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What To Do When Public Relations Fails

Written by: John Barr

Article Overview: Sometimes "public relations" strategies fail to deliver the intended results. Whether it is "selling" a product, a policy or an organization, there are several common pitfalls which public relations strategies must avoid -- and a methodology to increase the likelihood of success.

What To Do When Public Relations Fails

Why “Public Relations” Fails, And What To Do When It Happens

Public relations is about using persuasion and relationship-building to build support for an organization, individual or cause. Provided it is carried out ethically, it is an important ingredient of democratic politics and an open society.

In the real world, however, “public relations” (or something that calls itself public relations), sometimes fails to achieve its stated purpose (building public support). There are two very common times when this happens:

• When it deteriorates into spin-doctoring to promote indefensible actions, behavior or policies;

• When it becomes nothing more than self-promotional hype and fails to establish a legitimate public need or the public interest.

Examples of both are all too common and include:

• Companies who blame their product failures not on the real problem (a lack of value in the product) but on “negative media” or “nit-picking consumerists”;

• Companies who blame their falling stock price on “negative analysts” or short sellers, when their real problem is poor business decisions or management misbehavior;

• Organizations (governments are a prime offender) that blame their problems on a “failure to get out our message.”

These are not failures of legitimate public relations strategies. They are examples of confusing a “communications” problem with a “reality” problem.

What separates the public relations professional from the public relations pretender is the honesty to see the real problem, the intelligence to analyze it correctly, the creativity to devise a solution to it, and the courage to speak about all of these things straight from the shoulder.

Over a period of years I have developed a methodology to help organizations figure out when and why their “public relations” isn’t working, and what to do about it. It’s scarcely “revolutionary”, but it does open a window of opportunity for organizations or individuals who are frustrated at the inability of their “public relations” program to achieve desired results.

For details, contact me at consultjohn@dccnet.com

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