Cookie Cutter PR

I practice PR in an interesting city. There are tons of PR boutiques in metro Phoenix, with even more partnered up with advertising / marketing firms. Mostly, though, it seems to be people that think public relations is easy and not something that you need to learn from experience or schooling ... the "our clients are asking for it, so let's start a PR program!" mindset.

Currently, a friend of mine who is a morning producer at the local CBS affiliate is doing media relations for such a firm ... one morning, the owner decided to start doing PR. You know, it's soooooo easy.

It's the same for PR in a Box - you know, since PR is the same for every product / corporation in the world, you can cookie cutter the programs. While reading my local business section - it's a 2 minute bathroom read of 4 pages - I read about a local Internet strategy firm launching a public relations service line.

It always amazes me that people think they can just launch a PR service because they know a little something about PR. Granted, the person leading the service for i-Ology does have some good credentials. But, isn't this devaluing public relations, making it seem cookie cutter?

Every time POP! Public Relations takes on a client or gets a call for new business, my team and I do research on the space, look at the current and past media from the client, find out what the business goals and objectives are ... you know, those things that you would need to develop a strategic campaign. How is PR supposed to be a success if you are just providing a line-item service within Internet marketing? How is that even possible?

I am finally catching up on my blog reading, so noticed that PR Opinions also posted on this new service.
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