And let me say again (since you didn’t catch it earlier), you must marry sales, marketing and PR when you are trying to sell something. Of course. But you don’t want a department that focuses only on “consumers” and peddling products in charge of your corporate reputation.

I know that in the marketing world Seth Godin walks on water. I’ve read three of his books and didn’t find anything new, just the old saws repackaged. But there’s a market for that, too, as Seth showed us in “All Marketers are Liars.” Maybe if I’d skipped Purple Cow I’d have a different view. But hey, people buy it.

The use of the press release as a primary form of PR is an outmoded 20th century concept for mass communications that old-school PR types, antiquated trade associations, and communications schools continue to propogate. We are no longer in a mass communications environment, rather an extremely fragemented one…

My experience generating great media coverage for clients has very little to do with press releases. I do find it an effective tool as a means of communicating directly with buyers, but not effectively with the media. There are better ways to get info to journalists.

Again, the rare exception is when a company actually has real news. But most smaller companies (which are the ones I counsel) are stuck with subject matter expertise as opposed to $20 million contracts, significant product news (for example, iTouch) and major alliances.

What is effective with any community or representative of that community (a.k.a. journalist, analyst or blogger) is participation by creating value for them. That means give them unique information that benefits them. That is where we agree. The dictionary definition of PR is (via Dictionary.com):

1. the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc.

2. the art, technique, or profession of promoting such goodwill.

No where in this does it say issue press releases.

Separating PR from marketing and sales is also way off. Yet, ironically your reasoning — trying to lie or communicate to get something — is the same jaded view that many people rightly smeer PR people with… And that’s because regardless of professional label, people have forgotten the old saw.

Any good sales or marketing person will tell you that sales is about building relationships, not getting leads. Like Ivy Lee that, too is as old as Dale Carnegie and Napoleon Hill (or if you prefer, modern day leaders like Seth Godin and Jeffrey Gitomer). BTW, note the second word in public RELATIONS. See the correlation?

I wrote up my return to basic PR values view a month ago at Now Is Gone. I invite you to comment there.
http://nowisgone.com/2007/09/06/the-art-of-participation-public-relations/

Yes, companies use PR as a marketing tactic all the time, and they should. It’s how you build awareness by gaining media placements. But it’s also the area in which abuse of the press release happens most often. I’m just not comfortable putting the media relations function in the hands of people whose sole mission is to pull product through the channels. Too often, they revert to that “BS” language of advertising and promotion, vs. the journalistic style required to connect with MSM targets.

Marketers are schooled in the theories of persuasion, but seldom in the theories of a free press. In short, most don’t really understand the values of news — so kudos for pointing it out. But the press release is and will remain the primary tool of the media relations function for many years to come, so if the marketing folks want to play the game, they need to use the tool responsibly.

As for PR blending with marketing, it should always do so in support of marketing campaigns. All I’m saying is that PR must also maintain a safe distance from a discipline that defines the world in “consumer” terms. PR has a far broader world view than marketing (by design), as we reach well beyond those audiences who buy and distribute our goods and services.

If you are saying that marketing might have counseled Edelman to nix the “WalMarting Across America” fiasco, well that’s pure speculation. Fact is, PR has been preaching a mantra of transparency — in one form or another — since Ivy Lee’s Declaration of Principles (1908). But you are correct to fear the influence of anyone, be they PR or marketing, to use social media in a surreptitious way.

That said, I don’t see anyone promoting the use of “Guerrilla PR,” yet”Guerrilla Marketing” is ballyhooed regularly by ad/marketing agencies.

No one will disagree with your statements about building value for customers (vs. leads for clients). But it’s an old saw.

We all need to move towards building value for clients rather than he said/she said sides. When you try to take from people: i.e. get leads, get press coverage, demand blog ink, demand dollars you cross a line. That line is selfish exploitation. When you build value for your clients by treating outreach as a product to serve them, a win-win proposition occurs. Leads, sales, etc. is a by-product of doing the right thing. PR/marcom types need to work towards that instead of sales, etc.

I agree that a good news release works well, but only when its actually news. That’s why I linked to guidelines that actually make a newsworthy release.

But, Geoff, to condemn the news release as a tool whose time has past goes way too far. The problem isn’t the release itself, but the rank amateurs who use it as some sort of adjunct to their advertising and marketing campaigns. They create fluff “stories,” spam the mass media then wonder why editors hate and ignore us. this goes to your “no BS” point.

A well-written, carefully targeted news release, followed with intelligent personal contact is as effective as it’s ever been. A public relations person worth his/her salt knows this and acts accordingly. We could chose to ignore MSM entirely, but we do so at our peril. Clients still expect (and need) MSM coverage, and that coverage remains more influential than Web 2.0 outlets — for now and for the forseeable future.

Bravo, Geoff, for this remark: “We want to refocus it on the actual community. Marketing and PR should not be about leads, but about serving a community and building good will between an organization and its stakeholders.”

We in public relations have been saying just that for 75 years. And as least some of our “evil twins”(a term of endearment, I assure you) on the marketing side have come to understand it. It’s one of the reasons I fight like heck to maintain the separation between the marketers and PR. Marketing focuses on sales, PR on relationships. The philosophical gap here is enormous.

Here’s another example released yesterday from Ford: http://www.livingstonbuzz.com/blog/2007/10/12/fords-fantastic-social-media-release/

GL