"Categorising media as Paid, Owned and Earned isn’t particularly useful. In fact, it simply appears to reinforce increasingly irrelevant functional silos."
That's how I opened a blog post back in November, The Influence View of Content, and three incidents over the last couple of weeks have redoubled my determination to cut this crap.
Names have been changed...
Incident 1
Anne: "So our marketing team looks after the website, the blog and Facebook. And PR is obviously earned media – the traditional media relations, blogger relations and the like. They cover Twitter too, at least most of the time."
Me: "So if we're looking at things like that, let me ask where the concept of shared media takes us... the owned stuff that has earned a share – a 'Like', a RT, a +1 for example."
Anne: "Well that's owned media that people decide they rate. The earned media needs a sort of intervention from the PR team. Er... well... yeah, sometimes they'll also craft content they'd like to be shared. Designed to be shared I guess. Er... Hmmm. So you have owned-shared and earned-shared. No, that doesn't sound right... And of course sometimes you earn media you didn't set out to earn. Hang on, I think I have a diagram somewhere..."
Incident 2
Me: "So the challenge in question is predominantly one of public relations."
Bob: "Now hold on just a minute... there is definitely a strong need for advertising here."
Incident 3
Claire: "So we have the normal delineation of media. Marketing looks after paid and PR looks after earned. Right?"
Me: "I'm following..."
Claire: [I've tried hard to get this as close to the actual verbatim] "And marketing takes the more static stuff on owned media, you know the stuff we just put out there. But when it's designed to get a response, engagement, like a blog post, then the PR team looks after it. Until it looks like it's a customer service thing. But the customer service people say we should put up some more content that answers the questions before they arise. So sometimes they take it, and sometimes they push a requirement to marketing to update the web content, and sometimes they push back to the Twitter and Facebook team. Unless it's from a blogger, and then our PR agency likes to take that on because that's really earned media isn't it."
Me: "Goodness. The 'normal delineation' eh?! <sarcasm>Sounds seamless</sarcasm>."
Wowzers
So like I wrote in that November post, I can’t be the only one wondering if there’s any real value in this paid - owned - earned taxonomy. In other words, when exactly does it help you design and execute strategy? How does it help design organizational structure and processes?
It sure as hell looks to me like it's hindering Anne, Bob and Claire.
Public Relations is the planned and sustained effort to influence opinion and behaviour, and to be influenced similarly, in order to build mutual understanding and goodwill (source). At no point is PR defined in terms of paid, owned or earned media. PR may entail media relations, 'traditional' and 'digital', but media relations isn't a synonym for PR, and neither is earned media.
With respect to the second incident above, if advertising could help us achieve our PR objectives, then advertising may well feature in the PR strategy and tactical execution.
Marketing is the process by which companies create value for customers and build strong customer relationships in order to capture value from customers in return (Principles of Marketing, 5th European ed., Kotler et al). Guess what. At no point is marketing defined in terms of paid, owned or earned media.
Influence
As I assert in The Business of Influence, the ease and effectiveness with which we manage and learn from influence flows is integral to the ways all stakeholders interact with organizations to broker mutually valuable, beneficial relationships.
I believe that when an organisation becomes influence-centric, when it organizes itself around the Six Influence Flows and not around some misguided media taxonomy, it improves its ability to live up to its mission and pursue its vision.
[Photo credit: Leo Reynolds]
Stuart Bruce says:
Great post. Throughout my 23 year career in public relations I've always whatever communication channels or behavour that is most appropriate to what I'm trying to achieve. That includes using paid, owned and earned.
That said I'm not sure that I'd agree it isn't a useful term to use as it's a quick way to explain things to people, enabling you to go on and explain "But, actually it's more subtle and complex..."
23 April 2012 — 9:56 am
Philip says:
I see where you're coming from Stuart. An introductory model is indeed most useful when it acts as the first rung in the ladder to building out a more mature understanding. So perhaps we disagree as to the suitability of this approach as a first rung, or indeed whether it even qualifies as a candidate first rung.
A model where you subsequently demonstrate the intricacies and nuances is one thing, but a model that has to be disassembled in order to move to the second rung is no first rung at all.
Which of these we're dealing with here may be found in the answer to this question: Can we undertake PR without media at all?
And the answer is yes. Media is useful to our ends but we can crack on around it and without it. And yet the Paid Owned Earned appoach doesn't even recognise this fundamental.
Surely then it is as broken and misguided as I conclude. The situation here is analagous to the classical elements. Sure, the concept of Earth, Wind and Fire was the first historical step in arriving at the Periodic Table and sub-atomic physics as we understand them today, but no one would consider Earth, Wind and Fire a suitable first rung today.
Hmmm. I think that's what I'm trying to say. I'll think about it some more :-)
23 April 2012 — 10:19 am
Philip says:
Stuart,
Jay O'Connor has tweeted something more succinct than my effort here to reply to your comment. Quite simply she says that public relations is not defined by media. In other words, why apply an imperfect framework for media when looking for a framework for PR?
23 April 2012 — 6:16 pm
Nigel Sarbutts says:
Interesting thoughts and paid/owned/earned is a handy shorthand for making sense of complexity but as you say that easily becomes a hinderance or even dogma.
The phrase 'shared media' is the important one here and one I'd wish we'd see more of. If the objective of any marcomms (be it advertising, media relations, whatever) is that the content is shared, it follows that to be successful, relevance must outweigh channel/silo.
As Andy Sernowiz's memorable phrase has it: "Advertising is the cost of being boring".
23 April 2012 — 10:32 am
Philip says:
Hi Nigel,
Thanks for your comment. I hadn't come across the Sernowiz quote before. Interesting :-)
23 April 2012 — 6:14 pm
Julio Romo says:
Great analysis and post Phil.
Trying to think of communications in simple terms is simply to complicated for many in business. Threatening evening. It is out of the comfort zone and highlight a lack of desire to think like the audience, in my opinion.
6 May 2012 — 5:39 pm