Good Pitch: The Ascendancy of Strategic Communications - Michael Kassan - MediaBizBloggers

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The best line about public relations I ever heard is also one of the most famous quotes ever uttered. A lot of people—Walt Whitman, "Dandy" Don Meredith—get credit for it. But St. Louis Cardinal pitching icon Dizzy Dean was the guy who actually said it.

He and his brother, Paul "Daffy" Dean, were teammates on the legendary "Gas House Gang" Cardinals. In 1934, Dizzy predicted that he and Daffy would win 45 games between them that year.

"If you can do it, then you ain't braggin," he said, or some version of the phrase.


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What does that have to do with public relations? I'm tempted to say there isn't anything in the universe for which baseball isn't a good metaphor, but still, isn't "be true to yourself" the first, most elemental communications law?

Sure, this is also an ancient advertising axiom too. McCann-Erickson first pledged to provide "Truth Well Told" in 1926. But it is to the experts in reputation management, that most subtle of messaging arts, that clients most often turn to when the truth needs to be told, sold or rescued.

You would think that this universal necessity would give strategic communicators the upper hand in expanding their assignment portfolios.

You'd be wrong.

Over and over, we've seen clients misunderstand strategic communications and misuse, underuse, or simply ignore this elegant tool. And consequently, strategic communications firms have held the losing hand in contests against ad agencies, promotion shops, media agencies and the like for branded entertainment work (which, when it was product placement, used to live at PR shops), collateral, strategic development, and so on.

Then digital technology turned everything inside out, and the game shifted from marketers buying eyeballs and practicing persuasion to managing relationships and building engagement. The emergence of a consumer-controlled ecosystem, especially the rise of social networks, has made strategic communications a primary demand of clients.

Last month, The New York Times captured the moment in a story about holding company MDC buying up PR shops that was headlined "Growing Appreciation for P.R. on Madison Avenue" and noted "how much more interested marketers are becoming in using public relations to reach consumers."

I asked newly arrived MediaLink Senior Partner Ed Adler, the former Time Warner communications chief who is building our strategic communications practice, why we're seeing this trend now.

"Strategic communications is becoming much more important in the Social Age in much the same way as media services was elevated by the advent of the Digital Age," Ed notes. "Our new, constantly connected environment is an earned media space. Social networks are about creating and managing relationships, the core deliverables of strategic communications. Today, you get your message out in two equally important ways: you can communicate through social media directly to your stakeholders but you still also need that important third party validation from them, especially the media. PR and publicity are still important but you also have to manage the conversations with consumers, analyze online buzz, activate the blogosphere, offer strategic counsel, and develop and enhance messaging. These are vital activities for every marketer, and every one of them is right in the strategic communicator's wheelhouse."

I bet a lot of people, maybe even a ballplayer or two, are erroneously cited as the source of another relevant communications maxim: "doing good and getting credit for it." But actually it was PR legend Harold Burson who said it first, and he was referring to public relations.

It's good to see the reputation stewards finally getting credit for what they do. And now that they have earned that seat at the table next to the client's ear, they have to live up to greatly elevated expectations.

After all, nobody would remember what Dizzy said three-quarters of a century ago if the Dean boys hadn't actually won 49 games between them in 1934—when the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series.

Michael E. Kassan is Chairman and CEO of MediaLink, LLC, a leading Los Angeles and New York City-based advisory and business development firm that provides critical counsel and direction on issues of marketing, advertising, media, entertainment and digital technology. Michael can be reached at michael@medialinkllc.com

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