ARTICULATED

Years ago, when I wrote a weekly newsletter for a corporate trade association, my boss was a stickler about securing sign-off from accountable experts on any story I wrote. Her preferred turn of phrase: “We [the PR department] don’t make policy. We just communicate it.”

It turns out that today that statement, flipped on its end a bit, drives my increasingly strong belief about the only way PR will work in the future. “Without a policy, we shouldn’t communicate it.”

I’ve long argued to clients that we should not pitch a story idea to a news writer unless we have “proof points” – facts that will make our pitch credible and the reporter’s ultimate story believable.

But I’m referencing something more philosophical. It suggests that lest we risk inadvertently telling tall tales, let’s first be sure what we want to say about our offering is fully aligned with what the company or organization actually does – its operations, structures, systems, and the like. If not, let’s find something else good to say until it is.

As I’ve become more confident in my views on this, I occasionally find myself in tricky positions. I’ve gently, respectfully recommended to client executives that if they really want to make a certain claim to the marketplace, then they might need to consider some significant organizational/operational changes. Not every CEO appreciates such sweeping advice from their PR guy, though some do.

I’m willing to suggest the unpopular to a client for a reason. In a world in which everyone is a citizen journalist, everyone follows citizen journalism, and people no longer trust corporate voices, claims by an organization that are inconsistent with the organization’s actual daily behavior get noticed, called out and amplified. It does more harm than good.

I think old-school PR books call what I’m talking about “PR with integrity,” but the idea matters now more than ever. The behavior of your product, service, people, and other customer-facing things shape the perception of your organization far more than any polished talking points a PR person can offer. So let’s get busy making all those things great, and great conversation about your brand is almost sure to follow.