Our fourth video in the State of Marketing Video Series focuses on PR and how it has become an integral part of the marketing mix. The lines between PR and marketing have completely blurred. Moving forward as part of marketing, PR’s combined mission is building brand and helping corporations achieve all of their functions, from product development to HR.
Geoff Livingston, Author, Marketing Strategist, Karen Bartleson, President, IEEE Standards Association, Stephanie Agresta, Global Director of Social Media and Digital, MSL Group and Seth Godin, Author, Blogger, Entrepreneur examine the state of PR. Please find the entire transcript for “PR is Marketing!” below!
Over the course of a few months, Vocus interviewed more than two dozen experts and influencers on the State of Marketing. Our efforts produced nine short videos that we’re releasing over the next couple of months in a thought leadership video series. Watch them all here: http://www.vocus.com/blog/state-of-marketing-video-series/.
Geoff Livingston, Author, Marketing Strategist: http://geofflivingston.com/
“Public relations for a company is without question part of marketing. You can say corporate communications is not marketing, I say BS because the reality is that’s still part of the brand perception and how customers and other stakeholders — like investors, possibly employees, and everything—view that company. That is part of marketing.”
Karen Bartleson, President, IEEE Standards Association: http://spectrum.ieee.org/
“My biggest partner in crime or in success is my Worldwide PR Director. She and I have partnered our teams for things like we created a decision making process. What happens if someone posts something about our company? How do we react? How do we respond? PR traditionally would take care of that.
It’s extremely important for us to be able to repeat the process of, ‘Do we answer someone who says I hate you? Do we answer competitors who are poking at us? What do we say to media who are fascinated by what does this merger or acquisition mean to the industry?’ I see a complete blurring of the two operations and the fact that we are in different departments doesn’t matter anymore.”
Stephanie Agresta, Global Director of Social Media and Digital, MSL Group: https://twitter.com/stephagresta
“Marketing traditionally has been about the brand and the brand voice. Within public relations we’ve brought that to life through communications and it has an extension in social media that we live and breathe every single day in this social voice. So, every day marketing and public relations become closer and closer.”
Seth Godin, Author, Blogger, Entrepreneur: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
“There are two kinds of PR. There’s publicity and that’s going to fade away and there’s public relations, which is storytelling and that’s going to get more and more important.
When we think about, ‘What does the marketing department do?’, the most important thing a successful marketing department does is start working on the product or the service before anyone else, then they work on it while it’s being made, then they are in charge of customer service, and they are in charge of training, and they are in charge of HR, and they’re in charge of hiring—because it’s all marketing. What I’ve been saying for 15 years is good news marketers—you’re in charge of everything—and now we have to own that.”