Book Review: The New Rules of Marketing & PR

The Internet has profoundly changed the way our culture interacts; media is more fragmented than ever; the people have all the control; traditional advertising vehicles won't cut it; yada, yada, yada. In an industry grappling with seismic change, we seek simple answers to extremely complex questions. "The New Rules of Marketing & PR," is yet another book offering solutions to these changes. 

I do not believe this book provides all of the answers to the questions we seek; nor is there a set of "one-size-fits-all" rules that can apply across the spectrum of challenges faced by marketing and communication specialists today. However, "The New Rules of Marketing & PR," provide a starting point. Though there are a lot of generalities and missing pieces, the theory driving the book is important for everyone in advertising to consider.

The old rules of marketing:

1. Marketing simply meant advertising (and branding).

2. Advertising needed to appeal to the masses

3. Advertising relied on interrupting people to get them to pay attention to a message.

4. Advertising was one way: company-to-consumer.

5. Advertising was exclusively about selling products.

6. Advertising was based on campaigns that had a limited life.

7. Creativity was deemed the most important component to advertising.

8. It was more important for the advertising agency to win awards than for the client to win new customers.

9. Advertising and PR were separate disciplines run by different people against separate goals, strategies, and measurement criteria.

The new rules of marketing and PR:

1. Marketing is more than just advertising.

2. PR is for more than just a mainstream media audience.

3. You are what you publish.

4. People want authenticity not spin.

5. People want participation, not propaganda.

6. Instead of one-way interruption, marketing is about delivering content at just the precise moment your audience needs it.

7. Marketers must shift their thinking from mainstream marketing to the masses to a strategy of reaching vast numbers of underserved audiences via the Web.

8. PR is not about your boss seeing your company on TV. It's about your buyers seeing your company on the Web.