IS PUBLIC RELATIONS ABOUT COUNTING PR VALUES ONLY?
The “Send me the PR Value before 11:30am.” missile came by way of an email at 9am. It is plenty of time, isn’t it? After all, it is a whole 2.5 hours to scan for coverage, clip them, measure (yes!! measure) the size and tabulate the Ad Value then the PR Value, put the all the details into a proper spreadsheet and segmentised by media. Now, don’t you dare miss a comma or a full stop while at it.
Is the work of a Communicator all about counting Public Relations (PR) Value in such a manner, under such time frame? The value of a good Communicator or PR agency should be in the counsel, advice, wealth of experience and good media relations maintained over years.
A large part of PR works today have been reduced to counting PR Value, clippings, and comparing them to this and that. The points of quality of the story, the message, timeliness and perception created are lost in the need to justify existence and budget. In this justification mire, little value is placed on everything else, including hard work and all the good achieved.
Whilst I am not saying that PR Value is not important, there are other evaluations of a PR campaign. I am a firm advocate of Qualitative evaluation versus Quantitative beans counting. And when your PR efforts are paying dividends, you will just know it. How? Now that would be too long to expound here; it has to be in a totally different article.
It is no wonder that stories and articles on experienced PR practitioners leaving the agency life to be anything from stay-at-home-mom to freelancer, abound.
Hmmm… have crossed all my T’s and dot my I’s in this article? Perhaps I should end here and spend more time, combing through my little write-up and ensure that I have not missed an alphabet. That would be most unforgivable.