What Aspiring PR Pros Can Learn from “Downton Abbey”

by Nathalie Nourian

As has been documented on this very blog, I am obsessed with quite fond of the British TV phenomenon, “Downton Abbey.” This beloved series provides me an escape, a glimpse back at the Edwardian Era and major costume envy, but it also provides some good lessons for fellow lovers of period drama looking to carve out a career in PR. Here’s the scoop (WARNING - SPOILERS AHEAD): 

Avoid needless speculation by giving your audience the facts they need from the start: So much of the action in Downton is set into motion by the service staff, who gleans information by eavesdropping or overhearing private conversations. Because they work in such close proximity to the aristocratic family they serve, it’s understandable that there would be occasions when staff would find themselves in the middle of a family matter. However, in the case of Lady Grantham’s maid Sarah O’Brien, missing a few key sentences of a conversation about the Dowager Countess’s need for an lady’s maid led O’Brien to assume they were trying to replace her, which led to her causing the Lady to miscarry her unborn baby and heir to the Grantham estate!

While I’m not sure anything could have changed the fact that O’Brien has some serious issues (yikes!), this situation could have been avoided if Lady Grantham had proactively communicated with her employer. As any seasoned PR pro can tell you, if you don’t tell your own story, someone else will tell it for you, and it may not be the right one.

Don’t burn bridges: As tempting as it is, dissing a writer from a random outlet like www.ibloginmymom’sbasement.com for a bad review is a huge no-no. Why? Because nine times out of ten, that same writer will be on your media list as reviews editor at the Los Angeles Times in three years and will want nothing to do with you. Wish some wise publicist would have shared that anecdote with eldest daughter Lady Mary Crawley when she turned down an offer of marriage from Matthew Crawley, the love of her life, when it looked like he’d no longer be rolling in the dough as heir of Downton Abbey. Inevitably, things do work out in Matthew’s favor and he does remain the heir, but guess what? He’ll never look at Mary without suspicion again.

When you negotiate an exclusive, make sure you’re doing it with the right outlet: When Mr. Bates, valet to Lord Grantham, announces his intent to divorce his sinister wife Vera, she threatens to engulf the Crawley family in some serious handsome-dead-dignitary-in-eldest-daughter’s-bed scandal. In exchange for her salacious story, newspaper magnate Sir Richard Carlisle offers Vera a great sum of money, but not without making her sign an ironclad agreement that she will not go to any other outlet with the news. Of course, what Vera doesn’t know is that Sir Richard is engaged to Lady Mary, and has absolutely no intention of running the story, as it will do some severe damage to his fiancé’s honor. Too bad she didn’t have the PR person’s knowledge that when you lock in an exclusive, you’re putting your story at the mercy of one outlet, so you’d best be sure they’re the one best suited to tell it.

Okay, okay, I realize we were reaching here, but hey, I couldn’t resist an opportunity to marry two of my favorite things – “Downton Abbey” and PR. So you tell me, what did I miss?