Brand Strategy and PR Need to Work Together

Many times PR and brand strategy experts in one company hardly connect, and that proves a great disservice to the entire organization and makes accomplishing company-wide goals more time consuming and ultimately more costly. If a company pays for both departments and they are doing their thing without consulting each other, the work product of each area suffers. In the case of PR and brand strategy, they do common things – each of them focuses on customer touch points, messaging, and public perception. But they approach these with different goals and perceptions.

Each department has honed skills, but not necessarily the same ones. I+f the protocol is set in a company for the departments to interface often, discussing their projects, and allowing the other team to review and comment, then work product for each department should become more effective. This allows the organization to get twice the bang for each area’s efforts. Imagine having the branding messages amped up with a PR campaign running simultaneously to draw attention to the brand and the goals the company is focused on at that time.

Likewise, the PR department can plan campaigns centered on company leadership and expertise, which inevitably draws attention to the products and services offered, especially any new items.

If both PR and brand strategy operate in separate vacuums, PR may be working on a campaign and helping the CEO show his expertise in interviews about similar products made by the firm, but if those products aren’t on the brand strategy agenda, much of the PR efforts are going to waste. The CEO will still build a reputation as an expert, but the brand won’t capitalize on that for several months when they run their ads and other targeting approaches, slowing accomplishments and losing the revenue that could have been generated during those months.

It only makes sense to have the two teams working closely together – not in competition, but in cooperation.