that has been practiced successfully by myself and a few others for almost two decades is being trotted out of the shadows into the bright sunlight by our own trade media as either the “answer” to reduced marketing budgets at best…or as a viable test at worst for companies willing to experiment. How To Get Good PR Without the Big Retainers

I recognize this happens every few years when the traditional big hourly retainer PR firms and their clients begin to feel the economic squeeze of constricting budgets, or heaven forbid, a pang of guilt. Ok…the guilt thing is way overrated.

And with this renewed focus on pay-for-performance PR, comes the usual confusion as to what it is, who does it, and most importantly how do you go about selecting a firm should you decide it’s your path. Here are some thoughts from those two decades…

Pay-for-performance PR goes by many names….”pay-for-results,” ”incentive-based compensation,” “contingency-based,” and the most unglamorous, “pay-for-play”…but all are intended to describe PR firms that utilize a compensation system where the majority of their charges are based upon successful media placements or completion of actual designated services, i.e., speaking engagement, etc….and not by hourly fees or large retainers based on such fees. Some may offer some combination of hourly fees and/or retainers depending on the PR services being requested. However almost always the media outreach portion is performance based. One of the most common misunderstandings about pay-for-performance PR is that it is some how “cheaper” than under a traditional compensation model. Not necessarily. Over the long run of several months or years, a client may pay close to the same number of dollars, but the difference will be that each one of them will be attributable to a specific tangible result…not wasted effort.

And in spite of the old-fashioned basic fairness of this compensation structure, only a few PR firms practice it on a regular basis…and only a very few have practiced it successfully over a long period of time for all of their clients. Some large traditional PR firms have experimented with “pay-for-performance” for short periods or have tried to pass off the hourly/retainer model under its guise but seldom with any long-term success. The most common reason for failure lies in the fact that it is the antithesis of an ingrained compensation culture based on charging for the abstract “consulting” and “effort” rather than for a tangible something.

So, if there is only a small percentage of PR firms practicing legitimate pay-for-performance PR, how do you know which will best serve your needs as a client. Here are several pointers…

• Do a search for “Pay-for-Performance PR” on the Internet and review their web sites. Then contact the principle of the firm directly, discuss your particular PR needs, and their experience with similar challenges. 

• Do not hire a PR firm strictly online no matter what inducements may be offered. You can’t go “cheap” by filling out detailed PR or media needs online and expect any real level of successful service. Successful PR placements are the result of a collaborative process between the client and the agency…not a questionnaire. 

• If still interested, ask for a detailed written statement of the PR firm’s compensation structure and how their fees are determined. It is fair and appropriate to discuss budget and estimated potential charges at this point, but understand that under pay-for-performance compensation, the good news is that budget ceilings may not always be achieved. 

• Be leery of bundled pricing. Ask to see what’s in the “bundle” and that you’re paying for what meets your needs, not the agency’s.

• Make sure that compensation is based on real “performance” based on the successful publication, broadcast, or posting of your story…not just the “setting up of an interview opportunity at a specified date and time.” Make your agency deliver the actual placement…along with its invoice.

• And always make sure you’re willing to work with the agency as a team whichever PR firm you select…i.e., check the chemistry, not just their experience. As mentioned previously, successful PR is a collaborative process based on trust, responsiveness, and teamwork. And oh…patience.
  

Embargos, exclusives, and suck-ups, oh my ...

Once in the land of blogs nestled in the valley of silicon lived a large man, Sir Arrington of TechCrunch, with a small pen that grew to believe through haze of smoke and the magnification of many mirrors that his pen was mightier and more powerful than all the inhabitants of the valley…and indeed of all those that came to visit his words posted along the great highway. That with a single keystroke of his instrument, he had the power to create immense wealth or almost instant demise. Those that lived within the boundaries of this great highway, which seemed to both begin and end at times in the valley of silicon, catered to and feared this man’s pen and its perceived power. They sent personal emissaries to bid for the man’s even slightest attention and brief acknowledgement…begging for his positive notice in return for knowledge that he alone would receive.

But alas, one day in a fit of pique and after a multitude of emissary encroachments upon his personal lair, all promising special knowledge in return for his favors, the great man bellowed from his mountaintop, “ENOUGH! No More!” “I have all the knowledge I need or could ever use. I am tired from sycophants clawing at my feet, promising special knowledge in return for me holding my great and powerful pen even a second longer than I must.” Death to the Embargo

And the emissaries grew frightened. Even though there were other pens in the valley of silicon and elsewhere along the great highway, none were perceived to produce such wealth or harm as that held by Sir Arrington. As emissaries and devoted sycophants to their masters whose lives depended upon the bounties grown along the great highway; and whose riches depended upon having these bounties acknowledged through the written word, they knew not what to do?

In a great vision however, it came to them on how to please both their masters as well as the great Sir Arrington…do what we have always done…only more so. Self-flagellation to begin….acknowledge the error of their ways and the wisdom of the great man for bringing it forth. Beg for forgiveness and promise to ferret out the severe offenders and offer them as sacrifices. And of course, charge mightily by the hour… TechCrunch Kills The Embargo, But PR Holds the Smoking Gun



And a great peace fell across the land of blogs and a sigh was heard across the valley of silicon.

To be, or not to be…a flack. That is the question.

One of the sad side effects of this current recession is that traditional media in both print and broadcast are cutting editorial staffs in record numbers creating an influx of highly qualified and trained journalists on the street. Last week many of these journalists were reporting on the growing unemployment numbers and now they’ve joined them. Some are shifting their talents online…some are finding income as freelance writers, and some are dropping out entirely in hopes of finding more secure professions. But many, heaven forbid, are debating whether to join what they have always jokingly called, ‘the dark side’…public relations. A field, in their minds, infested by those who simply don’t get it…”flacks.” As expressed by Rob Walker, a New York Times columnist in his recent blogpost PR Corner:Tragedy as hook

And others… B.L. Ochman's blogpost

I for one, welcome these dispossessed journalists not as the elitists they might have once been, but as brothers and sisters that frankly we in the established PR world, need as much as they need jobs. The very thing that Walker complains about is the very thing that good journalists bring to PR…an inside understanding and empathy of what makes the media work…what makes a story compelling and why…and most importantly, how to persuade the media gatekeepers to listen. Or as we say around INK, “to make our client’s story the most interesting one that an editor will hear that day.”

That is not to say that all journalists have the skill or temperament that transfer well to pitching stories as opposed to writing them. Many will fail because of a lack of this skill set and because they simply cannot adjust to the creative demands and pressures of client expectations. In general however, good journalists, those I describe as good news people with an instinct for news, are extremely valuable and welcome.

But what of this question of name calling…i.e., flack. Is it really necessary and is it really so bad? According to Merriam-Webster, maybe not. Flack “One who provides publicity: as in press agent: an agent employed to establish and maintain good public relations through publicity.”

Doesn’t sound quite so ominous put that way, does it?

Peter Himler, a respected long–time pro in the PR profession actually titles his blog post, The Flack. Personally I am not a big fan of this tag, but it is what it is. By sharing best practices and exposing ethical lapses, it is my hope that "the flack" will follow "the hack" into semantic oblivion.”

Those remaining reporters and news directors that complain the most about PR people being “flacks” and not worthy of their time or even email acceptability, had best be cautious and perhaps a bit more respectful. That pitch which you just rejected out-of-hand might well be coming from a former colleague that used to reside in that empty cube next door.

From Tolstoy to Twitter…short form reporting.

Where have all the words gone…long time passing.

My apologies to Bob Dylan, but in listening recently to his anthem to the Sixties, I was reminded how differently we communicate today than when I began in the PR business. No, not quite in the era of the famous Russian novelist, but yes, in the same days Dylan was still acoustic. And contrary to many of my generation, I’m thinking in general, it’s a good thing. I agree it would be hard to imagine “War and Peace” rendered down to 160 characters (letters not people), and not nearly as enjoyable for a long winter read. Some things do continue to be best communicated in the long form as I’ve mentioned in previous blogs.

But when it comes to reporting breaking news, and breaking it fast to a global audience, even if in 140 characters, news organizations have new competition from the general citizenry as reported in Sunday’s NY Times coverage of the attacks in Mumbai. “At the peak of the violence, more than one message per second with the word “Mumbai” in it was being posted onto Twitter, a short-message service that has evolved from an oddity to a full-fledged news platform in just two years.”

It’s not just the news organizations that need to fear being replaced by Joe and Jane average citizen with a cell phone and a quick dexterity, it’s also the PR practitioners that feed them. We’d better learn to not only understand the new technology of communication, but the new short form reporting it demands of us. Communicating shorter doesn’t have to mean ‘pigeon or license plate English.’ It means being more concise and succinct while still being literate. It might be as simple as sparing us all the gratuitousness and jargon; and just telling something straight and honestly. No, not eliminating entirely that which makes the English language so beautiful in its description and imagery, but to simply cut out the superfluous and proselytizing…to inform and not to sell. One of my favorite scenes in the movie, “A River Runs Through It” is where the father in teaching his son to write, admonishes him to halve in length the essay he is proudly shown…then to halve it yet again until it is its most succinct and powerful in its impact.

But perhaps the best example of a communication where less is more is the Gettysburg Address. President Lincoln was actually not the featured speaker on that cold November day; and asked only to say a few words prior to a gentleman named Edward Everett giving the main speech. Lincoln spoke for approximately two minutes and said exactly 238 words. Everett spoke for two hours and rambled off thirty-nine thousand words…enough said…truly, enough said.

The lesson of short form reporting and choosing one’s words carefully could never be more important than in this time of a shrinking economy and the shrinking number of traditional news outlets along side the proliferation of online outlets where brevity is at a premium. And while I disagree that “what are you doing now?” is reason enough to take someone’s valuable time, it’s obvious these new communication tools are now being used in far more important journalistic ways as well. If all business and world leaders currently communicating the mundane on Twitter can convince their PR departments and themselves to be as succinct and honest in communicating to the general public as the general public is in communication with each other, what a powerful impact it might have…maybe not for the ages, but at least for the passing.

The lost art of story telling…

I couldn’t help but be struck by Stuart Elliott’s column in the New York Times The Power of Storytelling

“TELL to sell,” once a mantra on Madison Avenue, is making a comeback as marketers seek to engage consumers with compelling stories rather than peddle products in hit-and-run fashion with interruptive advertising like 30-second commercials…”

Having spent considerable career time (as well as a chunk of my hard earned dollars) in advertising, I am hesitant to be overly critical of my brothers and sisters on the ad-side. But the idea that consumers can be engaged through compelling story telling needs to be rediscovered, tells volumes about how far advertising has drifted from it’s origins…and how distinct it’s become from public relations. If in fact, the advertising industry is resurrecting the soft tell rather than the hard sell, I applaud it; and welcome the change certainly as a consumer and as a promotional partner.

Truthfully however, I’m not entirely sure that PR, where the good and interesting telling of a client’s story went to flourish when the ad-side abandoned it for the “interruptive 15 to 30-second blaring spot,” hasn’t also drifted from a good tale to a snappy press release or email subject line. Now, we write press releases and media alerts with precisely crafted message points and hyperlinks to maximize and optimize a web site. Yeah, ok, so…where’s the story? Just because the media as well as it’s audience’s attention spans have been reduced through a generation of MTV edits, doesn’t mean that there is any less need for a tale to be told. Something with a beginning, a middle, an end…a problem, a discovery, and a solution…all told with languid embellishments or compressed to bare essentials, but with intelligence and irony intact, for the new generation of listeners and readers…i.e., a story.

We in the PR business had better get back to it. It would be sad to let the ad guys beat us at our own game… one we should be so much better suited for, considering that the best of our breed come from the news business where truth has always been stranger and more interesting than fiction or the puffery passed as “strategic messaging.” Plus, we grew and advanced our careers not on snappy jingles or two word billboards, but on knowing how to recognize a great story as well as tell it…with all its tension, controversy, irony, pathos, and humor intact. Try packing all that in to your next media alert or 30-second spot.

Our clients all desire to see their name and message become ‘viral’ or to be old fashioned, to have ‘legs.’ What better way than to wrap them in a good tale…told with passion, integrity, and maybe even a hyperlink or two.

Failure is divine and good for the mind…

To paraphrase Ol’ Blue Eyes… “When I was twenty-one, it was a very good year…” It was actually at twenty-three, but why hassle a year or two when you’re young and naïve. Fresh out of school with a graduate degree, a beautiful young family, a dream PR job in New York, and an unlimited future laid out before me...and most important, an attitude of nothing but success. Failure? Not in my world. No way. Businesses didn’t fail. Marriages didn’t fail. And certainly, personal failure (as in getting fired) was not even a passing thought. Failure was for losers…and to be shunned and buried.

But to paraphrase, with literary license, Bob Seger…”I’m glad I know now, what I didn’t know then…” As is well documented in today’s economy, businesses do fail, half of all marriages crumble, and people in this industry do get fired, usually more than once. Thank goodness and probably for good reason.

Whoa…before I alienate all the ‘invest in success’ do-gooders out there... I’m not denigrating nor ignoring the pain; or even that much failure could have been avoided with additional diligence or effort. But if I have learned nothing else in my forty years it’s that failure can and should be a precursor to success. I once worked with an extremely successful and wealthy technology entrepreneur that claimed in a Business Week interview that he had won big and lost big in business twice before his latest climb to the top. I had another client from a wealthy background that ended up on the street, homeless and an addict, before making a twenty-year rise to greatness… economically and personally. Most importantly, both these individuals state categorically, they will not hire nor invest in anyone that has not tasted failure. That “failures” ought to be a line item on any resume worth their time to review. For it is failure that tests us in ways not imagined nor taught. Failure teaches and corrects and fills in the unimagined blanks of our youth. Failure is painful and it’s from that pain that learning and change comes, but it should never be dehabilitating. If you’ve never failed, you’ve never been tested. And if you’ve never been tested, how can you grow.

Yes, there are those that seem to always get it right the first time. People that that seem to have the Midas touch in their business life or in their personal life. Someone with a life too good to be true…a well-suited career, great well-behaved kids, a loving devoted life-mate, loyal forgiving friends, a knack for being in just the right time and place for life’s twisting rope of fate to swing in front of them exactly when needed most to lift them from peril.

Don’t waste time envying them… Rather, wish them well and push on down the road you’ve been traveling… the one with the potholes and hazard signs… and that next great growth opportunity around the corner.

Boldness in the time of shrinking violets…

One of the great ironies of the business world is that when times become economically difficult and great voices of leadership are needed the most; the weak tend to withdraw and complain, the mild hesitate, and even the strong tend to go silent. And to add to the irony as this silence becomes more pronounced, it’s compounded by a rush to abdicate operational leadership to those least likely to have long term vision…the internal accounting and legal naysayers to which risk is the most profane of four-letter words. And risk tied to spending on (everyone whisper now)…. PR or advertising is close to sacrilegious.

Let me be clear in this time of crashing stocks, bankrupt auto companies, and failed political campaigns…risk is not inherently bad, evil or profane. Stupid, ill-conceived, and scurrilous risk is…and those that practice it are stupid at best and criminal at worst. But don’t get me wrong. The virtues of caution and hesitancy are well documented and do have a place in a successful enterprise. Our most recent presidential election, for example, where ‘gotcha’ politics could have spelled instant disaster. But even here, I think we pined on both sides for a little more bold, straight talk and a little less circumvention and caution.

But fortunately, we’re in business and not politics; where we hopefully try to appeal to the highest common denominator of our customers and stakeholders and not the lowest. Doesn’t it just make sense then, that when the economics of natural selection begin to dictate fewer and quieter voices in the marketplace, that those that have great products and services needed to move the economy forward, and a positive story to tell, be allowed to tell it…loudly and boldly? Instead, those companies both well-established and just emerging go silent because of a myopic but frequently held view internally, that the first place to cut spending is on those line items that will be the most important for its survival in the long run. Huh?

We have a real live crisis going on in this economy and in our free markets. If you’ve made it this far and haven’t been wiped out or reduced to the point of mere survival, this is not the time to abdicate operational responsibility to timid accounting and legal naysayers preaching the mantra that by pulling back you’re actually moving forward.

This is absolutely the best and most opportune of times to be shouting and preaching, and getting your message out. That is not risk no matter how you spell it and no matter who tells you. Your company can achieve a double positive hit in doing so…. because the channel is less crowded, the message content will be clearer; and bonus points earned with your audiences for bold action rather than timidity.

Change is a five-letter word…

As most of my friends and co-workers would acknowledge, change is not something that comes easily for me. Evolutionary rather than revolutionary decision-making, overly optimistic assessments of the status quo, and every so often a periodic anger based knee-jerk reaction …yes. I always have thought that if six decades of life experiences and forty years of being in an industry steeped in subjective analysis taught me anything, it’s that indeed, the more things change, the more they do stay remarkably the same. I believe however, it’s time that I changed my mind.

So what’s different now? Not the world…not the business cycles of bust and boom and bust again…and not one more presidential election. Rather I’ve come to that realization as probably everyone eventually does, but not everyone admits, that there is a time when younger minds translate to fresher minds and that translates to fresh approaches to the some of the same old problems…and some new ones. And even if the approaches may not always be unique, often the tactical execution of these approaches will be.

This, I believe, is just such a seminal time. A moment when we, once known as the ‘young turks’ of our generation, recognize a changing of the guard, and begin looking forward and not behind. A moment when the wisdom of experience not necessarily always be translated into tactical execution, but rather into counsel and advice to point the direction only and not demand leadership. A time to acknowledge that there are new solutions; or at minimum, new creative thinking not tainted by that old clichéd adage repeated above.

It’s time to let a new generation take their whack at running this country and move it forward on the high end. That’s not going to be easy, smooth or quick so all the more reason to get on with it while the rest of us older and wiser turks get back to making sure the base foundation is secure for them to do so. We’re not going anywhere and we’re not disappearing…at least not yet. We can teach, demonstrate, bestow, and maybe even inspire this new generation of leaders about accountability, about fairness, about compassion…and about making tough, hard and often unpopular decisions when optimism and freshness isn’t always enough.

Alas, the more things change, the more they stay remarkably the same.

Feeding the beast with our tax dollars…

A story broke in the PR trades this week that much criticized insurance giant, AIG, had decided that public relations was a better way to spend it’s money considering its current position of being between a rock and a hard place...

NEW YORK: Embattled insurance company, American International Group (AIG), has retained Burson-Marsteller for PR services. In doing so, it suspended corporate advertising and other paid outreach efforts to offset the cost, PRWeek has learned. Earlier this month, Bloomberg quoted an e-mail between AIG spokesman Nicholas Ashooh and George Sard, CEO of Sard Verbinnen, discussing the possibility of placing ads to explain why AIG was planning a company conference at a California Ritz-Carlton resort.

The New York Post estimated the amount to be paid to Burson-Marsteller at between $100,000 and $200,000 per month. Those are our tax dollars, friend. But blessed be the wise, the company was doing so because it was feeling under a little pressure because of the recent criticisms…

“To spend the taxpayer's money on an expensive ad campaign to apologize for how you used taxpayer money leaves you open to further attacks,” Bloomberg quoted from Sard's e-mail. In September, the Federal Reserve loaned AIG $85 billion; the company received an additional $37.8 billion earlier this month. Some members of Congress had criticized an AIG event that took place after the company received government help. Most recently, AIG was criticized for steep executive payouts , but the company announced on October 22 that the payouts, which included $19 million to its former chief executive Martin Sullivan, were suspended. And last week, AIG agreed to suspend all junkets and perks not justified by legitimate business needs.

An associate of mine here at INK inc. determined that this new PR “defensive” works out to approximately $10,000 per work day…$1,250 per hour. Nice work if you can get it. Even by any of the giant monolithic PR firms’ compensation standards, that’s a healthy hourly fee. Having worked for several of these large firms during my 37-year career, including the recipient of this particular largeness, one can assume that chances are high that the majority of the fee will go against the writing and disseminating of self-serving press releases as a “response to the high volume of requests for information from the media, etc.” Not exactly what I would call a great trade-off for the millions in advertising dollars they were spending on the same message. A press release has little more credibility than an expensive wordy ad unless the news media buys into it. And the likelihood of responsible journalists, who also happen to be taxpayers, doing that is zero to none.

Hey AIG, I have a wild and perhaps even blasphemous suggestion coming from a life-long PR professional… and it won’t cost you a dime. Just cool it for a while, and get back to work for your millions of customers first and your shareholders second. Show some common sense, restraint…and honesty in your dealings with the American public and the news media…not more wasteful spending of our tax dollars on PR consultants.

Chicken Little never had it so good.

Is it over? Is Armageddon finally upon us? Is the ‘free ride’ that so many of the media pundits describe as the last ten to fifteen years screeching to halt, and from here on we’re all going to have to pay for our indulgences, and pay big time? Jim Cramer, that great prognosticator of financial wisdom and wannabe business TV-star, has been all over the financial media this last week touting his doom and gloom “sell” scenario…and of course, his own shaman-like power of warning of the market downturn. And Cramer unfortunately, is not alone. Chicken Little himself would be crushed as road kill as all of those that were first to lead the charge into the irresponsible behavior now turn backward in their clarion call of retreat.

Where Mr. Cramer and his new doom and gloom buddies and I disagree is…”what free ride?” Maybe the pendulum will swing dramatically for those that were actually sitting very high in stock ownership, compensation and lifestyle over the last fifteen years, manipulating their finances like a game of cards. But for the vast majority of Americans, the rest of us that were working and not hedge betting for a living, there has been no ‘free ride.’ (No, I’m not referring to the mythical “Main Street” versus “Wall Street” misnomers of the political campaigns.) We’ve been paying our bills, paying our taxes, letting our 401-K’s ride, and not buying a second or third home as a quick rollover investment. Yes, we’ve taken some equity out of our homes to handle an emergency or tuition increase, or even some improvements…. and, we’ve probably bought a thing or two foolishly now and then.

None of which I call a free ride. More importantly, we’re used to sucking it in and tightening up periodically…even over the last fifteen years. As an independent PR firm we’ve seen budgets dwindle and client losses more than once. But we continued to serve our existing clients because more than anything they needed it then more than ever, even while we were laying off employees, and skipping paychecks. But we didn’t panic. We didn’t cash in 401-K’s, sell stocks, or switch banks. We managed. We worked. We survived. We grew.

Some might call it the “glad game” (from those of you that remember “Pollyanna.”) Some like Mr. Cramer might even call it foolish. But I’ve never understood how negativity and panic produced anything other than more negativity and panic. Here’s a drastic suggestion from someone in the PR business…maybe it’s time to turn off the news and count the things we have to be ‘glad about.’

We’ve lost our ‘why’ in a perfect storm.

So, what are we to make of this last thirty-day news cycle? The American people (indeed the world, considering the impact of both our economy and politics on everything global) are under media assault from the worst economic crisis in three-quarters of a century; and a presidential election that becomes more tumultuous and surreal almost by the hour. And that, more than anything, is what is driving this relentless barrage of changing news stories…the fact that both these stories have no staticticity. They are constantly evolving and changing shape, almost on an hourly basis. It’s a freefall news cycle. There is no time for deep analysis. No time for ‘why’…just ’what.’ We the consumers, the savers, the investors, the makers and the doers, and the voters, let alone the pundits and serious journalists, are left to watch with concern and even fright from the sidelines without the benefit of understanding. And without understanding, there is no sense of control. And without any sense of control, there is panic. Which then, ironically, becomes the third story of this news cycle…but still with more ‘what’ and very little ‘why.’

Something else is contributing to this news cycle of vertigo, the multiplicity and competitiveness of the modern media world itself. This is probably the greatest irony of all. There is no shelter any more from the news…that is, being told ‘what’ is going on and even opinions about the ‘what.’ While the printed page may be shrinking and even disappearing at times in this technology-based world, media sources have vastly expanded through broadcast outlets, the Internet, and now Web 2.0 social networks by the thousands. The choices have become infinite. The noise has become deafening. The competitive “gotcha” factor all-pervasive. It’s often who is first to tell the ‘what’ and not whether is been verified or not. The average connected citizen is bombarded with hundreds of reporting’s (true and untrue) and millions of opinions from all directions.

Thus, a perfect storm of an unpredicted and unprecedented news cycle of ever-tumultuous economics, politics, and panic…coupled with a multitude of sources of quickly assembled information, is hovering over us. The result is really frightening with a whole lot of ‘what’ and not much ‘why’ to give us comfort as the sky darkens.

However, being the optimist I am as well as old enough to know that news cycles are just that, cyclical, I recognize this time will indeed pass. And while we cannot necessarily alter events out of our immediate control, we can work toward better and more accurate, in-depth communications even as we expand our means of communicating. Sometimes less can be more; and less ‘what’ and more ‘why’ and even ‘why not’ can ease our journey through a crazed news cycle reporting on a crazed time.

Back to basics: how a financial crisis is good for business

I love recessions. They bring out the absolute best and worst in people and in business. When the economy slows, which invariably does after we have had a delightful run of greed on both Wall Street and Main Street…old terms with new political meanings we will explore in more depth in a later blog…life becomes much simpler. The choices become much more clear, and the consequences of those choices, much stricter. Marketing and PR budgets become leaner and decisions therein must demonstrate value and accountability. Wow! Really?…amazing concepts that have traditionally received plenty of lip service but little action at the height of a burgeoning economy; but now, oh my, are the cornerstones of every recessionary decision. And just how do companies and organizations define and measure value and accountability; and do these definitions change depending on the prevailing economic wind? While of course never overtly stated, they often do. Marketing and PR dollars spent against internal research and audits, strategic positioning, message development, et al, are highest during flush times. They provide an excellent way to spend money and reinforce the importance, the very value, of the synergy between bloated internal PR departments and bloated PR agencies…the very reason for their mutually dependent existence. Alas, with tough times and the shrinking of budgets, value turns more to accountability (not synergy nor size) and metrics not abstract concepts.

It’s almost a cliché that during an economic downturn, we return to those simple, most basic, tested vehicles of commerce. Flat-rate mortgages, not ARM’s, more cash, less credit, personal relationships, not virtual reality, and in the world of PR, positive publicity, not another meeting, lunch, or audit. What a concept…real measurable results against predetermined goals. But what if you went one step further and created a compensation model based on only being paid if this positive publicity actually appeared…not just that it is “in process” or an interview had been completed, but actually had been broadcast or published? Now we’ve really returned to a simple, most basic tenet of commerce…being paid for actually accomplishing a measurable result. Wow…now we’re edging close to revolutionary. But if paying for results-only PR catches on, what’s to happen to all those bloated internal PR departments and bloated PR agencies? Not to worry. Although it would benefit us all if they went the way of the subprime mortgage, unfortunately like these real estate derivatives, bloated PR will rise again like the cycle of greed that fosters it.