Remarks by Harold Burson, Founding Chairman, Burson-Marsteller, Burson-Marsteller New York
Institute for Public Relations Research and Education, Westminster, London (October 20, 2004)

In what more appropriate surroundings to start a speech by invoking the opening words of Charles Dickens’ novel “A Tale of Two Cities.”

To say “it was the best of times” for public relations is, from my perspective, hardly too much of an exaggeration – even after three years in which the largest public relations firms have had little or no organic growth and client budgets were, at best, static.

But it would be an oversight not to complete the Dickens observation that, in some respects, “it has been the worst of times” for public relations.

But before telling you why I think as I do, I want you to know how I define the term “public relations.” I consider this necessary because “public relations” nowadays has come to have many different meanings – even among those whose titles bear the descriptor “public relations” or some comparable iteration thereof.

The simplest definition of public relations I know came from my departed friend, Denny Griswold, a wonderful quirky lady, the founder and long-time publisher of Public Relations News. Her business cards bore the words, “Public relations is doing good and getting credit for it.”

“Doing good and getting credit for it.”

My definition is more detailed, but it parallels Denny’s. Mine, more or less, tracks how Edward L. Bernays defined public relations in his 1923 landmark book “Crystallizing Public Opinion.”

Public relations is that discipline that helps reconcile institutional or individual behavior in a manner that accords with the public interest and, when effectively communicated, creates opinions or attitudes that motivate target audiences to specific courses of action.

Note that there are two components that comprise public relations: one is behavior, the other is communications. Our job as public relations professionals is two-fold. It is to help our clients or employers fashion and implement policies and actions that accord with the public interest. And it is to use communications to leverage public opinion and attitudes to motivate target audiences to specific courses of action. We do that in one of three ways:

We can create opinion where none exists.
We can change opinion, no matter how strongly held.
We can reinforce a presently-held opinion.

But we should never forget that our communications tactics and messages must reflect a pattern of behavior consistent with the messages we deliver to our intended audiences. Enron and WorldCom are not in trouble because of faulty communications; the fact is, they behaved badly.

I dared to raise the definition issue even while recognizing the professionalism of this audience I am privileged to address this evening. I did so for a reason. That reason is that I believe public relations has been diminished the past quarter century by using the term “communications” as a descriptor for our line of work. As either a title or as a name for the function itself, “communications” falls short as a synonym for public relations. Rather, it represents only half of the two-part public relations equation that consists of, as I just pointed out, first, behavior and, second, communications.

I don’t want to take much time speculating how “communications” became a substitute for “public relations.” Here, quickly, is my theory. It happened in the mid-1970s – a fall-out from the Watergate tapes. President Nixon, facing issues personally and politically embarrassing, was often prone to say the equivalent of “let’s PR that one” or “let’s call in the PR people to do their magic.” In the minds of many Watergate followers, PR (public relations) came to mean “cover up,” “whitewash,” and even outright lying to separate the President and his staff from their grave misdeeds.

“Public relations” took on a pejorative connotation and many FORTUNE 500 companies abandoned “public relations” in favor of “communications” in their title nomenclature. In fact, more than half the FORTUNE 500 now use “communications” in the title of their senior public relations officers.

Using communications as a synonym for public relations came at a time when our stock as public relations professionals was soaring both qualitatively and quantitatively in the eyes of corporate management.