Mon 5/23: Marketing and Public Relations, RIP

Burghardt Tenderich, Visiting Associate Professor and Associate Director of the Strategic Communication and Public Relations Center, Annenberg School of Communication, USC

It’s time to celebrate. Marketing and public relations (PR) as we know it is coming to an end, as foreshadowed by Doc Searls in the Cluetrain Manifesto. The rapid adoption of social media tools by communicators and marketers is blowing up the 20th Century silos of distinct marketing functions, each designed to bombard people with messages they don’t want to hear. Emerging from the ashes is an integrated and connected form of communal communication that turns markets into conversations. Strategic Public Engagement, as we call it, is destined to disrupt the organizational structure of corporate marketing and communication departments, as well as the business models of the large integrated advertising and communication conglomerates.