There is a plague spreading in marketing and PR departments across the country. It's the communications version of the flesh-eating virus, eating away at campaigns, killing programs and stunting sales. It lies there quietly suckling from the unwitting marketing host’s healthy budgets, consuming millions of marketing dollars in every bite. Ironically, like doctors turned mad scientists, the perpetrators behind this unchecked PR plague are the very marketing executives who helped design, approve and launch them. The disease is impatience. I’ve watched as impatience killed programs anywhere between one to eight months after launch. I’ve even seen a client kill a multimillion dollar program two weeks before a launch, flushing $150,000 down the PR pipes. One January, we pitched this cool campaign to a client who loved the idea and immediately funded it. We started work immediately and launched the program in June the same year. In October, the client was already getting cold feet as the all-too-familiar grumbling began. “We’re really not seeing the results for all the money we’re spending. We’ll give it a couple more months, but people aren’t very happy right now.” In December, just six months after launch, we were instructed that if we did not generate a significant amount of coverage, the funding would be pulled. Six months – that’s like enrolling your kid in first grade and pulling him six months later because he can’t divide. (If “Got Milk” had been pulled after six months, would you remember it now?) Fortunately, in this case we generated enough hits to give the program some breathing room and it became the most successful PR program in the brand’s history, runny for 10+ years, generating millions of non-advertising-supported revenue and serving as a clear differentiator for the company. Too many clients view PR like advertising: You design the ad, produce it and place it. Taa Daaaaaaa! NOT. PR requires timing, persistence, constant adjustment and mirroring the interest of reporters and current news trends. I mean, c’mon, man, Chef Emeril doesn’t just throw his Pasta Primavera in the oven; come back a few hours later and Voila! He sticks around to throw in some carrots and asparagus, adds a tablespoon of salt, lets it marinate over a medium-high heat, melts some butter, adds a touch of olive oil, throws in a pinch of garlic and fresh tomatoes … Damn, I’m hungry.
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