Thank You & Update

Thank you to each of our contributors! It is an awesome opportunity to interact with each of you and receive your insights on a variety of topics. Robert suggested that we post topic ideas that prompted further discussion. With this in mind, I couldn’t wait to get feedback on this idea.

Last week in my marketing course, my professor (who shall remain nameless in fear that my grade will be altered if he reads this post:), told our class in a few “choice” words that Public Relations can not increase a company’s profits and does not impact sales.

As I sat in class with several other student bloggers who comment in marcomblog, my blood pressure began to rise. I felt as if he was telling me that my future PR career will not be a valuable asset to any organization. Of course, my teacher’s comments completely contradict every principle that I have been taught in my course of study thus far.

I believe that PR does have the capability to position an organization favorably in the public eye. Through displaying corporate goodwill and citizenship, an organization’s bottom line can be affected in a positive way. Is my theology off base?

What do you think, is my teacher right? Please comment with your thoughts and opinions!

~Makenzi

I was also quite offended by what this particular
professor had to say about public relations. He basically said that as
long as you are making money, it is irrelevant whether people like you
or not. I was - quite frankly - shocked because the class is made up
of many PR majors. By sending this message to not only PR majors, who
obviously feel strongly about the field they are going into, but also
the Marketing/Business majors who are not as familiar with PR, isn’t
this potentially detrimental to the PR field? I imagine that he is not
the only professor with this mindset. If we have Business majors going
into the “real world” thinking PR practitioners are cupcake positions,
basically, won’t this have a very negative effect on our field?

I too am in the class with these commenters. I found our teacher’s
comment about the lack of impact/importance that Public Relations has
to be completely untrue and very offensive.

We have learned so much in our public relations classes that teaches
the exact opposite. Perhaps our teacher should take a class or two in
the public relations department and at least be slightly more educated before he
makes remarks like this to a whole class which is very impressionable.
He might feel differently if he did.

I agree with the others on what they said. Those are both good, important
points that need to be considered.