PR as Common Sense

Josh,

Common sense, what an abstract notion! If a product is bad, then selling it will be bad. Hmmmm. I think you’re on to something!

I think we live in a world were people complicate things for the sake of looking smart. If we all just took a step back and got some perspective, maybe things wouldn’t be so stressful. Professionals often get so bogged down in the complicated things that they overlook the simplest ones.

Allan Jenkins recently wrote about a post of Lee Hopkins showing some domain names gone horribly wrong. Websites covered include a place to find therapists entitled http://www.therapistfinder.com and a company called Power-Gen in Milan, http://www.powergenitalia.com. Wow. If these guys took a minute to read what they chose, they wouldn’t have ridiculous names like this. Common sense, people!

I don’t like to say that Public Relations is common sense, but in many ways I’ve got to agree with you. After all, Dr. Phil is a intellectual genius, and perhaps he can now find us all love armed with the collaborative efforts of EHarmony.com.

About 15 minutes ago I had three paragraphs written as to why I disagreed with you, Josh, and your stance on much of public relations being common sense. I immediately went into defense mood and began thinking of all the reasons public relations (or consulting) is not common sense, but more of a learned profession that is not made for everybody. While I still agree with the latter part of the statement, and that there is a lot to be learned before embarking on a public relations career, I began to slowly think that yes, much of public relations IS common sense.

When you think about it, a lot of what public relations professionals do on a day-to-day basis is deal with people. All of us choose PR because we have a natural knack in getting along with people and enjoy communicating with one another. For us, it is easy to communicate. Its common sense for us to want to push a product, client, business, etc. that we believe in and truly think will be an asset to the community. On the other hand, human instinct tells us that when we don’t believe in the good of something we naturally won’t pull for it or want to see it succeed.

In a nutshell, I think its easy for a PR professional to say that much of PR is common sense because this particular way of thinking comes natural to him or her.

I agree with several comments. PR is common sense in a lot of ways, but common sense actually isn’t as common as we would hope. Also, normal people who are capable of common sense, sometimes I think just get caught up in different ways of thinking that keep them from doing things that accomplish the true task at hand.

Just like Emily was saying, I think companies making commercials think too much sometimes on making a creative or funny commercial, that they aren’t even thinking about how the commercial will be reaching their audience. Some people just lose sight of who their audience really is.

In a Promotion Strategy class I took last semester, my teacher showed us two commercials from the ’80s. One was a Reebok commercial with a large budget (back when Reeboks were a leading sneaker in the market). They made this weird, creative commercial with this UBU “be yourself with Reebok” commercial and you could just tell that even the producer of the commercial didn’t know what he was talking about. When talking about the audience they were trying to reach, he was just trying to use big words and kept going in circles. Then my teacher showed us this silly, haphazard, low-budget commercial that a man and his family made for their discount appliance store.

It appeared that Reebok had a plan and that the appliance salesman had NO plan. But it was actually the opposite. Reebok thought they had a plan but they really didn’t. Think about what they were saying: “Be unique and come buy the same shoe that everyone in America will be wearing.” That’s like trying to convince me that I am a unique person because I shop at Wal-Mart (hopefully that analogy makes sense to other people, but in my mind that would be a ridiculous claim).

The appliance guy, however, really knew his audience. He knew that the kind of people shopping in his store for discount appliances aren’t the kind of people that appreciate this fancy commercial. They’re the kind of people that appreciate simple humor and a straight forward slogan like “we won’t be undersold.”

To make a long story short, I learned that PR and marketing relies on common sense and an understanding of how people think. However, Monica, I will give you that there is a learning process to get you to the point where you know to get rid of all the clutter and find ways to really relate to people based on how they think.

I completely agree with you. One of the reasons I love the major I have chosen is because it relies heavily on common sense. While learning the basics of the profession is important before I should be trusted by any corporation, the guidelines I do pick up while in school should always be handled with a great deal of thought.

There is one problem with common sense, however, and that is that some people just do not seem to be born with the capability to use it. It is hard to convince someone to do something that I know makes sense if they do not see it that way. So I would like to make a revision to the statement that PR requires that a person employ common sense, and that is that you must also possess a great deal of patience and understanding.

I had to learn this several times while I lived with one of my best friends from high school freshman year of college. She just didn’t seem to possess what I thought was common sense. It seemed that everyday was a battle to convince her to do something that she should have understood immediately. I am glad that I learned that my common sense cannot be applied to the common sense of others. I have learned the importance of patience and the willingness to sit down with someone and walk them step by step through what I had always assumed was a “common” way of thinking.

In a nut shell, I think that a successful PR practitioner will not only employ common sense, but will operate with patience along with the ability to teach others exactly what “common” sense is.

PR does require A LOT of common sense. It also requires that you know how to use that common sense. But most of all, it requires the right kind of common sense. Any kind of common sense helps, but the common sense that instantly tells you a person’s nature, when ideas and suggestions are appropriate, and how to handle and conduct yourself and business are just some of the things that are required in PR common sense.

After you establish that you have this kind of common sense, you must figure out how to channel it and use it to your advantage. This is what the PR curriculum is for. Without some sort of instruction the common sense would go to waste and could be used in the completely wrong way, whether in the PR field or not. But, if I do say so myself, Auburn does a fabulous job of teaching their PR students how to use their natural common sense and flair for the field.

And in the same way that it nutures natural common sense, it weeds out those who do not have the right type of common sense, or as Katie says, the patience.

To be honest, I don’t think PR is really that difficult. I have come across no more than a handful of concepts throughout my college adventure through the PR cirriculum. This is not a bash on PR practitioners/specialists. Besides, my dad is in PR, so why would I follow in his footsteps if I thought I was going into a stupid field? Answer: I wouldn’t. But what I WILL say is this: not everyone has that “common sense” required to be a good PR practitioner. In fact, a lot of people don’t. But thank God for those people, or we would have trouble being employed in the next couple years. So here’s my view. Let’s be thankful for the common sense and people skills that we have been given, so that we can bestow those blessings on those that are “common sense-challenged.” After all, they are the reason that PR exists.

To be honest, I have only encountered a handful of concepts throughout college in my adventure through the PR curriculum, that I have not considered “common sense.” That’s not a bash on PR practitioners/specialists. After all, my dad is in PR, so why would I follow in his footsteps if I thought that this was a stupid field? Answer: I wouldn’t.

Public relations, common sense as it may seem, exists for a reason. Let’s take a moment and figure it out, and then be thankful for it. The answer is….drum roll….those with no common sense. As much as those people may annoy us, they employ us! Without the idiots out there, PR WOULD indeed be COMMON sense. But thank God that it’s not all that common. I mean Dr. Phil, like Josh said, would be a bum on the street if it weren’t for these people. So as Bud Light would say, we salute you, “common sense-challenged people….for you are the reason we are employed.”

Dictionary.com defines common sense as “Sound judgment not based on specialized knowledge; native good judgment.” When I consider the term in this, its most basic sense, it doesn’t seem as if I made a good decision by choosing PR as my career path. I think the problem here is the true definition of common sense is a little less cut and dry.

Common sense to a public relations consultant is not necessarily common sense to someone in another profession. That is at least in terms of professional common sense. Ask any PR pro to name a target public for an organization raising money for St. Jude’s and you will get a quick response that to him is “common sense.” If you ask an electrical engineer the same question, however, I would imagine he would need some more information than what he would draw from common sense in order to give an appropriate answer.

Common sense is key to public relations, but I think the common sense required to do a good job in the profession is enhanced by education and experience in the field. I think people outside of the field rely on this experience in order to feel confident that what they are doing in terms of public relations is appropriate.

I completely agree with you, Josh. Public Relations IS common sense. When you look at the breakdown of the words “public relations,” it makes total sense. Relations pertaining to the public’s interest mean that it is very common. If it deals with the general public, that means it is a common practice. That might sound a little confusing, but just think about and compare the words “public relations” with “common sense.”

You definitely have to have common sense to excel in public relations. If a company puts its reputation in your hands, they are looking for you to make the best judgment based on common public sense.

I also agree with Brooke. The catch in this statement is that different things are common sense to different people. It mainly depends on the level and type of education you have had, as well as your different life experiences. If you watch a lot of cooking television, it might be common sense to add certain ingredients if a dish is bland; however, if you do not regularly watch a cooking program, you might not know what spices to add.

As with so many things in life, common sense can have a different definition according to each person. However, in most cases, I do feel general common sense has a lot to do with public relations.

The question whether pr is common sense, easy, difficult, or any other adjective doesn’t matter much in the big picture. The fact is, that pr is useful. It is others helping others get out there what they want to be out there. And as business-oriented as some clients are, some just don’t know. Some don’t know how the marketing world works, some need a different perspective. Some just need help in designing brochures, websites or any other publication. Some what direction, some want the whole shebang. Also, what seems like common sense to us pr gurus, could be light-years away in their minds.

As long as there is a need for pr in the workforce, then who cares if it’s common sense. Maybe that’s why some of us are in this major, we know the obvious and want to help out. In a lot of my classes, I write out the notes and think, why am I writing this? This is just common sense. But if I can in turn make money using my own common sense and having a job I like, then why not?

I think sometimes why there isn’t an in-house pr person in every business. Why hire a firm to tell you something that you probably could have thought up on your own with a little input and brainstorming. To me, it seems with an in-house, more things could be done more effectively and less-costly. Thats just me, but I want to work for a firm, so go figure.

After reading a lot of the comments that have been made in response to this blog, I am under the impression that some people are taking the idea of public relations relying on common sense as an insult. If you think about it, most professions rely on common sense. I do not take this idea as a insult to practitioners in our field at all. I agree with lance, good common sense isn’t that easy to come by these days. Too many people in our world today just follow the crowds of people that are lead by personalities such as Dr. Phil instead of using thier own brain to form thier own opinions and ideas. So don’t be insulted when someone tells you that public relations is just mostly common sense. It is actually a compliment, because common sense isn’t exactly an abundant resource that people are tapping into these days.

Josh,

I agree. Public relations being common sense is something I’ve come to realize only in the past year. I chose the major at Auburn because I tried several other majors and realized that math wasn’t for me and neither was extensive thinking. I like public relations because it’s not like other majors in the sense that everything is not concrete, I have a reasonable amount of freedom of thinking and creativity. There are some aspects to public relations that requires a lot of thinking and expertise. Those things include surveys and problem solving. Every client requires a different strategy and thought process and that is what makes it thrilling.

I agree with all the comments and statements made about public relations being common sense. I think Brooke said it best, that in every profession there is a standard of common sense that people in that particular field know, but outside of that, the information is not common sense to most people. Most of public relations does rely on common sense and not doing stupid acts or promoting bad products. I also think that in any job or field you have to know a certain amount of common sense just to get by.

I think we, students and practitioners in public relations, are somewhat bias because we know all of the information. People outside of the pr world don’t know as much about tactics and strategies we use in public relations. My roommate is an early childhood education major and when I try to explain things that we discuss in class, she is left clueless. Things that are common sense to us are not always common sense to other people that have not had experience or knowledge in that area.
Things that public relations practitioners and students come into contact with are usually basic knowledge and common sense for the majority of people. But there are those few that are left behind the pack and have no clue as to what’s going on. Sometimes you just have to pull them along with you and explain later.

Ugh. I despise Dr. Phil. I think that anyone who finds redeeming qualities in Dr. Phil really needs a therapist for the reason that they watch his show alone. I know that not everyone feels that way, but his tough love is overrated and seems fake to me.

But he might have a point about the common sensical approach he takes to some things. And I also think that this common sense can go a long way in developing new products.

In this article (http://www.killianadvertising.com/wp4.html) about the lifespan of new products, the introduction of a new product is compared to playing Russian Roulette, the only difference being that the new product failure rate is higher than the chances of shooting a blank.

Funny though, because the big push of the article is to think of all sorts of new and crazy ideas…and if you haven’t thought of at least a few not sensible, less-than-feasible ideas, your session was worthless. Those crazy marketing people. Maybe there is some sort of compromise between the ultra-safe and the ridiculous.

I agree with you Josh, a lot of PR is common sense, but so are a lot of other things. Let’s face it, common sense is not exactly running wild anywhere, especially in business. How many bad business ventures/decisions have there been just in say, the last five years? A lot. Why are things that seem so simple sometimes so hard. An answer: people are always looking for an easy out. Everybody wants a “get rich” scheme. This contributes to many of the dumb decisions people make in business. A great example of this is infomercials. Some of the stuff they try to sell on those things are unbelievable. Yet, people buy it. The same is true for PR. People are always going to make bad decisions. They need someone to point these things out and set them straight. That is where the PR Practitioners come in. People trained to use their common sense when others don’t. So yes, I think there are aspects of PR that are common sense, but the world needs that, right?

Hey Josh,
When I first declared my major as public relations the beginning of my sophomore year, I wasn’t necessarily sure of what the field of PR required. Now that I am in my last semester of my senior year and have had some experience hands-on in the field or PR, I now understand what it really is.

Yes, I do agree with you in saying that PR has a lot to do with common sense, but I think common sense is just the beginning of it. I just began one of my last classes for PR, my campaigns class, and although I am aware of everything I need to research and find out before I begin my campaign, actually finding all the information out is a lot harder than it looks. My campaign is directed towards a young Auburn Alumni group, but is that my only public? Although that may seem like common sense, there is so much more research that I must go into in order to make sure that the campaign is successful.

Overall, I believe that the idea of PR and what it requires can be referred to as common sense, but actually being a good PR practitioner requires much more than simple common sense. If it didn’t, then why would it be studied at major accreditied institutions across the country? If it was simple common sense, then anyone could get a job in PR and that definitly is not the case. I hope I will be a good PR practitioner not only because of my common sense, but because of my knowledge of the field.

To think of PR as common sense is like thinking of doctors as people in the business of saving lives. It is true. I believe that PR has a lot to do with common sense. I know that there is a great deal of thinking that goes into creating a PR strategy. I am by no means demeaning the PR field. I would like to think of myself as a person with intelligence, so I would not choose a field that did not challenge me. The only reason that I believe that PR is common sense is that it is the business of knowing and understanding what people want and need. There is a great deal of intuition that goes into a PR strategy. I need to know about what would make that person happy. If something makes me unhappy then it would probably make someone else unhappy and then I would need to alter my strategy.
The part of PR that requires more than common sense is finding out what people do not know what they want and need. A great deal of survey research goes into those findings. I need to know the best way of approaching the research. Is quantitative or qualitative research the most beneficial? That is one of the parts of PR that requires more than common sense?

I was once asked to help create a campaign for a membership that made no sense. There were no real benefits for the members. I remember thinking, “Why doesn’t anyone realize that this won’t sell?” It seems that common sense can be inhibited by being too close to the project. That is one of PR’s greatest strengths- giving a clear outside assessments of the project. This doesn’t always amount to common sense, but I think that it can. I feel trained to look at a situation starting with simple solutions. They can provide the foundation for an elaborate campaign later on.

I am in the process of laying that foundation in one of my classes now. This is a group project that assigns us to a real client. Our first assignment is formative research, specifically a client analysis. We break down the organization, the situation and the publics. This seems like a simple way to start, but it really has helped. We know where the client is coming from and where they want to go.

How to get them where they go is a little more than common sense, but that is where education and experience come in. Continually learning methods of communication can fill in the rest of the equation.