Marketing Begins At Home

Brian Solis opines thusly:

Somewhere along the way, PR lost it’s way and created a new “sub” standard for what should have been one of the most respected positions within business marketing. Words such as shill, spin, sales, BS, bluff, exaggeration, arrogant, sensationalist, and oblivious, have become synonymous with this once golden profession. While the majority of the PR industry truly believed they were doing the right thing, the truth is that it took the Internet to expose our weaknesses and most importantly, it provided the infrastructure for us to learn from our mistakes publicly.

PR is just like a whole host of other industries - the auto industry, the music industry, the news industry - that sometime around 1997 got caught with its pants down. Once we all figured out that we could find out anything by just looking it up online, shady car salesmen and PR flacks were shown for the naked emperors they were all along.

Of course, this new transparency can be a good thing. It can make us all better, stronger and more honest. But only if we dare to grab the moment. Which brings me to Brian’s next point:

The divide between those who do get it and the people that don’t is oceanic. Equally, there are veterans and opportunistic marketers who “believe” they get it, but actually don’t and are actively pushing this substandard, naïve, or manipulative form of person-to-person marketing…and they too must also learn. 

Unfortunately I’m not so optimistic. It’s 2008. The “opportunistic marketers who ‘believe’ they get it” aren’t going to get it and don’t care that they don’t get it and hopefully will soon be out of business. There’s a storm brewing, it’s going to be as bad if not worse than the downturn of 2002-2003 and a lot of the old school folks who couldn’t be bothered with the (airquotes) blogs (close airquotes) are going to find themselves out of a job for good this time.

Brian concludes:

If you believe in the reinvention of a more socially conscious, informed, and relationship-driven form of public relations, then that’s all that matters. Call it whatever you want, just as long as you contribute value to the evolution instead of stealing from it.

Which is what it is truly all about.

Here’s the full post. Go and read.