Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
By: Ekrem Dupanović
Danijel Koletić, in his column published two days ago on our portal, in the title itself asks the question Where is PR hiding? The text has attracted your great attention. Evidence to that is the fact that Danijel’s column has been on top of the readings list for two days straight. You are obviously interested in PR. Also, the article on the ranking of Croatian PR agencies, which we published eight days ago, had excellent readership. After publishing it, the directors of three PR agencies contacted us claiming that their turnover last year was greater than those of some of the agencies listed on the top ten list. We couldn’t accept their complaints, because we weren’t the ones making the list, as we took it from the tportal.hr, which is clearly stated in the text itself.
Let’s go back to Danijel’s question. I believe that PR is not hiding. It got lost! Where? In the PR agencies! When? Back then when the economic crisis came, and when advertisers slashed their advertising budgets to minimum, transferring part of the work to PR. PR agencies jumped on the opportunity, as it brought them more work. More work demands more staff, and thus PR agencies started hiring kids who have as much knowledge of PR as I do about the huge icebergs in Antarctica. PR has been reduced to writing promotional texts for clients who want to be in the media free of charge. I’m not talking here about strategic PR, but just about what we receive for publishing on the portal. All news are sent to us by juniors who obviously need time to master the craft before they get in the position to send press releases and sign them as their authors. I really don’t remember the last time I got a serious and high quality PR text that I gladly published as a portal editor. Approximately 95% of the texts we receive ends up in the bin, and about half of those published on the portal saw the light of day just because of my lenience towards compromises, or because we were short on news on that day so I let them slip through. The biggest problem with the PR today are the agencies for whom this is their basic job.
There you have it my dear Danijel.
News that IKEA has pulled its ad in Serbia under the pressure of a non-governmental organization also brought a lot of your comments. Žarko Veljković on Facebook asked whether the Volvo spot with Van Damme’s famous split should also be censored, as it is also contrary to the Traffic Safety Act. Janko Pavlović wrote: “I won’t go into the idea of the ad, as that’s not the topic here, but the fact that absolute triviality and limited comprehension are determining the experience of creativity is unacceptable. Unfortunately, big companies and their marketing teams are the proverbial scape goats (FOR EVERYTHING) and I fully understand their decision to pull the ad.” The most interesting comment – which in my opinion is also closest to the truth – came to me by mail from a friend who wanted to remain anonymous. Here’s what they wrote: “It looks like IKEA has pulled its spot not because of the ‘infamous bikers’ (because it’s a transparent spin), but because in it they announce and admit postal spam. Namely, their rude insertion of promotional material into the mailboxes (or leaving them inside buildings) is not permitted under the Advertising Act. Such activity requires prior consent of physical persons, which they do not have. And the fact that they reduce themselves to the spammer level of a local plumber is particularly sad…”
Tuesday, 1 August 2017