A book with a title I thought I would never see
By Dennis Rutzou

There is a new management book with a title that I never thought I would see in my lifetime, but I always knew would happen. It’s called: "The fall of advertising & the rise of PR"* and it has become a best selling management book in the United States.

The authors are Al Ries and his daughter Laura Ries, who are world renowned marketing strategists, for their earlier book, "The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding."

As a professional PR person I found much of the content to be music to my ears and consistent with what I have been preaching for years. The lack of credibility of advertising is an obvious one, although from time to time I found the repetition of the point by the authors to be grating. I also found their understanding of public relations to be flawed as they seemed to confuse publicity and public relations and often appeared to believe that they were two different words for the same thing.

Admittedly, they were mainly referring to PR in a brand building role, rather than the many facets of planned communication necessary to achieve defined management objectives to specific target audiences. But, in many respects what they say makes darned good sense, particularly when they pepper their copy with case histories. These are all US examples, which means that we will have to take many at face value, as they are not household brands to us.

The awesome advertising cost to launch a new product in the United States with budgets in the hundreds of millions make public relations appear like a very cost-effective alternative.

For example, the largest advertiser in the United States is General Motors which in 1998, 1999 and 2000 spent $3 billion, $4.1 billion and $3 billion respectively.

Ries & Ries pose the question: What did they get for this money? In the three years GM market share dropped by 30 per cent, 29.6 per cent and 28.1 per cent. By contrast they cite brands like Microsoft, The Body Shop and Red Bull as examples of what can be achieved by PR.

They don’t dismiss advertising completely, but change the order with PR out front. The role they see for advertising is as the repetitious technique to consolidate and protect the brand after it has been built by PR.

In some respects their generalisations are simplistic and not all organisations have a CEO with the media savvy and charisma of a Richard Branson or an Anita Roddick, but their remedy is that if your CEO is not a good media performer, get one who is.

That’s how important it is. And if their assumptions are correct, why hasn’t PR reached the ascendancy on the marketing agenda. Why aren’t the major PR companies shouting from the rooftops?

Their explanation is that nine of the world’s ten top PR companies are owned by just three US advertising agencies**. Advertising in the US is a $243.7 billion a year business, while PR accounted for just $4.2 billion and two thirds of that was spent with PR agencies which were part of advertising conglomerates.

Ries & Ries describe advertising as the dog: PR is the tail and the book is their attempt to "wag the dog". It is a bold and provocative book that if nothing else will make everyone in marketing and management examine how they currently approach brand building and their budget expenditure on the marketing mix.

It should be required reading.

* The fall of advertising & the rise of PR. By Al Ries & Laura Ries (pictured right) HarperBusiness.
** Dennis Rutzou Public Relations is a completely independent, Australian-owned PR consultancy.

May 2004

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