Game of Chance

Many years ago there was a comedy skit in which a rube approaches a card shark and innocently asks, "Is this a game  of chance?" As he plays with the cards, the man responds, "Not the way I play it." Moments later, the poor rube finds himself out of a lot of money. In a sad, dark way this funny scene points out the risks of chance, never mind dealing with folks who cheat. All of us, of course, take chances from time to time. Some, for instance, play the lottery in the hope they will become instant millionaires. Good luck to that. Sure, every so often some fortunate soul does find themselves with a winning ticket. The reality is most don't.

Particularly in its beginning years, public relations was very much a game of chance. Designed initially to generate publicity and attention, practitioners would do all they could to reach as many potential customers as they could without making any effort to target or focus their outreach efforts. They launched a shotgun approach in which, for example, they distributed as many fliers to as many people as possible. Their hope was that at least some of the folks receiving the fliers would respond. Not surprisingly, the great majority did not. It was primarily out of economic necessity that practitioners and marketers began devising strategies to target their potential customers. The result was public relations started to become less of a game of chance.

Today those who practice public outreach, including marketers, are much more precise in their efforts. Unnecessary chance is not for them. Thus, we have such things as focus groups, test or sample audiences, and private screenings. While outreach efforts may no longer be as broad or random as they once were, they are much more precise and cost effective. Given the billions of dollars of revenue the advertising industry generates each year, they are much more profitable, too. Money aside, the question now is while we are seeing more successful outreach campaigns, are we noticing any significant drop in rubes?