Agencies eat their young
John Wagner has some thoughts on the state of PR agency management. Or mismanagement.
As said before, I’ve worked in my share of PR agencies.
One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that at most agencies, the higher you climb the ladder, the less day to day interaction with media is expected of you. The higher ups, the Account Directors and VPs, spend their days on building new business (which makes sense) or on ‘strategy,’ ‘drawing up crisis communications plans’ and ‘media training’ (which seems superfluous if you aren’t focused first on getting attention from the media).
On a macro level, from my own personal experience the reason most companies engage a PR firm is because they have this notion that they need to get press to get customers. Right or wrong – but I learned working at Denny’s many years ago that the customer is always right.
And putting what inarguably is the client’s first concern in the hands of the proverbial recent college graduates seems silly at best and a poor way to run a business at worst. Yet there they go.
On a personal level, what I enjoy most in PR – what gets me up in the morning and off to the office – is the chance to hit that home run and get a client a prominent placement in a publication that covers their space. But I’ve gotten the distinct impression in several agencies that I’ve worked at or interviewed for that this desire was a fast track to getting my career sidelined and tagged ‘media relations specialist’ for the duration.
Link via Eric Eggertson
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