Do ad blockers promote PR strategies’ importance?
Though many say PR is dead, this author argues that its strategies are necessary in an age in which advertising and marketing gets blocked.
The panic in PR as tens of thousands of journalists were laid off? The collapse of journalism and the seeming vulnerability of PR? The diversion of billions of dollars by marketers from traditional ads into digital ads?
The very words “public relations” disappeared from the titles of corporate PR directors. Today, a Google search on “Death of Public Relations” generates articles titled “The Many Deaths of Public Relations,” and “The Death of PR Agencies.”
But, as Bob Dylan sang, “Things have changed.”
Three news items suggest marketers have spurned traditional advertising and embraced engagement by PR and content marketing:
1. The death knell of advertising
PepsiCo President Brad Jakeman suggested last month at the Association of National Advertising in Orlando that advertisers kill the word ‘advertising.’
“Can we stop using the term advertising, which is based on this model of polluting (content),” railed Jakeman, contemptuous of the advertising on YouTube videos.
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