A look at PR expense: What you should consider

A successful growing property owner nationwide invited me for a heart-to-heart. The economy is killing us, he e-mailed. We have no stories. We need to talk. Suspecting and fearing what was to come, I thought long and hard what to tell a company that had carefully built its reputation among its investor and tenant audience. Should I stress that maintaining marketing and public relations would insure survival and not lose the value of the great brand equity they had achieved? Should I say that public relations is the best and most cost-effective investment a company can make? Great and true words, I thought, but hard to swallow when you are facing the prospect of red ink. So I decided to tell them what I really thought. It is true that cutting PR will cut your losses in the short run, I would say. It will make you feel better and conserve cash. But in the long run cutting marketing and PR is a recipe for disaster. One need only look at how some great brands behaved in downturns beginning with the Great Depression. They invested in marketing. They built their brands. And when the downturn was over they emerged victorious. Harry Zlokower is president of Zlokower Co., New York, N.Y.