Bypassing Media: Is PR the New Advertising?

It’s hardly news that the internet is leading to big changes for the advertising business, a transformation that has important consequences for online media companies that monetize with ad revenue. But in a Web 2.0 world where social media complicates the landscape and yesterday’s hierarchical models of content presentation give way to the audience’s collective wisdom, will brands start shifting resources from advertising to PR? If so, what does that mean for online media businesses?

Advertising and PR exist side by side, as complementary strategies for shaping opinion and motivating behavior. Traditionally, advertising has been a more direct investment in an anticipated outcome, where the advertiser has lots of control of the message and presentation—and pays for the privilege. PR, on the other hand, is about more subtle influence that attempts to work its way through the audience’s network of influencers and authority figures. It’s the network idea that makes PR an interesting option in the social media environment.

In classic PR, the “PR man” (or woman), either at an agency or a company, has a powerful file of media contacts to leverage when it’s time to get the word out. That model is endangered as change roils the media industry: there’s rapid turnover in newsrooms, and in any case, audiences now rely less on the voice of big media to tell them how to think. In a world where social networking and Web 2.0 put the “me” in media, people are more likely to depend on their favorite blogs, discussion groups, RSS feeds, wikis, online Q&A, and direct online networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, or Twitter. For an old-school PR traditionalist that could be a challenge; for a PR 2.0 professional, it’s a big opportunity.

That’s because PR’s classic strength of developing opinion-influencing messaging, and its intuitive grasp of how to navigate the web of persuasion, map well to Web 2.0’s proliferating content channels and network-based communication structure. The savvy PR professional can insert himself or his brand directly into the network without having to rely on a third-party introduction from a journalist—not via subterfuge, but by establishing the client brand as a valuable information resource. Then, through strategies such as tagging, RSS, voting, and old-fashioned hyperlinking, the content is disseminated virally.

The viral uptake model is also coveted by online advertisers, who look to social media to drive deeper engagement with products and brands. To be sure social media has many benefits for advertisers, especially in uncovering preferences, needs, and affinities that can provide better targeting, higher conversions, and an advertising experience that feels less intrusive. But the fundamental quid pro quo of the advertising value proposition can only go so far in social media. There’s a point where efforts cross the line into PR. That might mean companies will shift some budgets from advertising to PR as social media gains traction, cutting media sites out of the revenue stream.

The online medium constantly challenges us to rethink assumptions about boundaries between business categories. Advertising and PR will continue to exist as the conjoined twins of the persuasion industry. But in this new world we’re creating online, don’t be surprised if the bright line that used to divide them begins to blur around the edges.

The Wall Around the Creativity Industry Is Crumbling

Last week my friend Kathleen, a fellow Yahoo alum, and I were brainstorming about ways her company, OneTrueMedia, could align products with businesses’ need to tell their stories online in text, photos, audio, and video. The idea was to empower businesses to create their own media; professional intermediaries such as video producers are no longer required. It was the latest in a series of unrelated events that have heightened my recognition of how quickly the walls that once surrounded the creativity industry are crumbling.

I’m working with another friend, Roy, to produce a book of photographs of the traditional Chinese tea houses he owns in the San Francisco area. In this case he’s planning to forego a publishing house and print the book at his own expense in Hong Kong. Distribution will be through his retail and web sites. Then a couple of days ago, a magazine publisher in the Philippines—someone I didn’t know--emailed to ask if he could use a photo I posted on Flickr from my vacation in Beijing, to illustrate an article in an upcoming issue. Not so long ago he would have had to find a stock photo or use a photo bureau. Today a quick Flickr search serves up millions of pictures by photographers from around the world.

Creativity is one of the most basic human urges. For a long time, prosperous businesses have survived as gatekeepers to the process of expressing creativity, producing it, and bringing it to market. Now the gates are being thrown wide open. Low-cost or free services available online offer production, distribution, marketing, and more. Each of us can be—and many of us already are—our own publishers.

At least for the moment, the urgency and novelty of being empowered to do something once reserved for a select elite—present our creative efforts to the masses—is making for lots of online business opportunities. I believe the ongoing democratization of creativity, and applying successful online storytelling tools and techniques from the consumer sector to B2B, is one of the important online trends of 2008.

It’s interesting to ruminate on what this trend will mean culturally, down the road. What we take for granted today as our culture’s storytelling, or art, is inevitably shaped by the gatekeeper structure that has enclosed it. Like a gated garden, it’s been rather tidy and predictable. That’s going to change when the gates come down. No doubt many will bemoan the lack of hierarchy, structure, and uniformity of the old days. They’ll probably regret the “lack of standards” when any Iowa housewife can publish a novel, or New Jersey dentist can make a feature film. I think our language itself, in both the spoken and written forms, is due to evolve.

Yet, on the flip side the tremendous voice that’s unleashed is sure to be vibrant. Audiences will be free to affiliate with the content that resonates most directly, without relying on gatekeepers to make preliminary judgments that may or may not reflect the market’s real tastes--and who also have been collecting a generous helping of revenue in exchange for their custodial role. Exciting times are ahead, with even greater need for configurable search capabilities, community input, and navigation features to help consumers make sense of it all. In other words, a new round of online business opportunities.