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Brenda Lynch of IMHO 'fourth choice' Manning, Selvage & Lee

Brenda Lynch of the PR giant Manning, Selvage and Lee says one of the reasons that companies were unhappy with their PR firms is that many experienced firms placed a moratorium on new business during the Internet boom.

"It's a bandwidth issue," she says. "That left companies who wanted public relations representation and couldn't get their first, second or even third choice to find alternatives."

And those alternatives included retaining freelancers or hiring extremely young publicists to run PR internally. Now that the noise is muted a bit, Lynch says she believes experience is once again the industry's most valuable commodity. "The fact is, gray hair is in fashion again," she says.

Excerpted from Aaron Lazenby, "Going Back to Basics," in The Standard's March 22, 2001 email newsletter.

Public Relations agencies have been catching flak for overselling the "tech bubble."

According to TheStandard's Aaron Lazenby, PR agencies have developed a novel explanation:

The tech boom forced many companies to retain 'fourth choice' PR firms. Hence the bad advice, crummy results, wasted money, and screwed investors and employees were caused by these inferior firms.

Fortunately, now that the boom is over, the 'good' firms are once again available even to you, Mr. Bonehead -- oops, Businessman.

Seriously, we're not making this up, unless Mr. Lazenby is. And ya gotta give PR pixies like Brenda Lynch of MS&L credit for coming up with such inventive spin.

One guy quoted by Lazenby says that agencies who once spurned his firm's account are now calling him up, soliciting work. And they've lowered rates, too!

Lazenby wonders if it's fair to blame PR for 'gorging' on the tech boom when, after all, they were suddenly being asked questions they didn't know the answer to (not including such classics as "just what the hell did you spend my money on?").

Frequent WhizzO readers probably can predict our answer to these musings.

1. If Brenda Lynch (see the sidebar above) and her other self-anointed 'first choice' agencies are so damn good, they should be able to give prospects a list of clients last year and a list of clients this year. Which ones are gone, and why? Make them supply information on agency total income last year from clients in your field of business, versus income this year. Why has it changed? And get a tally revealing publicly traded client revenues last year versus income this year.

Guess what? Their numbers will stink, too. If they provide them.

2. Lynch is saying that tech companies paid PR agencies big money for bad advice. Since no lesson is learned better than a hard one, she figures big agencies won't make the same mistakes again. "Our misfortune is your reward!" "Our loss is your gain!"

There could be some truth to this, except PR firms never admit to a mistake -- or at least not to the ones that matter. So if the nitwit whose $40K/month agency retainer helped drive your chief competitor out of business is still working, odds are good s/he'll make the same mistakes for you, too. After all, it was circumstances beyond the agency's control that killed off your old competitor, not anything the agency did, oh goodness no!

Still, ya gotta give Lynch credit: it's a clever pitch she's shilling!

3. PR is a self-proclaimed profession. Meaning it isn't one. PR agencies, especially the big ones, desperately want to be thought of in the same breath with accounting firms, law firms, and classic consultants like Booz, Allen. (Unfortunately, those other groups seem to be adopting PR's bad habits, offering an ever-growing list of wishy-washy, ill-defined, "practices.")

What constitutes a "professional"? Well, among other things, some form of licensing and certification. Doctors, dentists, accountants and lawyers are certified, licensed professionals. Consider this: even Realtors are certified and licensed. Selling real estate is a profession. PR is not. Anyone can call themself a "public relations professional." And they do.

There is a much-reviled national association, The Public Relations Society of America, to which a piddling number of PR 'professionals' belong (WhizzO doesn't, for example). Agencies maintain no "core competency," no "standards and practices," and virtually nothing that might remotely be called training. Whereas ad agencies at least profess to have a strategic model (well, some of them do), PR agencies toss out wussy mission and vision statements, which are ignored even before the ink is dry or the electroplated trophy stamped.

4. PR firms, like agencies, branch out as they grow (if they grow). The first non-PR employee usually hired is a former newspaper or TV reporter. Then, they'll add a creative director-type. Then a lawyer, or an MBA. A researcher. A government official. A stock analyst. How these pixies work together depends solely on the size of the wallet of the schnook client they hook.

Try this test.

Find the name of a client at, say, the Edelman office in Melbourne (supposedly it's Harris). Now, call the New York headquarters ( 212-768-0550 for Edelman) and ask to speak to the person in charge of the Harris account. Good luck!

Sounds harsh. But it's too often true.

When agencies get really big, they open offices all over the place. Things really get confusing then.

Big is not better. It just means a big firm has more wrong people to deal with before you finally find one worth a shit who either understands your business, or has a good idea or two you can use. Or afford. Rarely both. Synergy is the publicized result of bigness. Actually it's isolation and politics.

5. PR firms who purport to do more than publicity are not worth hiring. Yes, there are a few issues, such as helping you frame a crisis management plan, they might help with.

Faint Praise.

Twenty years ago, the president of Bozell Worldwide's Chicago office said to WhizzO's founder: "You're a really great publicist."

(Pause.)

"I mean that as a compliment."

Over in the left-hand column is a list of the "practices" at Edelman Worldwide. Publicity isn't even on the list.

"Big" agencies have actively disdained and discouraged publicity for more than 20 years -- a generation, in other words. They want to "counsel" you. They don't want to coddle editors and reporters on your behalf.

6. This isn't to say PR people are stupid, necessarily. They just don't have much of a clue what to do for you.

Sometimes, ironically, this is good. Sitting as PR counsel for some big, big, big, companies and expected to come up with typical brownnose PR pixie ditzyness we regularly ring the bell with some truly heavyweight ideas. (Ask us about in-store marketing, especially.) But you should never hire a PR agency as your creative source. If they come up with a good idea, that's great. But being asked to pay for it, before they have one, is nuts.

7. Aren't we being contradictory? How could PR firms inflate the tech bubble when they don't do publicity work?

Good point. We must be wrong.

It's a two-part answer. First, even publicity-hating companies like Edelman will churn out tons of releases. They just don't make as much money doing that as they do with "counsel" and other mushy "practices" like "investor relations," for which they can charge higher rates. (In other words, you can't order a la carte. You get counseling with that order.) This means the publicity work is done by recent college grads billed at the lowest agency rate (figure $150/hr. at a big shop).

Second, and more important, is that PR rarely sets the tone; it latches onto buzz words uttered by some media type or celebrity in order to capitalize on what's called a "trend story." That's why March, 2001, papers carry all those "diamond in the rough" stories about stock values in the midst of a bear market. Those are all PR stories.

In all honesty, PR agencies didn't overfill the "tech bubble." But the millions wasted on their "practices" sure could have been better invested to keep the damn balloon from bursting.

Crisis Management Cliff's Notes
1. No one talks to the media without permission and supervision. 2. Answer media questions ASAP. 3. Never say "I can't say." 4. Say: "At this time we can't determine that; as soon as our status changes we'll let you know." 5. Never bring the "culprit" to a media briefing. (For example, don't bring the head of your Decatur plant to the tire failure briefing.) 6. Bring people who make you look good, or show you are a partner in the investigation/rescue, etc. (For example, if someone fires a weapon in your offices, can you get a cop to face the media with you?) 7. If you don't know, look at an underling and say "Please get that for me." S/he'll rush off. Even if they don't come back before the briefing ends, you look good. 8. Don't reveal favorable evidence first at a press briefing. Do it one on one, preferably on TV, in a negotiated environment (they'll treat you nice in exchange for the info). 9. Pull all the advertising you have scheduled. It's not good business to sell tires that blow up. 10. Never admit you screwed up. Use emotive words like "incident," "event," "tragedy" and "misfortune" instead of descriptive ones like "defect," "disgruntled employee" or "meltdown." For example, say, "We deeply sympathize with the victims of this incident." Don't say" "We feel sorry for the hooker our CEO whoop-assed while drunk." 11. Don't be a deer in the headlights. Realize you're going to take a beating. That's it. WhizzO will be delighted to draw up a more detailed plan for you.
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