Hotwire’s Tapio Liller wrote an interesting post today, reiterating Tom Foremski’s Die! Press Release! Die! Die! Die! motiv with a less violent but equally graphic headline, What if we axed press releases altogether?
Here is the comment I wrote:
First of all, good to see somebody from the big PR firms carrying the
torch of “That’s not release-worthy”. That’s is definitely one starting
point.
Secondly, I agree with Bjoern in so far that it is not a culture
thing. Maybe you have more US clients which give you the illusion but
there are plenty European and German companies who think they need to
broadcast although all they have is a sack of rice falling in China.Finally, the timing. I collected my thoughts on that matter almost two
years ago,
nothing has changed. Edelman has been pretty open, as well, now you
join the conversation (I would be cool if you could get some of your
higher brass to do an interview with you or more PR consultants from
various companies). However, as long as the agency is dependend on the
client’s wishes and clients comms personnel has not moved on a
generation, we will see press releases. They have to prove they have
been active. Press releases are easy activism and if they don’t “get
ink” you can always blame it on the agency.
Frankly, I don’t really think there can be a movement from the consultancy to the client. The dependency is too big and there will always be the little guys who will do everything to earn their share. Which means, PR needs to sell it to the client as if it was his idea – and deliver proof that other means are more effective in today’s times. PR needs to produce more case studies, more statistics and find a way to illustrate that communciation is changing.