PR people really are dead and mindless sheep
By Francis Moran
Notwithstanding that I have an undergraduate degree in public relations, have worked in the industry for a good chunk of my adult life, and for nearly 14 years have operated a PR agency, I have never held the public relations business in terribly high regard.
My dim opinion of many PR practitioners is all the more acutely refined when I look at agencies.
Most PR agencies follow a well-established, widely accepted and tragically flawed business model. They are shaped like pyramids — and yes, any allusion to Ponzi schemes you might think I am making is wholly deliberate. At the top of the pyramid you generally find one or a few experienced, generally well-connected and usually well-rewarded agency owners or executives. Then the model drops rather swiftly through middle ranks to a thick layer at the bottom almost always comprised of thinly experienced and poorly paid youngsters who do virtually all the work. The top layer is all a prospect sees before retaining the agency; the bottom layer is pretty much all the client experiences once the retainer agreement has been signed.
