Why don't you stick the kettle on love...
...while I get on with some important consulting..?
It's true, I've been guilty recently of misunderstanding the blogged word...or rather a comment or two. It happens, I'm sorry. This is the latest to have me slightly confused:
"It's not a secret that PR isn't what it was. The hard line consultancy gig has been eroded by a twenty year wave of femininity. This is never more clearly reflected that in the gender ratio of PR courses. But PR still retains a hardcore consultant element to it."
This from a post on The PR Place, a blog from 21 year old PR account executive Richard Millington, who works for a company called apt marketing & PR in Cheltenham. Of course we should probably bow to the near-teenager Richard's wealth of PR experience and the post should be read in context, which I urge you to do here.
But: "The hard line consultancy gig has been eroded by a twenty year wave of femininity." What can he possibly mean..? Perhaps he could explain it to apt's managing director, Angie Petkovic.
Still, Richard's blog does have the strapline: "Day to day PR discussion, with a splatter of sarcasm, a whiff of ignorance and a sprinkle of self-promotion"
Whiff? This one stinks...
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14 comments:
Having read his post I'm now more than slightly confused, unless he means the increasing number of metrosexual blokes in PR over the past couple of years.
Bizarre.
"It's not a secret that PR isn't what it was." Tell me more - on the whole, PR is a lot more sophisticated than when I started out in the early 1990s.
And can he really be suggesting that female practioneers aren't capable of providing consultancy? I must have read that wrong.
Oh, one more. Since when did most firms have an accountany department - does he mean finance?
And I've never come across a 'senior management department'. What's one of them then?
Actually, I think his main point is reasonably valid. Most clients don't know how to use agencies. But he ruins it with poor presentation.
Oh, that'll be a classic PR trick then.
'apt' sound like an unusual bunch. According to the website, the MD's ambition is to open a brothel. At this point I would normally add a witty one-liner, but this time I'm stumped...
>>"The hard line consultancy gig has been eroded by a twenty year wave of femininity."<<
Yeah right. Twenty years ago, this guy was 12 months old and still relieving himself in his pants - what the f**k does he know...?
How the young, eager and pretty Becky Jones (far right: http://www.aptmarketing.co.uk/who.asp) must "love the smell of sexism in the morning" emanating from Richard's direction.
>Richard joins apt as an events & marketing placement student from the University of Gloucestershire.<
Bloody students...interesting PR isn't part of his job though...
I also like from the front paage of the site: "Word of mouth is not enough. But it works. So stimulate it."
Entertaining stuff
Having worked in the technology PR industry for five years, I have been pleasantly surprised never to have encountered or witnessed open sexism within my career.
It appears that a 21 year old AE has changed that.
Bless him. He's not even finished Uni yet. He was only doing PR as part of his 'sandwich course' (I wonder if he had somebody to cut off his crusts).
I can't help thinking this shows the huge gulf which exists between London - or metropolitan area - agencies and people playing at PR out in the sticks. Who are their clients?
....exactly.
If this is the future of rustic PR, heaven help them. The attitudes alluded to - and based on almost no professional experience - suggest any notion that country types can be progressive in their thinking are still a little off the mark.
WOW, there seems to be a lot of hostility eminating toward the young AE.
If you read the other entries in his blog you can see that he is an intelligent, albeit cocky, guy.
At the end of the day he is young and inexperienced - but does that mean he shouldn't have a voice or an opinion? After all, aren't blogs an excellent vehicle for uncensored, personalised expression?
And IMHO PR does not have to come from London or other metropolitan areas to be credible, especially in Tech PR where clients may be scattered anywhere.
aww ... bless. you can't really take this little lad so seriously as to be outraged by his inept online fumblings, it's like losing your temper with a puppy for biting your ankles. but i do wonder where he got the impression that PR was ever a male dominated industry. or even on an equal numbers basis. as a young man of 28 joining the Tech PR industry in the early '90s, the overwhelming female to male ratio was a distinct attraction. or should i say distraction.
From the pop-up about Richard Millington:
"Richard is to apt, what toffee is to apples…baffling"
No wonder the lad's confused if this is the sort of shite they talk at his work placement.
The reason why everyone has been so pissed off with his comments is that he comes across as an arrogant cock. Read his blog again and you see some painful, embarrassing backpeddling and you almost feel sorry for the guy. But then he tries to make it out that he has started an interesting debate - no he hasn't, he's just had a load of people ridicule him. the only valid conclusive point that he makes is that, apart from students themselves, everyone else thnks they're tossers.
I went for an interview at Leeds Uni in 1995 for its PR course...of the 100 people who sat an entrance exam, I was the only bloke in the room, so not sure how long ago wee Richard is on about.
Sadly, his post does say alot about the parochial mindset fostered in many shires PR agencies. I've been in the tech PR game for 10 years and if anything, consultancy and strategic counsel have become much more prevalent than the "bang the release out and hammer the phones" mindset. Still, he'll learn from this as we all do.
As a footnote, I opted for a journalism course at a Uni where there were more blokes, what a twat.
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