Skip to Main Content

We all take PR personally…

Posted by Alex Perryman on 4th July 2011

It’s a fact of life; the PR you do eventually gets under your skin.

Over a long enough time span, at some point, opinions stop being merely PR and become personal; something you yourself have bought into.

It’s not something PRs usually admit to, but by the time you’ve written your 100th opinion piece, you’ll suddenly find yourself wading, knee-deep, into arguments on behalf of your clients’ technologies, or approaches.

I instinctively see this is a mark of a good PR. We all know when to kick in with professional detachment, (there is such a thing, after all, as PRs taking their clients’ interests *too* personally).

However, on the whole, I think most clients value a bit of passion. And this is the reason I occasionally find myself taking a stance on things I simply wouldn’t have cared about before meeting the client.

Grumble-lore

As an example, I’ve developed a general interest in 3D technologies by working with individuals in the 3D imaging space. And this morning I found myself growling at what I perceived to be slight misinformation in a BBC article ‘2D or not 2D, that is the question’, which dealt with the question of technologies that convert from 2D to 3D images.

The BBC is right to say that the best way to produce 3D is to shoot something in 3D in the first place. But how can 2D to 3D conversion be described as a ‘stop gap’ solution, when you are always going to have a library of old 2D media that was never shot in 3D?

I also took some issue with the False Creek report cited by the BBC, which stated that that 3D films seem to always do well, with 52% of 3D movies achieving good box office returns, versus 5% of 2D films. That, generally, is because 3D movies are usually huge movies with big marketing budgets; ‘event’ films, if you will.

I also fundamentally disagree with the idea that 3D is not available to low-buget filmmakers, as prices of 3D equipment are falling all the time.

Oh, it makes... me... mad

Time to get out more?

These opinions, I should add, are entirely mine, not my clients’. Thankfully, I avoid the trap of mirroring my clients’ attitudes onto our blog. So blame me, (you heard).

However, the real point is that I now have an opinion on these kind of questions at all…

If people like us end up being defined by our work, to the extent that we’ll pick fights on behalf of our clients’ attitudes, really, what hope is there? Will I go home and start training my partner while attempting to ‘manage’ the cat?

Hmmm….

Alex Perryman

Alex joined Wildfire in 2007. He is renowned for his ability to pick up complex technologies and new industries extremely quickly.