Does lifestyle PR require PR professionals to bend the PR norm of not paying the media to get editorial coverage? I got this mail from a friend of mine, highlighting a problem that she faces and maybe also by other PR professionals:

I work on a leading lifestyle brand, and understandably the very nature of their business requires visibility in women’s /lifestyle magazines like Cosmo, Elle, etc., most of the time in the form of product notes. Most of these magazines seem to be led by ad spends of companies. In fact some of the magazines have come back to us and clearly said that coverage is advertising led and they can give us a one-page write up if the company takes up X number of ad slots.

We conveyed the same to the client, who turned around and questioned the need for having a PR agency in the first place if we cant get them what they require. From my point of view, this situation is extremely frustrating because I don’t see what I can do to work around a given publication’s editorial policies. But at the same time I can understand where the client is coming from. The retainer amount they pay us seems to be a tremendous waste if we cant get them visibility where they need it most.

I cant help but think that the road ahead for brand PR is very difficult. It’s perhaps not that difficult to work around these policies when you are doing corporate PR or even IT PR. But it’s getting increasingly impossible to leverage brand / lifestyle PR.

In fact I met a couple of journalists from a leading London Daily, and according to them, in the UK, its mostly financial and corporate PR that agencies focus on. The opportunity for brand PR is extremely limited.

I feel that like any other PR (say technology PR, financial PR, or healthcare PR), lifestyle PR is becoming increasingly challenging. There are dozens of stories and brands competing for the same editorial space and the media today know how to take advantage of this. They figured out that if there are companies that are willing to invest money to get covered in the editorial pages, so why not charge everyone who wants publicity? Also another reasoning could be that there is no hard news when a new lifestyle product gets launched or when there is an event, and featuring them is same as advertising.

So for instance, the Times of India’s lifestyle supplement, Delhi Times now wouldn’t write about any private brands, unless the companies come through Medianet and pay for those editorial space they wanted. The only things Delhi Times covers without bringing in Medianet today might perhaps be the celebrity interviews or mega-events that are too good to be ignored.

My friend further wrote that it’s the same with many lifestyle magazines - Even when they don’t have a Medianet-like situation, they still say that they will cover a brand only if they advertise.

Much to my surprise, a features-journalist from a leading mainline daily in Bangalore refused to do a story the other day saying that they have instructions to do brand stories only if the brand advertises. Since my brand was a regular advertiser, they did a review of this innovative store they had just launched. Otherwise I guess it wouldn’t have happened.

So if you want to get coverage in these publications, you have to pay up. But then I don’t think this is PR we are talking about. It’s pure buy and sell of media space. Even if your client and you agree that you will pay up once, consider the side-effects of that to your overall PR campaign. For instance if you pay and getfeatured in Delhi Times, rival publication HT City might not touch your company for a long time, though they won’t admit it openly. I don’t know if there is any such thing between rival magazines.

Another side-effect I see is that as more and more people come to know of such arrangements between media and companies, those brands appearing in such publications will be at the risk of losing credibility. People will start saying - Oh, they have paid for that coverage, no big deal! There are people who now think that it’s mostly upcoming brands and socialites who want to get featured in lifestyle supplements/ Page 3s and can pay for it. Those who are established shy away from such papers. I don’t know how far this is true (I know big liquor companies partnering with Medianet but as they are not allow to advertise, maybe their case is different), but interestingly I have come across many clients who say they don’t want to be photographed by Page 3 journalists while partying, less their pictures come out the next day and people start assuming they have paid for it.

What’s the workaround? One way to build credible coverage in the editorial pages of lifestyle publications, considering the above limitation, may be through developing nice industry stories - stories about trends, from consumer’s perspective, etc. A simple two line inclusion of your spokesperson quote in such stories can go a long way. As PR professionals, the challenge now I feel is to come up with creative industry story pegs and pitch that successfully to the journalist. If you can get your client’s key messages and brand mentioned somewhere in the story, you have done it.

Also, brand PR shouldn’t be about just media relations. We cannot hope to build brands with media coverage alone. It should involve activities that involve the consumer directly. Check out this nice column from the archives of The Hindu Business Line written by Harish Bijoor. An excerpt:

Brand-centric PR is all about getting out there in the great Indian marketplace where the action rests. The great Indian kitchen! The great Indian toilet! And indeed the great Indian bedroom! These are the action spots where consumer loyalty programmes will need to be built! PR agencies of the future will be asked to help in building this! The Harley Davidson and its cult club need to be run! What’s more, this club needs to be built for my brand of toilet cleaner! I need people to go out there into the homes of people and create clubs of users who will meet often and discuss their many problems! I want an agency that will run image groups for my brand in the deep hinterland I want to penetrate! I want self-help groups that will take my brand message, both overtly and subliminally into the rural hinterland. These groups need to be formed, loyalty programmes need to be put together and then run to efficiency!

To conclude in my friend’s words - It’s time clients and agencies re-look the role of PR especially when it comes to lifestyle brands. Number of clips and column centimetres can no longer determine the success or failure of a PR campaign. But how do we get clients to buy this remains a very big challenge.