Reframing the History and Purpose of "Public Relations"

A couple of Wednesdays ago, I was in New York City for meetings of the PRSA National Board. After the first day, we went to PRSA’s headquarters office for a reception and I had the opportunity to tour the Museum of Public Relations for the first time. I saw and learned things that blew my mind.

Over 100 or so years, as we all know, “public relations” has become synonymous with tactics like publicity, crisis communications and events. Because most practitioners today think of what we do those ways, most businesspeople of all stripes follow suit. But contrary to what most people think, that’s not the way it all started.

The “father” of public relations, Edward Bernays, saw our function very differently. He was the nephew of Sigmund Freud, the famous psychologist, and they were close; over the years, they discussed all sorts of matters related to human behavior. Bernays saw the humanity of people, and he considered himself a social scientist. He found that strategic/coordinated communications campaigns could motivate and shape the response of a person or group. He wasn’t simply the first publicist or anything like that; he combined the latest in psychology with the best of the art and scientific theory of communications. As a result, he found ways to achieve results for his clients in ways that hadn’t previously existed.

There are a couple of implications here that have hit me hard:

• From the beginning, “public relations” was an acutely strategic business function. Truly mindblowing stuff. At its best, it still is today.

• The activities that most people associate with “public relations” today kind of miss the point. They’re things we do to achieve particular results, but often those results don’t map back to what really matters.

No matter whether or not you work in “public relations,” I think we’re all better served by thinking (MUCH) bigger about the work we do and why we do it. Bernays knew as well as anyone that strategic communications aren’t about getting a client in the newspaper or driving clicks and likes – they’re about driving some sort of human response, and an action accordingly.

Let’s all challenge ourselves to make sure our work ties back to what really matters.