PR Remixed, Mashed-Up.

A lot of what I blog about (and read about) is how the media and technology landscape is evolving and how PR people (including myself) are adapting to this change.  Despite some early bumps, the consensus among PR folks is that the industry will *eventually* acclimate to the Age of Participation.  But what if it can’t?  Or put another way, what if the fastest path to change isn’t the mass evolution of one field, but rather the re-mix or mash-up of several interrelated fields?

As the media landscape continues to divide and audiences become increasingly fragmented, is it that far fetched to think the boundaries between what may now be separate, unrelated industries will soon blur?  Perhaps even become one?  Case in point, as companies look for new ways to directly engage with customers online, it doesn’t take a big leap of the imagination to think that customer service and PR may soon cross paths, err, mash-up.  Gasp!

I know, but think about it: just about every PR blogger I’m aware of has tirelessly illustrated the fact that among other things, "companies need to embrace new technology and listen to what customers are saying online."  And as appropriate, look for ways to engage with customers directly.  This is all fine and good, today, but if current trends tell us anything, it’s that there’s no way PR alone will be capable of scaling to tomorrow’s needs.  So this sort of activity will either cease being a function of PR, or PR will have to change.

You can take similar thinking and apply it to sales – where “leads” are no longer the exclusive domain of the sales team, but rather a by-product of a direct dialogue with users online and the relationships that result (choo, choo).  Or webmasters – where site design and search engine optimization become the preeminent channels for message making.  In these cases too, the PR industry is the position where it will either have to embrace change and mash-up different skill sets, or pass the baton and face irrelevancy.

All this said, I see the PR industry as a whole growing smarter, but I also see it spreading thinner.  I think over the next several years, we’ll see the concept of mash-ups take foot.  Mostly because PR generalists will be incapable of grappling with the volume of info and diversity of audiences, and PR specialists will be too narrowly focused to make a significant impact.  In some ways you can already see mash-ups surfacing.  For example, Brand Evangelists and Community Managers, come to mind as early versions of a PR/Customer Service/Product Marketing mash-up.   Likewise, SEOs/SEMs are starting to blur the lines between Advertising and PR.  Heck, I look at my own career as I dive deeper into my daily work with social media and it no longer fits nicely into the PR bucket.  But it’s not *really* marketing either.  It’s something else.  A yet unnamed mash-up of several fields.

Update: Pete Blackshaw shares similar thoughts on how roles are blurring (i.e., "channel conflict").

Managing Internal Channel Conflict?  The core issue here, which ties us back to the Jeff Jarvis Dell incident is that  "marketing" and "consumer affairs" often work in independent silos, incented by competing reward structures. Consumer affairs (the ear to the consumer) usually lags behind the marketer in adapting their listening tools to marketer initiated "events."  Expect this to get way more complicated and messy as more brands begin to aggressively promote the same type of CGM commentary that most consumer affairs groups have been incented to keep to a minimum. Managing internal "channel conflict" is something every brand should start thinking about. 

Comments

[Stuart Bruce]

Many local councils in the UK have already merged their public relations and customer service departments so that they have a senior officer responsible for both.

[Michael Martine]

PR as we know it is dead.

[Chris Thilk]

Mike,
In response to your comment on my PRR blog: Yes, I think not only is there a future for a AD/MKTG/PR generalist I think it's an essential outlook to have. If you are just approaching a problem or campaign from an advertising point of view then there are things that won't occur to you because they belong more in the PR camp. Without a bit of knowledge from all three worlds (as well as a good bit of time spent on the client service floor) communicators are really going into the game with only half - or less - the tools they need for their jobs.

--Chris