Do PR and marketing make a perfect comms couple?
Public relations and marketing – two interlinked comms functions whose connection has been under debate for years. Since at least the 1970s, in fact, according to Stephen Waddington, who led our latest webinar on the subject, ‘PR & Marketing: The Ultimate Power Couple?’.
‘In researching our ‘Trends in the integration of marketing and public relations’ white paper, I found a piece from 1978 highlighting how the two functions should work together. That relationship in the headline is always going to be situational depending on size and scale, but there’s one thing that’s certain; this debate has been going on for 50 years and will keep going.’
Download the white paper ‘Trends in the integration of marketing and public relations’.
If this is a conversation that hasn’t yet started at your organisation, whether you’re working in-house or agency-side, take advice from Stephen, Mastercard‘s Suman Hughes and Hotwire Global‘s Tara O’Donnell shared during the webinar to consider the benefits of bringing your PR and marketing functions closer together.
Is this a debate for everyone?
As pointed out by Stephen, the CEOs, customers and celebrities that PR and marketing teams serve won’t really care so much about what is integrated and what isn’t – what matters is that the results are good. Who it is important for is those working towards the results, who have had to weave key messaging and strategy, such as ESG, into every aspect of their planning and actions over the last few years.
‘The pandemic has led to a reappraisal of organisations,’ believes Stephen. ‘Teams need to work together to understand their business’ place in the market and in wider society.’
‘An idea can start from anywhere’ – Mastercard’s Suman Hughes on the in-house perspective
On taking on her current role as Mastercard’s director of communications, UK, Suman Hughes joined a comms team already integrated. PR and marketing work closely together to communicate the brand’s message to its global audience and worldwide workforce and this connection aids every part of their strategy and execution.
‘Working as one team means offering a single unified voice. Whether it’s marketing, comms, public policy, HR, accounts, it all comes back to our employees and them as brand ambassadors – we talk as one, as Mastercard.
‘Integration means we can pool our resources and break down silos to make the most of what we have, making the biggest impact for our stakeholder groups and audiences.
‘It’s a global model that we run – not just across our international team, but across all our agency groups, too – we approach every piece of work this way, from paid, owned and earned. An idea can start from anywhere and become a campaign that’s holistic. It’s a level playing field and it makes it super-interesting for me to do my job.’
‘It’s all about business impact’ – Hotwire Global’s Tara O’Donnell on the agency perspective
‘In teams that have integrated marketing and PR, it’s all about business impact and how you measure it. When companies work in this way, it is more efficient, but depends on the organisation.
‘When companies had to go into ‘protect revenue’ mode in 2020, we realised that many were struggling because traditional marketing channels had shut down. Our comms clients, maybe for the first time, were tasked with having business impact – everyone in their organisations were tasked with improving business results. That’s what led us to look at what we do and evolve it to impact reputation along with revenue.
‘We’ve found it’s an incredible marriage; reputation to revenue resonates across the board. If you’re talking to a comms client about thought leadership – you’ve based it on insight about an audience they’re trying to reach; you should do that with your marketing anyway. You can use that insight all the way through the pipeline.
Is integrating PR and marketing for you?
‘It’s a really natural progression of using what you’re already creating to have different impact,’ says Tara.
‘The value to clients is really simple to show; our comms clients will understand it and our marketing teams do, too. It’s not necessary that they always work together, but we can show that there will be business impact when they do.
‘From a comms point-of-view, to be able to go to the business and show how you’ve impacted revenue… that ability to show value is incredible.’
‘Give it a go!’ says Suman. ‘If you’re really clear on your business objectives, you’ll all be pulling in the same direction’.
Watch the fullPR & Marketing: The Ultimate Power Couple? webinar here for more on integrating your comms functions.
The white paper, ‘Trends in the integration of marketing and public relations’ , can be downloaded here.
Leave a Comment