Claire Beale on Advertising: In the L-shaped gloom, PR and adland must wed

(VCCP)

When WPP's Sir Martin Sorrell pronounces on the state of the advertising industry – or, increasingly, industry in general – important people listen. So when he told the world last week that the current recession is going to be L-shaped (that's severe and prolonged) important people agreed. L-shaped it will be, then.

In the face of this L-shaped world in which we now find ourselves, Sorrell has another prognosis. This time about the structure of the communications industry. In an interview with the US advertising blog Agency Spy Sorrell said that editorial publicity had proved itself to be "once again even more important than paid-for publicity".

Can you hear adland teeth grinding? Do all the beautifully honed advertising craft skills – brilliantly transformational creative ideas executed by superb copy writing, art direction, design – amount to less than a crude stunt that gets picked up by the Daily Mirror?

Well, no. At least, it's not that simple. But it's clear where Sorrell's coming from. When WPP released its profits figures earlier this month, PR and public affairs were revealed to be the fastest growing disciplines within the group. And Chime Communications, which owns PR company Bell Pottinger and ad agency VCCP, attributed its 19 per cent rise in pre-tax profits largely to the "extremely good" performance of the PR division.

Perhaps this trend helps explain why PR doesn't find much of a welcome in adland. Oh, the deployment of the public relations fraternity to get ads talked about is to be encouraged. Like the wonderful PR campaign that propelled the Hovis ad into popular culture last year.

But PR itself, all those stunts, these are the sort of communications ideas that advertising agencies can be oh so very sniffy about. A great creative idea executed by real advertising craft skills has no need for such crude tactics, they say.

PR, of course, embraces communications strategies other than securing media coverage: internal comms, investor relations, stakeholder engagement. But media fragmentation, a general erosion of trust in brands and the arrival of a bloody recession have helped put media engagement PR centre stage.

It's clear why. With every bang desperately being squeezed from the marketing buck, generating a healthy dose of free publicity is more than common sense; for some clients it's becoming a business imperative. And free publicity that carries some positive endorsement for your brand by a trusted, independent editorial voice is invaluable.

But the rise of PR is not just a result of economic pressures. It's an obvious extension of the new necessity for great creative ideas to travel. Ad agencies can no longer allow their ideas to live solely in the realms of beautifully crafted paid-for ad space. Ideas now have to work across all channels, they have to be portable and they have to be amplifiable. PR can help make that happen.

How anachronistic it will soon seem to conceive a big creative idea without thinking about how to turn it into a media event, make it viral and applicable across media, allow consumers to mash it up and remould it. Advertising might give you license to start the process, but it's the deployment of PR to secure editorial exposure, to influence the influencers and to leverage social media that will embed your creative idea beyond the life of your media budget. Fight it if you dare, but advertising and PR must get closer to build a new creative economy. The internet is forcing the issue. PR agencies know their future lies in embracing the web, in online reputation management, interpreting and advising on social media and in honing search PR.

Creative agencies know that online display advertising is already a busted flush and that creating and shaping social media platforms is one of the real online creative opportunities. The two industries could go to war over this territory, but if Sorrell's analysis of the greater importance of free publicity is right, PR could win the digital game.

Best in show: Comparethemarket.com (VCCP)

*Aleksandr the meerkat is great PR fodder. The star of VCCP's ads for comparethemarket.com has taken on a life well beyond the TV screen. And I'm not just referring to his website comparing meerkats.

Now Aleksandr is also the star of a viral that is generating lots of word-of-mouth, media coverage and, best of all, web traffic.

The viral is a collection of bloopers from the making of the TV commercial, with Aleksandr fluffing his lines, falling over and being caught out looking at a naughty meerkat porn site. It's the latest salvo in what is building into a wonderfully rich campaign.