Richard Edelman: A little Hope for PR Cynics
Hey Everybody,
I probably shouldn’t be so flattering to Richard Edelman as he is technically competition, but I gotta say, I love this guy. He has vision, guts and the will to work at things that he beleives in. And, of course, he is also a champion of everything new media and public relations.
This is a quote given by Edelman in the Book Naked Conversations during an interview with Robert Scoble and Shel Israel:
On Blogging:
Blogging is not a passing fad. Any brand, business or organization that fails to grasp [that] fact may very well be. It’s essential to any company seeking to connect in a spontaneous, continous fashion with its publics. It affords a window into a company unlike any other — more credible because it lacks the dimension of control, more sustainable because it is rooted in reality, more powerful because it can be connected to comments of others having primary experiences with a company’s product or service. Smart companies will take heed of what they learn from online critics, amending the product or process by being committed to continuous improvement from whatever source.
On Traditional Marketing and its coming demise:
Marketers could reach 97 percent of the target audience with three ads in prime time on network TV. They relied on a pyramid of authority in which elite audiences such as investors, regulators, retailers, and elite media received advance notice of company plans. A large commitment to advertising and appropriate monies for slotting allowances guaranteed favorable treatment at retail…and the consumer, lured by the ads, would purchase, especially if a big name celebrity is in the ad. The big idea — keep everything under wraps until the last moment before the ads break — give an exclusive to the Wall Street Journal and you are home free.
So now a smart company has a different approach — call it the “paradox of transparency.” Co-create your brand with key consumers. Talk to critics at NGO’s (non-government organizations) in advance to reach an understanding. Use your employees as your first line of offense. Use a real person as a spokesperson or maybe the winner of a reality show like American Idol. Create synergy among the promotions and talk across the silos, but offer real dialogeue, not hot air.
I love that he makes it so simple. I am sorry that I haven’t linked to his blog yet in my blog and this post is my tiny homage to the man that is making these strategies popular and profitable. I can preach the same ideals all day and then once a senior member of our PR team finds an Edelman interview in an AdAge article from 2 years ago saying the same thing, and it becomes fact.
So here’s to the guy that gives hope to all of us tired and haggard PR guy’s trying to push new media to clients and in our own companies.
