PR Wars and other Problems (NY Times does PR)

One of the missions of this blog is to help educate about PR and defend a field that has historically not done the best job of explaining itself.  So, from time to time I will call out inaccuracies that I see about the portrayal of PR in the media and in popular culture.

As an example, the NY Times had an article in the Sunday business section yesterday, Big Hair, and a Tussle in the Skies.

It is about how the trade association for the commercial airline industry is using a fictional spokesperson named Edna in a campaign designed to call attention to some of the industry’s pressing needs and influence Congress and the FAA.  Part of this includes creating awareness that business aviation – namely, the corporate jets that burn up so much fuel and add to the air traffic controller burden  – is not paying its fair share of taxes.

All well, and good, but as far as I can gather – as the article says, anyway – the campaign is ad based: As the article relates:

"Edna likes wearing big wigs, not subsidizing them"  say video, audio and print ads by the association.

So, strictly speaking, this is an ad campaign and not a public relations campaign.  PR would of course seek to use channels other than paid media to get the message out (yes, I learned this from an article, and there may be a true PR component to their campaign, but the article itself was about the ads).

A little later, the article talks about an intensifying "public relations battle for the skies."

I find that all too often PR is brought into discussions of metaphorical wars and problems.  Companies are said to fight PR wars and have PR problems.   

Rarely do you see discussion of marketing wars, market share wars and stories about companies just having problems.  No, PR has to be brought in as a convenient but lazy device – it makes a nice headline and story but tarnishes an entire industry.