Dominating Web 2.0: PR or Advertising?
August 28, 2007 11:13 PM | Written by Yan Shikhvarger
A colleague from RF Interactive has an article in PR Week on this subject arguing that it is PR that is better suited to take advantages of Web 2.0
Read full article (password to PR Week required) or see excerpt below.
It is now officially recognized as a major media channel. And judging by the near-unanimous opinion that the questions were far more interesting and insightful than the responses, it's safe to say that the rise of Web 2.0 marks a new era of public discourse in which the conversation is king. And with that comes an opportunity for the PR industry.
This publication recently ran a survey that showed PR ahead of advertising and marketing as the ideal industry to leverage Web 2.0 technologies. Why? At its core, Web 2.0 is about relationships. It is about using online technologies to create and maintain a connection between a company and its audience. That speaks to the heart of PR and is the reason why Web 2.0 will benefit PR more than it does any other communications industry.
Of course, our colleagues in advertising might contest this. Judging by the restructuring and realignment of many major ad agencies over the past couple of years, they are already making overt attempts to claim Web 2.0 as their own. But the attempt is likely to prove futile.
Sure, online ad spending continues to skyrocket, but the average click-rate of online ad banners (a primary measure of an online ad campaign's success) is at its lowest level in years. Contextual advertising -- a primary driver of total online advertising activity -- seldom involves an actual ad agency. Advertising will always exist on the web, but pure "push strategies" will no longer be the dominant form of commercial speech on the internet.
What takes its place will incorporate both "push" and "pull" -- a back-and-forth dialogue between a manufacturer and its audience that behaves like, well, a relationship. Advertising is not used to audience talking beyond the occasional brand study. But the forging and maintaining of relationships is the core offering that PR is built on.
This signal is a tremendous opportunity for the PR industry. Conversation - the push and pull - is becoming the dominant form of online speech. The dialogue inherent in blogs, message boards, online product reviews, and yes, YouTube videos all attest to this. The net effect will be a kind of "collective intelligence" where the audience/customer/public uses technology to express its preference/opinion/reaction regarding a product or service.
In the equation where market forces purely determine the development of an economy, Web 2.0 has allowed the variable known as "consumer feedback" to suddenly have exponentially more significance and power. This presents both an amazing opportunity and a significant threat to companies and thus their PR agencies alike.
Web 2.0 can help create life-long brand champions for a company. It also has the potential of creating life-long brand detractors. The determining factor will be how Web 2.0 relationships are forged and managed. Managing publics -- their whims, idiosyncrasies and needs -- is something the PR professional does everyday. In order for the PR industry to rise up and truly claim Web 2.0 as its own, it simply needs to see Web 2.0 as an extension of what it already does. The net effect could be that, driven by the PR industry, business builds a more transparent, authentic and rewarding relationship with its customers. And that's good for everyone.
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