By John Durante
In 1974 then rock critic Jon Landau wrote what was to become one of the most prophetic lines in 20th century entertainment journalism. Emerging from a set of concerts held in dimly lit clubs on the Eastern seaboard, he penned for Boston’s long-defunct Real Paper (not Rolling Stone) the following: “I saw rock and roll’s future, and its name is Bruce Springsteen.”
While debate has long raged about Landau’s prediction and the degree to which he foresaw the future, there is wide agreement that he was the first to latch onto a formidable music and social force whose power and influence in now reaching a third generation. The Boss and his compatriots from the E Street band have blown ‘em away on six continents for a long, long time, and in the process have made Landau nearly as legendary as the band itself.
This bit of history has been heavy on my mind because in some indescribable cosmic way I think it links to a parallel prediction that needs to be made. I am trying mightily to sort through the cacophony of current PR and business communication practices and learn what sustaining value we communicators are set to offer in post-consumer America. Like much of contemporary social, economic, political and cultural America, PR and marcom practitioners are at a crossroads. What we want to be on the back end of these current shifting sands requires some thought, some vision, and maybe even a prediction (bold, silly or otherwise). And my Boss-fueled professional instincts tell me that unless we recast our professional value in a different form, our professional fortunes will go the way of Chrysler execs.
So minus the hubris that certainly must have stoked Mr. Landau — but with the same urgency to suggest something “big” is in our midst, I hereby proclaim that I have seen the future of PR and business communication and it’s called the high context, authentic story. I know this because:
1. The hyperbolic bombast of PR convention has grown weary and awkward. Too often communications utility is lacking and the messages are uninspired. Borrowing a page from Clara Peller, audiences are increasingly asking “where’s the beef?” And in response, conventional PR types keep banging with the same passé approaches, reducing the whole enterprise to a sorry string of carnival barker or infomercial contests.
2. The virtues of “new media” are insufficiently sturdy to carry the day-to-day water of high-value business communication. While many in PR and marcom are absolutely rapturous about the characteristics of a super-segmented, digitized message world, too often they find the Holy Grail in merely ensuring broad message distribution and access. Those who have yet to froth know this is silly and that a poor message or story buried on the bottom of page eight in a long list of comments on a Twitter feed is made no more effective or compelling simply because so many more people can see it on so many different media platforms!
3. Users of the media culture are yearning for something real. Messengers have been widely jumping the shark for a while and in the process have left but a hair’s width between what’s “real” and “fake.” Complex times call for clarity as a means to enhance understanding, not for an endless blurring of what is “real.” The most fundamental way to drive clarity is to be authentic. And as professional communicators, our authenticity needs to be attached to our indigenous medium.
What medium you ask? Well it’s not print, TV, digital, canvas, web or even skywriting. The medium in which we need to be authentic is the one we have always used — the story. You know, that sequence of interrelated communication that has a beginning, middle, and an end? To not adapt the story — and to not do it with authenticity — means our profession will have chosen cacophony over clarity, salaciousness over utility and the superficial over context. And that’s not going to happen. It won’t happen because our audiences demand more from us, our clients deserve more and out of self-interest, we will stop our lemming behavior before we fling ourselves off a beachside cliff. After all, just because Springsteen and Landau began their symbiotic relationship on the Jersey shore doesn’t mean our profession has to end there.
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John Durante is senior marketing associate for WordWrite Communications.
