Nothing works better than the truth November 30, 2007
Posted by paulprdixon in : CSR, Career Focus, PRandom , add a comment
Originally posted 22 November 2007
One of our founding fathers of the public relations industry once said, “Perception is reality”. Harold Burson was of course referring to one cornerstone all communications professionals should embody: manage the perception of your client to its stakeholders.
Another founding father of our industry and former Burson-Marsteller man, Robert Leaf, also has shared his insight into perception, reality and PR: “Public relations is about perception management. You might run a great company, your product or service might genuinely provide great benefits. But if the customer does not perceive it that way it remains on the shelves.” It’s Public Relations 101 stuff; a cornerstone of the industry that we all have to be reminded of time to time – even the founding fathers.
But the picture on the other side of the coin is a blurry one. We cannot assume that all companies’ products, services and business practices can justifiably be described using one of the countless superlatives the English language affords us. All is well when the cool scoop of perceived reality, with hundreds-and-thousands sprinkled on top, and dished out by the spin-doctors, reflects the truth – even with the hundreds-and-thousands.
However, when the perceived reality, with promises of the hundreds-and-thousands in abundance, doesn’t even have the ice cream sitting below, things aren’t so sweet. Think Enron – the perceived reality, which their PR guys undoubtedly played a role in developing, was that Enron shares were a safe and lucrative bet. We now all know that Enron was heading for the biggest fall from grace in US corporate history; its stakeholders suffering big time.