The audience has (and always will) matter most for PR and marketing leaders

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Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership podcast. I’m Chip Griffin.

Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich.

Chip Griffin: And Gini, I’m gonna have to try to rack my memory from way, way back, and as I get older, that, that distance gets longer and my memory gets poorer, so we’ll see how this works.

Gini Dietrich: Ok- okay.

Well, I have the same afflictions, so let’s see what happens.

Chip Griffin: So we thought that this was, this was spurred by something that our friend Doug Simon did recently on LinkedIn where he did a video series and talked to a bunch of people who have been in the PR industry for a long time and asked a series of questions, one of which was, what has- Remained constant over the course of your career in PR.

Obviously we talk a lot these days about everything that, that has changed, is changing. There’s no shortage of those things. I’ve talked about it here on the show, you know, how we started with fax machines and mailed press releases and things like that, that just kind of blows the mind of a lot of the younger listeners that we have.

But, but even with all of that change and with everything that AI is doing to our industry today, there are a lot of things that have stayed constant. And I think that as we think about how we run our agencies, it’s important to remember the fundamentals that have remained the same no matter how much technology has changed in PR and marketing.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I mean, I think you’re right that the, probably the way that we do things has changed, but not the strategic reason. Like I say to people all the time that the reason you do your job has not changed. The strategy, the strategic reason behind it has not changed. The tools have changed, for sure, but your job, especially as a communicator, is to protect reputation, build brand, and create thought leadership.

That has not changed. Yeah. The way that you go about it has changed, but not, not the actual doing of the job has changed.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, the tools have changed. The landscape certainly in media has changed.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Yes.

Chip Griffin: The landscape in terms of the public and where they go for information and where they receive messaging and all of that, obviously that has changed substantially over the 35 plus years that I’ve been in communications.

But it is still about communicating the right message at the right time to the right people. Yeah. And building relationships with the people that you are trying to influence, whether that’s a member of the media or a member of the public or potential client or whomever. And if you remember those fundamentals, it helps you to figure out how to use all of these technologies for their greatest impact.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I mean, I had a convers- I was on Zoom with Fred Cook of former GolinHarris, now at Annenberg Center. I was on Zoom with him last week, and he’s like, “So has PESO changed?” And I was like, “No, because we still do those things, right?” Like, the way that we implement it today versus the way we implemented it in 2014 are completely different, for sure.

But we still use earned media, we still use shared media, we still use owned media, we still use paid media. The way that we use it has changed, but we still use the four media types. And to your point, media has changed, so earned media has changed, like the, the recipient of our earned media has changed, but the outcome of third-party credibility is probably even more important today than it was back then because that’s how the LLMs learn too, is by citable information.

So yes, the way that we go about it has changed, but the actual work itself, the outcome itself has not.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, and I think the, the important thing to think about here is that, that ultimately all of these tools and publications and platforms are all designed to connect one human to another.

Gini Dietrich: Yep.

Chip Griffin: And, and so you know, when you think about public relations, for example, it’s got relations right there in the title.

And so you really need to think about how you are building those relationships between whoever the person is on your end and the person that you’re trying to reach. And, if you, if you take the humans out of this entirely, then you’re missing the plot, and you really need to be thinking about how do these tools and how do these techniques allow you to do more of that, to do it better, to do it at greater scale, all of those kinds of things, but not, not just, you know, chuck everything that you knew out the window, have the machines do everything on their own, for you.

Gini Dietrich: No. No.

Chip Griffin: Abandon proven approaches. None of those things make any sense.

Gini Dietrich: No. Please do not do that because that has not changed. Like, the way I- we talked about this last week, like, AI is making us far more productive and far more efficient, but you still have to know how to, to your point, relate to other human beings.

Are you creating content and engineering your visibility to show up in AI? For sure. But that’s also because human beings are using AI to get the answer, so you still have to build those relationships with other human beings.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, and if you follow the fundamentals, then it allows you to evolve with whatever tools and technology- That’s right

come along. It’s similar to what I’ve always said in terms of SEO in the old days and now AEO, GEO, which is chase the people. Don’t chase the algorithm. Yep. Don’t chase the platform. Yep. Chase the, the people because ultimately all of the tools are designed to do that anyway, right? Right. I mean, Google for years has been trying to figure out what is the user actually looking for and trying to deliver that in the results.

And so if you are sitting there trying to say, “Hey, I need to figure out how to reach that same person,” you’ll probably be okay no matter how they change the algorithm. If you sit there and say, “I need to figure out what was the latest Google algorithm update, and what does that mean?” “How should I move things around on my page?

What should I bold?” If you start thinking in those terms, you may win the short-term battle, but you will lose the war because you do not understand what you’re actually trying to do, and that has not changed over the course of our careers.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I mean, I’ve said for at least a decade, if not longer, that if you create content for humans, you will win the SEO game.

You will win the AEO, GEO game. You will win whatever comes next game. Because human beings are still the ones that are purchasing your services. The robots are not.

Chip Griffin: Right.

Gini Dietrich: And so if you create content, if it’s whatever content it is, it’s earned media, it’s video, it’s audio, it’s written, whatever it happens to be, if that audience, number one audience is human beings, you will win all the other games.

Chip Griffin: And look, even most of the things that we look at today as new, they aren’t really. They’re just, they- they’re packaged differently. I, you know- Right … we, we have all of this talk around influencers- Yes, yes … and the rise of influencers. Yes, yes. Which to me is one of the silliest things in the world. Not the influencers themselves, I mean, some of them can be silly.

They’re certainly useful to us as communicators, marketers, et cetera. But that’s no different than three decades ago when we had celebrity endorsements.

Gini Dietrich: Right.

Chip Griffin: Right? The, it is just the modern-day equivalent of it, and we just define celebrity a little bit differently than we might have back, you know- Yep

in the ’80s or ’90s, but ultimately it’s the same thing. It’s just they have a YouTube channel now or an Instagram account- Right … instead of, you know, you put them in a TV commercial or a print ad or something like that. But even back in the day, you had celebrity endorsers who were not truly celebrities.

They were just someone known in their local community- Right … who you could throw in a newspaper ad and say- Yeah … you know, “Hey, you know, I believe in either this cause or this product or whatever.” So that has not changed. That continues to be exactly the same, just packaged differently.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I mean, when you think about earned media, and you know, we do a, a lot, a lot, a lot of work with universities because PESO model curriculum is in almost every university’s PR, communications, marketing, and some journalism programs.

So we do a ton of work with universities, and I, one of the questions I get consistently from professors is, “How are you teaching earned media through PESO?” And we keep talking about traditional media is like, that used to be the thing, right? You would get The New York Times, you would get Oprah, you would get The Today Show.

Like, those things don’t matter as much anymore because you have influencers or, local celebrities that have their Substack newsletters, they have their Medium newsletters. You can subscribe to those, you can pay for those just like you would the newspaper, and you get the information that you need.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, and, so little technical glitch on my end. I think we’ll clean it up, in the edit. But if you noticed anything, it was just for some reason my home TV studio- … decided to shut itself off. The, the, the smart home devices here just decided that, nope, it was time to turn everything, everything off, so.

Gini Dietrich: I was talking to a blank screen. I was like, “Should I keep going?”

Chip Griffin: You know, but we just, we roll through these things … on the Agency Leadership podcast because the technology has changed- It is- … but glitches still happen. Glitches, right. I mean, you know, I, I, I remember back in the ’90s, you know, using dial-up internet to do work, and then, you know, someone actually calls your landline and knocks you offline in the middle of, you know- Yep

trying to send an email or something. Yep. Yep. And you gotta figure, did it actually send? Did it not send? Yep. So, you know- Mm-hmm … technical glitches- There you go … that’s another thing that has remained constant- It’s still- … despite all the technology. Oh my gosh, it’s so funny. You know, the typewriters that I used to use at work, sometimes the ribbon would get snagged, and, you know, you’d have to unsnag the ribbon, right?

So even non-electronic things still had issues. Broke your pencil, whatever.

Gini Dietrich: As much as things have changed- … they still remain the same.

Chip Griffin: They, they absolutely do. And, and I, so I think it’s part of our responsibility as agencies to work with our clients and help them to understand that the fundamentals have remained constant and will continue to remain constant.

Because we wanna make sure that we’re taking advantage of everything that’s out there, but we also need to make sure that we are not overdoing it in one area or another because we’re losing sight of those fundamentals, nor are we either having our clients get scared or us get nervous about it and what it means for our businesses.

Because if we follow those fundamentals, then we can continue to adapt, and take advantage of all of these technologies as we move forward. If you, if you focus on the technology first and just say, “Hey, I need to have an AI strategy.” No, you don’t.

Gini Dietrich: No, you don’t.

Chip Griffin: You absolutely do not need to have an AI strategy- Right

or an influencer strategy or anything.

Gini Dietrich: Totally agree. Yeah.

Chip Griffin: You need to have a strategy that takes advantage of AI or influencers or whatever as appropriate. Yes. But your strategy should be rooted in those fundamentals because that’s how you get ahead.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I totally agree with that. And like I said at the start, I always say the reason that we do these things has not changed.

The tools have changed, the way you go about it has changed, but the how or the why has not changed. So don’t get so wrapped up in, “Oh my gosh, now I’ve gotta figure out AI.” Yeah, you gotta figure out AI- Right … because it’s, it’s going to replace you if you don’t figure it out, and it’s actually really fun, so you should figure it out just from that perspective.

But you don’t have to change your strategy. You don’t have to change, like, the things that you do to service clients- Right … because that has not changed.

Chip Griffin: Right. Right. And, and I think that that’s a, that’s another thing that has remained constant is the relationship between agencies and clients. You know, we think all of this is changing in the world that we’re in, but it’s really not.

The way that agencies and clients work together is the same today as it was 70 or 80 years ago, even before you and I were born, let alone started working in the industry. And so understanding how those relationships and dynamics come together and how you can partner most effectively. Sure, the actual nature of the relationships has changed because of the work that we’re doing, but those relationships still matter in the same way that they always did, and you still need to build the human component into it.

We can’t allow the technology to overtake that. We need to make sure that we’re spending the time to get to know our clients. We need to make sure that we’re continuing, even in this remote world that we’re in, to find ways to have additional touchpoints, whether that’s through more frequent video calls to build the relationship or ideally in person whenever possible.

Those things still matter, and we still need to try to figure out how to take advantage of them to have those strong business relationships in addition to the results-oriented relationships that we’re looking for.

Gini Dietrich: So I’m gonna throw a little wrench in things- Okay … because I just read an article this morning that talked about how an agency out of the UK has created AI agents that are pitching media, and it took about eight months for a journalist to go, “Something doesn’t seem right,” and then started to investigate, and sure enough, the agency owner said, “Yeah, I mean, we’ve created these bots that are pitching the media.”

He claims that there are real humans on the back end of it, um, that has not been proven yet. They, the, the investigative journalist said, “I think actually based on what I have here, that there aren’t real humans behind it.” But, you know, I think when, when we hear about AI taking our jobs, we hear these kinds of stories, and we get a little freaked out.

Nobody’s happy about it. Every journalist who’s been pitched by these AI bots have come out and said, “This is not okay.” But I think that there are gonna be other experiments like this where you’re trying to use– or you’re trying to build an agency out of AI agents instead of human beings.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, I– what I would say to that is I think that there are probably countless examples that we’re not aware of where the, the AI did work on pitching the journalist and didn’t get called out, right?

Because-

Gini Dietrich: Right …

Chip Griffin: by definition, you can only call out the ones you catch.

Gini Dietrich: Right.

Chip Griffin: So, I suspect there is a fair bit of this going on. I mean, part of the problem is that, that so much of it is done poorly. I mean- Right. Yes … my, my inbox is full of sales messaging that I’m fairly certain is, you know, whether it’s directly AI generated or AI assisted, it’s hard to tell for sure sometimes.

Yeah, yeah. Because it might be entirely AI or it might just be poorly managed AI. But at the same time I’m certain I’m also being exposed to plenty of messages that are AI generated, and, I can’t tell because they are, they’re good at what they do. And I think we will absolutely see more of that.

But ultimately, all of the – the AI doesn’t decide to do these things on its own, right? I mean- Fair. Yeah … at least as of now. Yeah, right. And so even in the- Yep … example that you shared, even if it’s just the owner who’s involved in having created this network, you still have the human at one end of this.

Yeah. Whether they are managing every message or not, who knows? And, I’m not even sure that that’s necessary as long as they are well targeted and being actually truly genuinely helpful to the journalist on the other end by giving them something that is, you know, that fits with what they write about.

I mean, part of the problem with AI is that so much of it is just poorly targeted.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. I agree with that. Yeah.

Chip Griffin: But that, that’s more on the humans who are sending them out there. Yeah, yep. It’s not on… The AI can do a great job if you give it the right context, the right direction, the right information.

If you just say, “Hey, you know, go find journalists” … of course it’s gonna do poorly, right? It’s- But, but so would a human …

 Gini Dietrich: just like a young professional

Chip Griffin: I mean, we’ve talked about this before.

Gini Dietrich: Right. A young pro- Yeah … intern

Chip Griffin: You bring an intern and you tell them, “Just start talking to journalists and, and get them to cover us,” and you don’t tell them what you do.

You don’t tell them what the journalists cover. Yeah, right, right. Yeah, they’re gonna do awful. Yeah. You start giving context and the in- even the intern will do- Yeah … a good job with very little background, but you need to give them something, and the AI needs the same thing. But ultimately it’s still that human on one end and the human on the other end.

And so I think that, that we, when we’re talking about fundamentals, that’s what I’m talking about. You need to sort of separate out all of the machinations in between. That can be done well, it can be done poorly, and that changes the outcome, but fundamentally you still have a human on both ends of that conversation.

Even though we like to pretend it’s the AI doing it on its own, the AI is never- It’s not … doing it on its own.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Chip Griffin: At least, at least as of this recording. No. We, we don’t have-

Gini Dietrich: Not right now, right. …

Chip Griffin: AI that just wanders off and does its own thing.

Gini Dietrich: This is why I always say please and thank you to my AI, just so that it remembers that I was kind to it.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. Well, and, I mean, we can probably talk about this some other time, but I think the AI companies are doing themselves no service by trying to make it seem like the AI operates on its own, and when they say the, “The AI broke out of its constraints and, you know, hacked into another company,” baloney.

I mean, come on. Like, just knock it off. And I don’t, from a communication standpoint, I guess, you know, they may think that that’s helping them to, No … to say, “We’re really powerful. You should use us.” That’s not really- That’s not … I don’t think what- Nope … what ultimately-

Gini Dietrich: That’s not the message

Chip Griffin: comes through.

Gini Dietrich: Nope. That’s not the message.

Chip Griffin: So, yeah. So it’s, you know, you need to focus on the fundamentals. And I think if, if you take nothing else away from this discussion it’s, is that the fundamentals don’t change, haven’t changed, remain constant, you know, going back to, I don’t know, Ben Franklin or earlier, you know?

These are not things that are, you know, wild and innovative. The tools and techniques are, absolutely. And but to me, that’s the exciting bit, right? Right. You can figure out, if you know the fundamentals, then you can always take advantage of the latest tools and technology to do it better, to do it faster, to do it more effectively, whatever it may be.

But if you lose sight of the fundamentals, you can have all the technology in the world, and you’re still gonna have rubbish results.

Gini Dietrich: 100%, I totally agree. Yep. Strategy has not changed, tools have.

Chip Griffin: So with that, I think we will stop beating this dead horse, and we can, we can move along. You can move along from listening to us today, and you’ll have to join us for the next episode where we’ll find something else to rant and rave about.

Gini Dietrich: Yes, we will.

Chip Griffin: ‘Cause that’s what we do. That’s what we do. At least that’s what I do.

Gini Dietrich: That’s what we do.

Chip Griffin: So with that, I’m Chip Griffin.

Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich.

Chip Griffin: And it depends.