Making PR a 'Golden Apple'

I've just finished reading a great article called "What makes Apple golden" by Betsy Morris, senior editor of Fortune.

The article argues that Apple, the creator of the iPod and iPhone, sets "a dazzling new standard for innovation and mass appeal, driven by an obsessive CEO who wants his products to be practically perfect in every way."

I couldn't help notice that Apple is a good role model for the PR industry. What I mean is that Apple has the same practises that innovators in the PR industry do, practises that those who want to succeed in the PR industry need to adopt too.

For example, the Fortune article states that Apple doesn't use focus groups:

"At Apple, new-product development starts in the gut and gets hatched in rolling conversations that go something like this: What do we hate? (Our cellphones.) What do we have the technology to make? (A cellphone with a Mac inside.) What would we like to own? (You guessed it, an iPhone.) "One of the keys to Apple is that we build products that really turn us on," says Jobs."

The current industy trend in PR is the advocation of conversation, especially in the realm of social media - social media is not a one-way dialogue as traditional media used to be, but a communal discussion. The PR industry also looks at what it hates (lazy PR practises such as poorly written and inappropriate press releases, misunderstanding and miscommunic ation between PRs and journalists) and makes 'products' to tackle these problems. In the examples given, projects such as the Social Media News Release, which has evolved the use of the press release for the web 2.0, and the Getting Ink Requests blog, just one example of a project designed to bridge the gap between PRs and journalists. As for turning people on, Twitter might be the closest a recent product has come to exciting PRs.

The article continues:

"Apple not only has upstaged the likes of Microsoft but has set the gold standard for corporate America with an entirely new business model: creating a brand, morphing it, and reincarnating it to thrive in a disruptive age."

This is also an area that innovators in PR understand well - the need to reincarnate brands to "thrive in a disruptive age." While for many this may be simply persuading a client to update their website, the innvoators are experimenting with the way brands can use the internet to create an even stronger brand identity. Social Networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace are the most notable examples of this, but there are countless others - YouTube channels are being used to showcase video and further expand brands through video mashups; applications such as Twitter, are being used in ever more inventive and innovative ways, as used to great success by both Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton in the race to be the leader of the Democrats in the next US election.

That covers the tools that the PR industry is innovating with, but what qualities do the innovators themselves possess?

"The decade coincides exactly with the return of Jobs as Apple's maestro, bringing his particular mix of genius and obsession, as well as a tendency to play by his own rules. His utter dedication to discovery and excellence has created a culture that has made Apple a symbol of innovation."

I'm sure many PR innovators recognise themselves in Steve Jobs - an obsessive genius with utter dedication to discovery and excellence. But this obsessive genius even carries over to Apple's employees:

"You don't get a foot in the door here unless your eyes light up when you talk about your Mac... The place is loaded with engineers, but it's not just the skills that are important, it's the ability to emote. ("Emotive" is a big word here.) The passion is what provides the push to overcome design and engineering obstacles, to bring projects in on time."

When I've spoken to PR innovators about anything PR, whether it on social media, online communications, or even traditional media strategies, their faces light up and conversation gets going. And the most successful PRs the importance of emotion - it's how they develop their clients brands, position their messages and get them media coverage through grabbing the attention of a journalist, and subsequently the publication's audience that a journalist writes for.

Most PR innovators often belong to an innovative firm, a company that is prepared to experiment and innovate in order to gain a competitive advantage in the industry:

"Apple's philosophy goes like this: Too many companies spread themselves thin, making a profusion of products to defuse risk, so they get mired in the mediocre. Apple's approach is to put every resource it has behind just a few products and make them exceedingly well."

Sure, many big PR companies pile their clients high and knock out mediocre work for them, but the mosty innovative PR agencies exploit every resource they have to meet their clients needs, often going above and beyond the call of duty to deliver added value to their clients. After all, this is how they make their name in the PR industry and get their clients coming back for more

Indeed, as Steve Jobs himself says at the end of the article:

"Apple's DNA has always been to try to democratize technology," says Jobs, in the belief that if you make something "really great, then everybody will want to use it."

"If you make something really great, then everybody will want to use it." Which PR innovator wouldn't agree with that?