Earned Media: The New PR?
By: John Levy

In 1977, legendary band manager Malcom McLaren arranged a publicity stunt around the release of the Sex Pistols’ “God Save The Queen.” The stunt resulted in McLaren being arrested. The song also went to # 2 on Billboard and was claimed to be the highest selling single in the UK at the time.

Everyone knows getting arrested is a great way to gain publicity (especially if you’re a rock star or an activist), but getting arrested is not, by itself, an idea, anymore than going viral is an idea. It’s like saying, “let’s do some PR that will put us on the map.” Sure, we’d love to be “on the map,” but for what? I’ll say what I’ve heard many publicists say before, sure I’ll get you PR, but you need to do something that’s newsworthy first.

In today’s terms we could replace the word “publicity” with the words “earned media.” This seems to be a relatively new buzzword in the industry, but according to Wordspy, the term “Earned Media” was first coined by Jonathan Alter and Howard Fineman, in their article “The Search for the Perfect Sound-Bite,” in Newsweek back in January 18, 1988.

What is “earned media.?” It’s really just PR 2.0, but it’s interesting to see so many businesses from ad agencies to TV networks flock to create PR or “earned media” for their clients. But just like PR, there’s not always a division between church and state. In fact, the drivers of these intended viral campaigns sometimes resemble advertising or “paid media” with the kind of money they throw at it. Going viral is a lot of work and time is money. The truly viral pieces are relatively rare compared to the rest of the noise that’s out there. Who knows? Maybe by ad agencies simply showing up, they change it from PR to pure marketing. In any case, to be truly viral, you still need a hit.

Just today a co-worker sent me an article from Tanzina Vega which ran in Wednesday’s New York Times. The article is about a You Tube video that totally captures the “get arrested” model. In the video, a man presumably hijacks jumbo screens in Times Square with his iPhone. According to Vega, “[the] video has been watched by more than half a million viewers in the last four days.” The video has also spawned a debate over the exact question you’re probably asking yourself right now “Is it real?” Who cares? It worked. Turns out, this stunt is part of a promotion for a new film set to be released later this year. The answer, by the way is no.

Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, iPhone, iPad and Android, etc., these are all great media platforms, but the game is still pretty much the same. You have to get yourself arrested and create buzz. That’s the way to set a Guinness World record for adding one million twitter followers in 24 hours. Just ask Charlie Sheen.