PR folks must adapt or die!

By on August 10th, 2009 In Professional Development

A colleague sent me a link to a great Talk of the Nation interview with Bob Garfield, the host of NPR’s On The Media and author of the new book Chaos Scenario.

Garfield’s book is about the decline of the mass media and I’m definitely going to add it to my reading list. If the media is almost dead (and it’s hard to argue with that), this means the jobs of marketers and thus PR people is fundamentally changing. The interview in fact focuses on how marketing and PR is changing, but this excerpt from the book tells you all you need to know about what he thinks is going to happen to the media:

“Traditional media are in a stage of dire retrenchment as prelude to complete collapse. Newspapers, magazines and especially TV as we currently know them are fundamentally doomed…”

Many of the callers to the show discussed how they are using social media to market — I suppose I don’t have to preach to the loyal readers of Valley PR Blog about this. Essentially, it’s time to tweet or get off the pot! Either that, or go back to school to become a hair dresser.

You can listen to the entire 30 minute interview online and it’s well worth the time.

Comments

Linda VandeVrede Says:
August 10th, 2009 at 8:40 am

This kind of plays into the question/fear I’ve had all along – WHAT would I pursue if I couldn’t be in public relations? My career tests all proved I’m not very good with my hands. If I were a hairdresser, clients would end up looking like ferrets. Or scalded monkeys.

Bill Salvin Says:
August 10th, 2009 at 9:59 am

Fluency in social media is to PR2010 as having a good media list was in the 90s. I’m getting the book, too.

Great post.

Dan Wool Says:
August 10th, 2009 at 10:15 am

The media is not dead, nor will it ever die — it is evolving. There are simply more consumer-direct outlets for news and information. And indivisuals have more tools in case they want to become an outylet themselves. So what? Good PR strategists will simply add a couple tactics. And this is something they should have started doing about 3-4 years ago. If anything needs to “die” it’s all the hyperbole about this stuff.

Jim Veihdeffer Says:
August 10th, 2009 at 11:47 am

I agree with Dan (more or less). I cannot imagine trying to read the Sunday paper online by the pool…or simply catching Blackberry headlines or tweets. I like being able to scan through movie reviews, Dear Drabby, headlines, Valley 101, planet risings and settings and science news. Of course I no longer get the Mon-Thurs paper, but I don’t compensate with blogs, tweets, texts or headline news on my computer. I get most of my news from NPR and comedy news shows.

If anything is dead or dying, it’s TV news, with local “news” being at the forefront of the funeral march. In my view, local TV news has been moribund for at least 20 years, that’s twenty…unless you just want to know what house caught on fire, and “important news that could save your life!” (but which is apparently not so important that it can’t wait till 10pm). Paradoxically, I believe local radio news — can you believe it, radio news!– does a better job of delivering trustworthy information than TV. They’ve got such a narrow news hole that they can’t afford to be covering cats stuck in trees and multimillionaire sports celeb photo ops with ghetto kids

I do enjoy blogs, but I’m afraid the much-vaunted alternative news industry, a la Drudge, does more to increase the amount of MISinformation in the world than INformation. And if people were held accountable for forwarded e-mail and blogging misinformation, with, say, paper cuts or being swatted with a pig’s bladder, I fancy we’d see the quantity of bad info-pixels decreasing rapidly.

Marketing Sociologist Says:
August 10th, 2009 at 1:09 pm

Agree with Dan. My biggest problem is the resistance companies show for adapting new, leading edge, marketing tools and technology. Cuba is giving “Cash for Clunker” type of rebates to farmers who will forego gasoline powered tractors and farm tools and return to bulls to pull plows – no kidding. Google it (15 years ago you would have said WTF if I used that word). They are contributing to the environment and we call them a third world nation!

I have blogged your next computer will be an iPhone. Also blogged – in which Seth Godin commented on MY blog – about the lack of imagination from U.S. and world industry. iPhone just introduced 3.0, which is Bluetooth capable. Don’t tell all those already complaining they bought months before 3.0 release and feel jilted; that iPhone will introduce a 4G phone at Christmas time. As I’ve commented it’s called being informed. Why buy a 3.0 now when it will be obsolete at Christmas? Yet idiots are buying them by the millions.

So now that I have Bluetooth keyboard, speakers, headphone, printer and scanner, why can’t I get a Bluetooth television or monitor? Unavailable. What are industrial viewer manufacturers thinking? Why can’t I get a Bluetooth TV? I’m a chump, a Bedouin in the Sonoran desert. If I can figure it out, why can’t the world’s greatest capitalists?

Two years ago – and it is still going on – I told prospective clients they needed a YouTube and MySpace presence. I was thrown out of offices by “forward thinking” vice presidents of marketing. They went with the companies promising “ROI” press releases. Yet according to Technorati (http://marketingsociologist.blogspot.com/2009/08/watch-who-you-listen-to.html), Facebook is the third most visited Web site in the world and YouTube fourth. That means millions upon millions are visiting – and being influenced – by these sites daily. You don’t see a TV newscast where they aren’t mentioning YouTube videos. Yet visionary marketers making six-figure income couldn’t see the future.

Since 1986 I have been rallying about the lack of Fortune 500 companies in Arizona. Per capita, we are near the bottom of states with Fortune 500. Only Utah and New Mexico fare worse. Arkansas does better! Yesterday Russ Wiles wrote in the Republic, “Arizona’s public companies dry up,” 23 years after I rallied about it.

Similarly, in 2002 I approached gubernatorial candidate Janet Napolitano about the Arizona Centennial in 2012. She wanted nothing to do with it (her term would end 2010). I went on to incorporate a non-profit, Arizona Centennial, and Napolitano and her henchpersons did everything in their power to destroy it. It still exists and Napolitano is gone.

It is not just PR people. It is why our nation is in severe economic do-do. In the ‘50s visionaries that gave us the transistor, in the ‘70s the microchip, are now scorned by business leaders. Why?

Richard Kelleher, M.B.A.
MediaRelationsExpert.com
MarketingSociologist.blogspot.com
Friendfeed and Twitter: PhoenixRichard

Liz Says:
August 10th, 2009 at 8:54 pm

I agree with Dan’s idea that the media is evolving. What’s more, I think it’s not the media itself, but the ways that people use it are evolving. The time of interruption is over. Now we are in a “post-advertising era”. PR folks, and advertising people, and marketers should try to figure it out more.

Deb Krol Says:
August 12th, 2009 at 1:52 pm

Yep, and some of us are already in the realm of Facebook, You Tube and the like. My only big concern is with the trend toward news-on-demand, where people choose pieces that fit within their comfort range. This may make marketing a bit harder, as PR people will have to tailor their message to different groups with differing agendas…kind of like how we’re pitching ‘young/hip’ events to the under-35 crowd and ‘traditional’ events to seniors. It’s going to set the nimble ones apart from the dinosaurs in media, that’s for sure!

Bob Garfield Says:
August 13th, 2009 at 9:27 am

i might have to retrain; my only actual skills are column writing and parallel parking. but the flack-o-sphere is extremely well positioned in a post-media world.

the death of mass is yielding a glut of micro, and — though your jobs will be much harder — the demand for your expertise will only grow.

as for dan wool…sigh…you are living in denial. pathetic, self-destructive denial. you might wish to visit thechaosscenario.net and bring yourself up to speed. also, think about cobblers in 1800. they said, “people will always need shoes.” that was true, yet the trade no longer exists.

bob

Barb Harris Says:
August 13th, 2009 at 5:50 pm

Len – So glad I forwarded you this link. I knew it was a good piece and wanted to share. Who knew it would prompt so much discussion. I am afraid for the future of media (well, I don’t want to lose my paper or NPR but TV news could go away tomorrow and I wouldn’t miss it). PR folks will need to be adaptive, and learn new skills. But for those of us who started out typing our “press” releases, learning new skills over the years is nothing new.

Barb Harris Says:
August 14th, 2009 at 8:16 am

yet another great posting from NPR along the same lines:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111878210

Dan Wool Says:
August 14th, 2009 at 11:24 am

Well, Bob. Evolution doesn’t sell as many books as revolution now does it? ;)

I’m a realist and a strategist. I know that chicken little got eaten. And perhaps I’m a cobbler.

There’s something to be said for cobblers — they fit shoes to people’s individual feet instead of the mass-produced one-size fits all approach. I think it’s a better social media-PR metaphor than you give it credit.

I will definitely bookmark your blog, though. Thanks for the book and for stopping by to join the conversation.

Valley PR Blog » Blog Archive » For marketers, a controlled chaos scenario Says:
August 17th, 2009 at 12:57 pm

[...] Gutman blogged here last week about Bob Garfield’s new book The Chaos Scenario. Garfield and I traded comments on the post. [...]

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