Introduction

In a seminal article published in the Journal of Marketing in 1978, Philip Kotler and William Mindak discuss the relationship between marketing and public relations and the unfortunate tendency for them to operate in so-called silos. Written nearly 40 years ago, at the publication of this book, one particular point made in the article is still relevant: ‘many firms prefer to treat public relations practitioners as simply communication specialists’, and not as a high-level counsellor to upper management.

The authors suggest that one reason for this is the training and skills expected of communication professionals. In the article’s concluding remarks, Kotler and Mindak assert that when public relations training is primarily in schools of communication, practitioners end up lacking certain skills needed for working with marketing practitioners, who tend to come from business school.