Shel Holz is smart and insightful in his response to the bad rap that PR gets these days: “The lying profession? Please. … And who, in this era of like-it-or-not transparency, believes they can get away with a lie anyway?” Via Strumpette. My response? I feel the same way about the reputation of the defense attorney as I do about PR. Defense attorneys have appalling reps. “How the hell can you represent him? He’s a murderer! He’s a rapist! He’s a scum!”
Well, the problem is is that since the PR profession is, in a lot of ways, a neutral solution, PR tends to begin to pick up the tastes, the coloring, and the aroma of the additive, the client.
Most attorneys wish that they could “cherry pick” their clients and so do most advertisers and PR professionals. I hear, all the time, that taking on so-and-so a client would be bad for brand and I am appalled by that.
My friends over a TickleKitty, a sex shop, need New Media Marketing and WOM PR as well, but lots of folks are either too uptight, too puritanical, or too judgmental (or too attached and afraid so as to have lost some requisites: shamelessness and fearlessness, a competitive advantage in an industry that is afraid of its collective shadow).
What I love about Edelman and their respective practice heads and VPs+ is that they’re pretty shameless (though they don’t quite have fearless under control and their hubris and arrogance is off the charts).
So, since PR is itself so neutral — some call it shape-shifting or chameleon-like (there is no there there) then we take a lot of the brunt for the actions of the client. We suffer for the sins of the father…
