What’s in a name?

What’s in a name?

Posted on 10. Feb, 2009 by neilcrump in Communications, Health, Industry

‘The Changing Shape of Healthcare Communications’ report published by the Healthcare Communications Association (HCA) identified four drivers that are leading to diversification in practice; namely, economic pressures, political climate, a changing regulatory environment and pharmaceutical industry reputation.  The report identifies that we are moving towards a much broader definition of communications that goes beyond classical ‘PR’ and ‘medical education’. This led to a mild sense of panic in this MD that our ‘I Love PR’ campaign was going to niche us as just a ‘PR agency’, which in many people’s minds can also equal Press Relations, an area of communications that, as a result of the evolving environment is seeing less client spend.

Having given it some thought I think that in many ways labels of communications activities are just semantics.  At the end of the day everything that we do for clients is PR, it’s about helping our clients manage their reputation – which is the sum of what they say and do, and what others say about them.  It’s about understanding and trust in an organisation, cause or brand among all their publics – who might be the organisation’s own staff, politicians, investors, patients or healthcare professionals.  So whether it’s social marketing, lobbying, medical education or market access, delivering messages via old or new media, face-to-face, meetings, publications or branding it’s all PR.  Phew I’ve convinced myself.

I love PR and we don’t have to change the campaign to ‘I love HC’, it just doesn’t have the same ring to it!  You can find out about what team Aurora thinks love has got to do with healthcare communications at www.i-love-pr.com.

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3 Comments

Phaedrus

11. Feb, 2009

I agree. Perception of ‘publics’ is crucial and complex. There is no such thing as the general ‘public’ as is commonly conceived. Society is comprised of a multitude of various factions - those relevant to HC listed above - and all require information to be presented in different ways. How you label these channels of communication is insignificant. What matters is audience/media awareness and innovation in communication activities.

nw1er

11. Feb, 2009

I agree that it is all semantics; it reminds me of debates about ‘above the line’, ‘below the line’, ‘through the line’, and let us not forget ‘360 degree integrated communications and services’. It sounds like a PRO pr-ing PR. We should remember that it is the client’s vision that forms the heart of campaigns, and PR should deliver responsible messages to idenfitied audiences via the most appropriate channels. This is PR at its core. The PR that Aurora loves. So let’s talk jargon, it’s fun…but let’s not forget that it is all strategic communications!

Hena

02. Nov, 2009

Loved this post. Don\’t panic. It\’s all about building trust and communicating with your audience - across an ever increasing number of channels. (And lots of these channels can now talk back. - yikes!)

In the bad ole days, channels might have been managed quite separately e.g. traditional advertising vs PR as though they were completely unrelated disciplines. But the point is to have a consistent , authentic messages across all channels.

So if this means that you are spreading your wings into less traditional territories, or working closely with other types of Comms people, it\’s all good. It\’s all PR.

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