Finn practices a new breed of PR in an era when communications is evolving rapidly.
Marketing communications used to be one-dimensional. It confused the term communication with interruption. Ad agencies interrupted TV and radio programming with commercials, and PR agencies would (and many still do) tout a model of trading press releases for coverage. As a result, PR was seen as a fluffy “nice-to-have”.
The world has changed. People screen out old-fashioned push messages. People are much more selective in how they choose to view brands. People themselves build brands (not advertising). People use word of mouth to build brands and reputation. People can be accessed in many different ways these days: through the media, but also direct through digital networks and even face to face.
Mostly, people build brands by listening to trusted influencers and advocates. Those influencers might be journalists, they might be bloggers, they might be the most respected expert in a given field… or they could be an ordinary person.
PR is the word of mouth discipline. We create word of mouth by understanding who has most influence in any given community, by entering into a conversation with them and by providing them with content which gives them the means to build brands and reputation. We still do that through media relations (but very targeted media relations) and also through digital and real world channels.
So – PR has moved on. For us, it’s about adopting a creative approach to influence the influencers, using all the channels at our disposal, in order to help protect, build and develop our clients’ brands and reputation.
