Celebrity PR Doesn't Speak For Industry

I'll be the first one to admit that public relations has an image problem and have chronicled that fact in several posts since this blog's inception. However, the latest critique that's making the rounds has me baffled.

In the most recent "bookshelf" column appearing in The Wall Street Journal, Toby Young slams public relations as a "hype machine" and takes issue with the book's attempt to refute PR's imagine as the "unsavory business of exaggerating the value of their clients or their clients’ products."

The column, which is actually a review of the book Where's My Fifteen Minutes by Howard Bragman. After reading columns elsewhere about the review, I was expecting it to be a complete hatchet job, but if the book is characterized correctly, I actually agree with a good number of the criticisms.

One thing the column quickly shows is that there continues to be a widespread belief that "Hollywood style PR" is what most public relations pros are engaged in on a daily basis. I've written about this many times and have said this is why I personally hate when publicity and public relations are used interchangeably.

Many of the stories relate to personalities or celebrities and aren't really relevant for the majority of the industry that's involved in helping reputable companies of various types.

It's no surprise that someone with show-biz insights was able to sell someone on writing a PR-oriented book. What's unfortunate is that all these years after public relations became a mainstream professional service, most people don't know what the heck public relations is. Anybody who's actually out selling PR knows this all too well and is why I've continually called for industry practitioners and/or groups to ban together to try and stop this and actually illustrate the positive business impact of what is a widely-used professional service.