Why is it that a PR agency can be ‘let go’ by one client for allegedly not performing, yet can win accolades by another client – more often than not a competitor to its original client?
What set me thinking about this were a couple of excellent – but different – commentaries I came across in recent weeks – a US perspective and an Australian perspective by Jocelyn Hunter, of Bench PR.
One of the points in both these – from an agency perspective – is the impact that the client giving recognition and praise to the agency can have on the performance of the PR agency and how it motivates them to go that extra mile.
It’s a bit sad in some ways that PR agencies need to have their egos stroked. However, PR agency life can be pretty demanding and sometimes the team working on the business don’t get the thanks they deserve from their own management, so client recognition can often be leveraged a long way.
I’ve written several articles on the topic of client and PR agency relationships of which one on dysfunctional PR agency relationships which talks about what I believe is at the axis of every ‘dodgy’ client-agency relationship – issues of power and a failure of process.
In some ways the client-PR agency relationship is a bit like an iceberg. There’s the part you see on top, but underneath it there’s a whole lot more happening that’s not visible.
In my experience the relationship at the top between the PR Director or Manager and the PR agency head or account director can be fine. But there can be real frictions among staff on both sides underneath these two that can undermine the whole relationship.
Without wanting to sound too much like an ‘old codger’ I think part of the problem is the lack of real business and life appreciation on both sides of the fence.
When I started out PR Directors were, in the main, professionals who had come into PR from journalism or had other corporate skills. They knew their way around the traps and understood how business worked. Likewise on the PR agency side where there wasn’t much room for juniors.
Today, with much more professionalism around PR and communication (which is a good thing), most of those in PR in both the client and agency know nothing else apart from what they have been doing –public relations or communication.
That’s because they’ve graduated with a PR or communications degree and gone straight into an in-house or agency role.
I think that too often PR agency people don’t have a clue as to how business works, the pressures, protocols and processes that internal corporate public relations and communications people have to go through. That makes them unnecessarily intolerant about how their clients act and behave.
Likewise I think that the public relations and communications folk in corporate life often don’t really understand how a PR agency operates and pressures and obligations they have to meet. That makes them oblivious as to what they need to do to get the best performance from their agency.
I think there’s probably an opportunity for a lot more education to, from and about both sides – corporate and PR agencies. But would the egos and self-pride on both sides allow them to admit that perhaps there are some things they need to learn?
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