From across the pond at Major Players, a marketing recruiting firm, comes an interesting trend: More PR firms looking for creatives and planners from the ad world. Major Players’ Head of PR, Lorraine Barker, explains:
To keep from being drowned out in an increasingly crowded media space, PR agencies are evolving. Creative Directors are being drafted in to inject fresh thinking and bring a new dimension to campaigns, while Planners are delivering consumer insights and developing rigorous strategic frameworks to underpin the big idea. The result is a focused PR offering that stays on brand, on tone and most importantly – makes people stand up and take notice.
To me, this makes a lot of sense. Most of the really interesting advertising efforts I’ve heard about lately have not come because I’ve seen them on TV or in print or some ‘natural’ means, rather I’ve heard about them because of the PR effort behind them. Now that may be an occupational hazard of being a copywriter and blogger, but in the new Crispin “Hoopla” era, it seems that clients are getting more traction for new campaigns thanks to PR efforts for the campaign rather than the ad spend on them.
Plus, as traditional media struggles for revenue and advertising dollars, they’ve become more willing to embrace non-traditional campaigns that meld PR, editorial, and advertising. Sounds to me like a smart PR firm with conceptual creatives and strategic thinkers who can fit into the system is poised to clean up in this new world order.
I think the art of well-crafted copywriting is due for a comeback, and I would not be surprised if it emerges from PR, interactive, and Social Media rather than the ad world.
I’m down.
I’ve worked as a copywriter for high tech B2B shops, a big promo shop, general market ad shops and an event marketing shop. It’s high time for me to add PR and/or Interactive to this list.
Five years ago when AdPulp was still in its infancy, I interviewed for a PR Director position at Magnani in Chicago. It was sort of unexpected, so I asked Rudy Magnani why he thought I might do well in this newly created post. His answer had everything to do with AdPulp.
At the time, I was pretty blown away by his perspective, but now I see that yes, I am a PR man and that AdPulp, despite its critical slant, is a massive PR vehicle for the communications industry.
I think that this post is representative of the shift toward integration of the MarComm disciplines that has been happening for some time. Collaboration often has a positive effect on an overall outcome, so the crossover of addies to the PR world or vice versa doesn’t so much as faze me. I think that when putting talents, skills (old and new) and ideas together amazing things happen. It’s only natural that creatives, who usually have phenomenal writing skills, which is a must in PR go together. It will be interesting to watch the evolution of the industry overall. As traditional practices continue to merge with emerging media and technologies I believe we’ll continue to see some interesting leaps in the creative professions.