It’s one of the most prolific and most incorrect stereotypes about PR practitioners – that of the party planner, publicist, product promoter. Perhaps because editing press releases doesn’t make for compelling television, the portrayals of PR pros in the media tend to overemphasize a glamorous lifestyle with characters that are really more like caricatures. More often than not, these portrayals are of women. Arik Hanson recently wondered whether these portrayals were good or bad for the PR industry, and David Mullen had an excellent comment:
I think it has contributed to the decline in young men entering in or interested in public relations. Most men don’t want to plan parties for a living. They want a seat at the big table, so they major in marketing instead.
If I think back to my PR classes, I can count about nine or 10 men in them – combined. If you took a stroll across the street to the business school’s marketing department, you’d find it reversed. At my undergraduate institution, the business school has a 64%/36% male-to-female ratio, while the journalism school is more like 20%/80%.
So how does PR shake the perception that the profession is not just party planning and that practitioners can and do have a seat at the table? How does PR gender-balance the profession to ensure a variety of viewpoints and approaches? Here’s what I think:
1. Stop using “fluffy” topics for writing assignments in PR classes.
Writing is the absolute crux of our profession. In college, I remember writing news releases about Peach festivals, charity fundraisers and student “awareness” groups. All of these assignments helped me learn the structure of a news release and proper AP style, but the reality was that in my first two jobs after college I was working for companies who were almost never going to pitch a light-hearted story to the features editor of a local daily. PR students can benefit from learning to write technical press releases intended for trade publications. If you can discuss the benefits of non-halogenated flame-retardant resins in automotive wiring harness applications, you can handle a Peach Festival. PR professionals who can effectively distill an organization’s or a product’s key attributes will certainly be invited to the big table.
2. Ensure that business financials are a key part of the PR curriculum.
Every PR professional should know how to read a balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement. This is the language that our clients and stakeholders communicate in, so we need to be fluent in it, too. Students should have to practice writing quarterly earnings releases and Q&A statements about them. The boys over in the business school may be lured back to PR if they recognize that someone in the organization needs to be responsible for communicating how a merger or divestiture or new product innovation will impact a company’s bottom line, and that someone is typically a PR person.
3. Integrate business and PR students more frequently.
In my undergraduate classes, there was almost no interaction with business majors. Despite a lot of similarities between PR and marketing, there were very few business students as members of PRSSA, and very few activities that brought students from those two schools together. Why not pair up a PR and marketing class for a capstone project? Have them develop a new product, define a target market, research feasibility and time to profitability, create a launch plan, and evaluate and measure success? As many comments on Arik’s post noted, this would help business students get a better understanding for the value of PR, before they’ve even started their careers.
4. Show that event planning isn’t just parties.
Sex and the City’s Samantha and her ilk are publicists, a segment of PR that’s it’s own animal. But there is a lot of event planning that goes on in PR – and it’s not just parties. Trade shows, customer visits, executive retreats, media receptions – all of these events take organization, creativity and a strategic mindset to be successful. Guys may not be intrigued by the idea of choosing table linens or creating invitations for a charity auction, but how about creating an interactive booth display for a trade show and planning aspects like a media interview schedule, product display demos, executive speeches, and investor cocktail reception? These are the kind of events that give a PR pro lots of visibility to those at the big table, and if you can succeed in pulling off events like this, you’ll get a seat there, too.
These are just a few suggestions that might help more males feel that PR is a legitimate profession where they can play with the big boys. What else do you think could tip the scales and lure more male students out of the business school and into PR?
Maybe we’ll eventually get to the point where those negative portrayals of PR professionals on TV include a few men, too.
Interesting post and one that I’ve thought alot about since reading Arik’s blog post. Personally, I switched to a PR major when I learned these two things: (1) how much money I would make as a reporter & (2) how many girls were majoring in PR:).
Seriously, I always encourage male journalism students to consider PR as a major. I’ve personally found many opportunities for men in PR as we are certainly a minority. Specifically when working with the media, receiving a “pitch” from a male is sometimes a surprise on the other end of the phone. I’m all about using that to my advantage:).
Again, great post and I’m glad to be contributing to this conversation!
Amy,
Interesting post with some very good points. I’m actually a “business administration” major (whatever that means anymore). I’ve become more involved in PR through my involvement in the social media community. I’ve argued before that with the universal incorporation of social media, the lines between PR and marketing are blurring. Education has been slow to follow the real world trends. In my school the communications department is kept completely separate from the business department which I think is just…ignorant and outrageous. I don’t think it should be a matter of getting men to switch over to a PR major, as much as it’s important to show the relevance of PR in all other aspects of the business world. I’m becoming more involved in aspects of both marketing and PR, and I don’t see myself planning any parties any time soon. ^_^
Dave
As VP of the ONU chapter of PRSSA, I made sure we brought in speakers to talk about this very topic. We had Prof. Bill Sledzik (http://toughsledding.wordpress.com/) speak about his case studies classes at Kent where his students and I think you come to the same conclusion they did.
I think people tend to over look the fact that all our lives, guys have been taught about our capitalistic society and that money buys security. Marketing doesn’t mind spending money on campaigns as long as there are large profits in the bottom line.
The challenge of PR (well, good PR anyway) is bringing about the same influence of the potential buying decision, without straying from the message and without accruing huge promotional costs. “Spend money to make money” just doesn’t cut it and a lot of guys would rather not have to deal with the work if something can just be paid for. My 2 cents anyway…
Great comments! Thanks for sharing your views.
Matt – I agree that it some men can definitely use their “novelty” in the profession to their advantage – probably more so in an agency setting, where the gender imbalance appears to be more pronounced than in other areas like corporate comm.
David – You are certainly right that the lines are blurring. It would be great if universities recognized that as well and tried to integrate the business and communications curricula more. It seems like you’re doing a lot of integration on your own! This will make you a much more marketable candidate.
Evan – You bring up an excellent point about organizations understanding that marketing is something that’s expected to be paid for, while often with PR we struggle to bring about results while battling the perception that PR should be “free.”
Great insights!
Amy – thanks for extending the conversation to your place. Love that you went beyond observing the trend and shared possible ways to help right the ship.
I agree with all your thoughts. PR classes don’t talk about business financials, sales cycles, product development, etc. How can PR pros better understand business goals and develop strategies to help achieve them without this type of knowledge? I think it’s one of the reasons our industry overall doesn’t often have a seat at the table that every talks about obtaining.
I also think social media/digital pr may help attract more young men into the field. The challenge will be equipping them to think strategically about how to use the space and tools, as opposed to solely focusing on cool tools. Wait, that’s the challenge for many folks already in the field. :)
Thanks, Amy, for breaking the ice on this kind of topic. You’ve brought up some very valid points that I believe are some hot buttons in our industry. While I cannot cite any PR classes I took in college (graduated from Baylor University with an Acting degree….yes….acting….but that’s for another time), I can tell you that one of the biggest things that drew me to PR was the mere fact that the first team I began working with had some INCREDIBLY BRIGHT minds (can’t recall how many women we had vs. men, but I do recall the ratio being about even). EVERYONE THERE brought something unique and powerful to the table.
I say all this b/c I believe that too many shows and characters that people see in mass media dumb down what PR is and can be. And since we are a culture that prefers to be told the truth, instead of seeking it out, we rely on the smoke-n-mirrors and ‘spinmaster’ crap that’s dished out.
This is NOT to say that out industry has been the best at handling its own PR. Unfortunately, the practices of some snake oil salesmen/women in PR leave a bit of that nasty ‘stank’ in the air….but again, that’s for another time.
I believe that ONE way to help solve this would be to have true PR professionals (male & female) visit colleges/universities and present a bit of the truth in the average day of a PR person. This kind of effort, I believe, can go a long way to throwing out the fluff mentality of what a public relations is – both as a profession and an industry.
Great post Amy.
I have to agree with Dave’s comments: us boys typically want to sit at the big table, which is why would-be pr pros shift towards marketing and advertising. Those subjects are more in line with the “traditional” components of a company’s operation.
I think one of our biggest obstacles is the perception that PR is just a “creative field.” This view couldn’t be more wrong. Our goal isn’t just to tell stories and create exposure. We need to understand core business objectives and operations through the eyes of multiple departments. We need to unite everyone, from sales staff to engineers, and create one cohesive message for the company… which is not easy. Maybe the solution is to simply broadcast that this industry is much deeper than just event planning and press releases.
On a personal level, I’m hoping to be a PR guy who eventually sits at the big table, which is why I went back for my MBA (one year down!). If I’m truly going to coexist with the C-suite, I need to be playing on their level. I want to learn the business of “business” just as much as I want to learn the business of PR.
Oh… and Matt’s right: the ratio of girls to guys weighs heavily in our favor. ;)
Great stuff. I’ll be sure to tweet!
Brandon
@bchesnutt
I really like this discussion. Great post and comments.
When I began college, I can honestly say I had no clue what PR was and pretty much stumbled upon it via being a COM major.
Once thing I did know, however, was that I wanted a business minor so that whatever industry I went into, I would have a solid background there. Now that I’ve worked in PR, I can say that the business minor really paid off as it gives me a good perspective and working knowledge of many clients and their needs. For that reason, I think the point about integrating business classes with PR is spot on!
On the topic of guys in PR, there’s MANY more female PR majors at Villanova than men. Actually, there’s a lot more women within the Communication major than men.
When I was interviewing for fall internships over the summer, I was asked on TWO different interviews with different agencies whether it would be a problem for me working with mostly women. I thought that was very interesting and telling of where the PR industry is right now.
Talking to some of my good guy friends in the business school at Villanova, they have very little knowledge of what PR is and think the COM major is for “athletes & sorority girls” looking for an easy major. Makes me angry, but that’s the perception out there.
Even when I explain what PR is and how it can benefit a business as much as or more so than marketing, they write it off as secondary.
I think that lack of understanding and ignorance also contributes very much to preventing more men from entering the field.
Thanks Amy, you’ve brought up a discussion point that’s been on my mind for a very long time — the point about business backgrounds. In my opinion, a business background is critical to success in PR.
I graduated from BU (many years ago!) as a marketing major and with a BSBA in Business Administration. I gobbled up as many marketing courses as I could and that were available to me. In hindsight, public relations was not a course available in BU’s School of Management (then called SMG). I hadn’t even heard of PR, really.
So, armed with my BSBA, I got my first job out of school as a sales person for a high tech company in Hopkinton, MA. After about a year, I switched into the marketing department. We were struggling with ad budgets; we just didn’t have the money to advertise effectively. So I asked my boss if I could start up a PR effort. “Hey, it’s free exposure,” I told him. I got the green light, and that was my first position in PR. But coming from a business background, I approached it from a business perspective:
I started asking lots of questions: Who do I need to be influencing to further our business? Do we need to sell product to endusers; to build a channel; to attract partners for strategic relationships? I began designing multi-faceted programs each designed to impact different parts of the business.
I was sitting at the table with the CEO, product marketing, marketing communications (to ensure our messaging was in synch), engineering — all the key departments, asking them what their goals were for the business and discussing how PR could bolster their goals.
I took that business-based approach with me throughout my career.
I’ve always felt that, while understanding journalism and understanding PR tactics, etc were important, they were all secondary to understanding business.
At my days at the agency, it was clear to me that my colleagues didn’t really understand it either. They didn’t understand what was really important to CEOs. Was the number of clips you generated really that critical to the bottom line? Or was the number of channel partners who signed up as a result of targeted coverage a more meaningful measure?
There’s so much talk of coming up with interesting angles and innovative story ideas, but not enough effort placed in understanding your clients’ business so well, that you can pick through every aspect of their business and find gems that are not only newsworthy, but important.
Today, as a consultant, when I speak with my clients (all CEOs), I talk to them about their business and what they’re trying to get done in the next 6, 12, 18 months. From there, we look at how communications can support those goals. Then we look at strategies and tactics. We measure success by looking at how PR contributed to the business goals.
I realize you started out talking about how to attract more men to the industry, but you clearly touched on something that I think is so important to our industry.
Perhaps if everyone (men and women) truly understood the role PR plays in business — not the role PR plays in social media, or even marketing (that’s another subject for another time) — but business, perhaps we’d have a deeper talent pool from which to tap.
“There’s my 10 cents, my two cents is free!”
Thanks for the great comments, guys! Interesting that no females have weighed in…
Dave – I hope that you’re right about some of the new digital PR tools attracting more men to the field. You are exactly right in that the strategy behind these tools is key – not just tutorials on how to use them.
Narciso – I love that you have an acting degree and ended up in PR! I have found that most of the men I’ve encountered in PR/corporate communications in my career did not start out there. Their backgrounds included chemical engineering, history, English, broadcasting. A lot of them just seemed to “fall into” PR later in their careers after not really being aware of it as an option in school. Your idea of bringing in more professionals to talk with students may help more males understand and become interested in the field sooner – and do so with a realistic understanding of the profession. That ties in with what Tom said about men not thinking that a PR major is “for them” and most of them just stumbling upon it.
Brandon – I went back for my MBA as well and it’s made a HUGE difference. I had little-to-no business acumen or understanding coming out of undergrad and now I feel as though I can really understand the needs of a business better and use communications to help achieve those goals. Good luck with school!
Kevin – EXCELLENT points about having a business-based mindset first and foremost. Understanding a client’s or organization’s business model is critical to allowing you to ask the right questions and create communications strategies that are truly effective. I hope that more PR curricula and practitioners realize this and that it does indeed translate to a deeper and more diverse talent pool to pull from.
Thanks so much for continuing the discussion, guys!