Bob LiodiceBob Liodice

“You’re a victim of your own branding.”

Bob Liodice, president-CEO of the Association of National Advertisers, didn’t mince words during a Q&A Thursday with Chris Graves, chairman of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide and chair of the PR Council.

The conversation, titled “Inside the Minds of CMOs—Better Together or Battle for the High Ground,” was part of the PR Council’s annual Critical Issues Forum, which took place in Rockefeller Center's famed Rainbow Room in New York.

PR CouncilPR pros have heard a play on that phrase about being victims of their own branding before, namely “the cobbler’s children have no shoes” or, less metaphorically, PR has to do a much better job of marketing itself as a profession.

However, when the statement comes from the head of the ANA, it takes on added resonance, what with the accelerating challenges among PR pros to work with their marketing and ad counterparts in an integrated fashion (not to mention the fact that more and more PR executives now report to marketing directors or CMOs).

Liodice didn’t stop there. “Your known as ‘PR,’” he said. “Change your name, change your hand, change your positioning.”

Easier said than done, of course. The point is, in order for PR pros to play a more legitimate role in integrated marketing plans they must break from the yoke of traditional thinking, create new spheres of influence and clearly define their role so C-level executives can understand and maybe—just maybe—start to view PR as a profit center and not a cost center.

If they want to reach a higher level within the brand or organization—and land bigger budgets equal to marketing and advertising—PR pros also have to dial back the art and boost the science. Call it the revenge of the right brain.

“The problem is we deal in theory and ideas, but we do a poor job of proving it,” said Liodice. “That’s why there’s so much emphasis in marketing on data and analysis.”

Liodice stressed that, perhaps, PR pros simply need to speak up and own its discipline. “PR’s core abilities lie in its ability to gauge the landscape,” he said. “PR has as much common sense as marketing. There’s no reason it shouldn’t be contributing just as much as marketing. So how can [PR] champion that influence?”

In an interview with O’Dwyer’s, Liodice said PR pros need to, well, tell a more compelling story to external and internal audiences about the growing value of marketing communications.

“How has PR evolved?” he said. “Who’s told its story? I never see it Advertising Age or MediaPost” or similar media outlets.

Another way PR can improve its lot: trial and error. “They have to identify where they can make a difference in the organization and not hypothetically,” Liodice said. “If PR has a great idea, test it, whether it's influencer marketing or any other approaches that PR feels is superior to traditional marketing.”