Communicators are constantly lamenting that their profession just isn’t taken seriously. Some people insist that it isn’t even a profession since there’s no certification involved (certification being notably different from accreditation). You have to wonder about the validity of that claim sometimes, particularly when you read newspaper articles like the one I just finished from the Vancouver Sun about the Hell’s Angels’ public relations campaign.

The legendary biker gang has, according to sources in the article, always been media-conscious. Now, they’ve embarked on a renewed effort to improve their image. Have they engaged Fleishman Hillard or Burson Marstellar in the effort? Have they hired a vice president of public relations? Nope, they’re doing it more or less organically, with one of their members serving as a spokesman. The campaign consists of charitable donations, radio debates, and even paid open-letter advertising.

You have to wonder if a biker task force sat down and sketched out the problem/concern/opportunity, established measurable objectives, defined their publics, or considered how they’d evaluate the campaign’s effectiveness. Are they doing content analysis? Did they run the open letter they ran in the Globe and Mail through a Flesch readability exercise or a Gunning Fog Index? Were they doing intermediate and summative impact assessments?

Doubtful. They just do what seems right, and even the Sun calls it “public relations.” By the same token, if the Hell’s Angels sketched out plans for a bridge, nobody would call it architecture or engineering. You gotta be an architect or an engineer to do that. Is it any wonder PR as a profession is so in need of respect?