PR Overview

PR Overview

DEFINING PUBLIC RELATIONS

Though there are some similarities between public relations and advertising (they both try to persuade), their essential difference is that public relations is a function of management while advertising is a marketing function. Second, advertising uses all communication methods except for interpersonal communications; public relations, on the other hand, uses all forms of communication. Last, advertising is sponsored (paid for), whereas PR communications are not. In many instances, advertising, especially corporate advertising, is used to help further the public relations agenda.

Press agentry (the staging of events to attract media or public attention to a person, product, organization, or cause) is sometimes confused with public relations. But the former is simply an occasional tool of the latter. Another term often confused with PR is publicity, a practice which attempts to place favorable stories in the mass media. Like press agentry, publicity is also just a tool of a public relations campaign. In addition, publicity is primarily a one-way process whereas PR is essentially a two-way communication. To help define what PR really is, let’s examine what PR people actually do.

What Public Relations People Do

1. PR involves interpreting, monitoring, and trying to influence public opinion in ways positive to its parent organization, and then passing on the results of those efforts to top management.

2. PR is concerned with communicating and explaining the actions of its parent company to its various publics (internal and/or external groups affected by the parent organization).

3. Public relations is a management function, the goal being to council and assist management in setting goals and adapting to a changing environment.

Public relations as defined by the World Assembly of Public Relations:

“Public relations is the art and social science of analyzing trends, predicting their consequences, counseling organization leaders and implementing planned programs of action which serve both the organization’s and the public’s interests.”


A SHORT HISTORY OF PUBLIC RELATIONS

Interpreted broadly, public relation practices show up throughout history. In our own country, the Boston Tea Party, symbols of liberty, and the publications advocating freedom from Britain are early examples. At the end of the 19th century the muckrakers’ stories on big business corruption spurred these companies to hire writers to help counter what we would call “bad press,” and highlight instead the industry’s side of the story. Thus we see the first clear evidence of a specific and concentrated effort to manipulate public opinion by communication specialists.

Acknowledged as the first formal PR practitioner, Ivy Lee first opened a "public relations" office in 1903. Among his early accomplishments was a reversal of negative public opinion about the Rockefeller family and their extensive business empire. Lee is credited with humanizing business and demonstrating that public relations is most effective when it affects employees, customers, and members of the community.

During World War I, President Wilson set up the Creel Committee to mount a PR campaign to help persuade Americans to save food and buy war bonds. The effort was significant in that it illustrated how effective a well-planned and executed PR campaign could be on the public.

The acknowledged co-founder of the public relations industry, Edward Bernays, wrote the very first book on PR, Crystallizing Public Opinion, in 1923. Yet another early PR pioneer was Carl Byoir who, in 1930, organized a PR firm that became one of the world’s largest. The Great Depression caused many citizens to look to business and government with suspicion and distrust. Soon both business and the federal government began employing public relations effort in an attempt to regain public favor. The "fireside" radio chats given by President Roosevelt to help explain his New Deal policy and quell public anxiety still stands as one of the most successful PR efforts of those times.

Since then, social changes have promoted a huge growth in the PR field:

1. Corporations have acknowledged their social responsibility to the public.

2. Public consumerism is forcing organizations to be more responsive and communicative.

3. The increasing size and complexity of modern organizations necessitates a centralized public relations department.

4. Increasing population growth and workplace specialization mandates the need for PR specialists trained to interpret the needs of various publics for the parent organization.

Reflecting those trends, the public relations industry has skyrocketed from 19,000 members in 1950 to over 300,000 in 2000. That growth is reflected in the membership of PR’s main professional organization, the Public Relations Society of America, founded in 1947, and who adopted a code of PR standards in 1954. And today, over 400 colleges offer training in public relations.

Recent politics have necessitated the rise of a new PR phenomena, the "spin doctor," a specialist who tries to put the best possible interpretation on events—good or bad. President Clinton's duel problems with Whitewater and his impeachment proceedings provide good examples of spin doctors at work on both sides of opposing campgrounds.


PUBLIC RELATIONS INDUSTRY ORGANIZATION

Public relations is handled in one or both of two ways: internally and externally, and many firms employ both kinds for specific goals.

As an arm of management, an internal PR department generally reports directly to the president of the company (some 85 percent of the 1500 largest U.S. firms have such a department). Many firms also retain an external PR company to handle special situations as well as to inject fresh and objective viewpoints into a company's management strategies. Both internal and external PR departments have their advantages and disadvantages. An internal department, for example:

. has more in-depth knowledge about the company
. can be assigned and operating on a project in very short notice
. offers big cost savings because in-house operations are cheaper

On the minus side, it's often difficult for an internal PR department to see its own company from a fresh and objective viewpoint. As such, it's not uncommon for an internal department to go "stale." Enter the external agency, where the strengths and weaknesses of an internal department are simply reversed.

Internal or external, PR people perform a wide range of services which can include counseling management, preparing annual reports, handling news releases and other media coverage, supervising internal communications, managing campaign promotions and special events, lobbying, fund-raising, community relations, and speech writing.

Public relations can be practiced anywhere, but most efforts come in the areas of:

. business . entertainment and sports
. government . international pubic relations
. education . investor relations
. hospitals . politics
. nonprofit organizations . crisis management
. professional associations


DEPARTMENTS AND STAFF

Though no two internal PR department organizational structures are identical, the one thing most have in common is that the PR director reports directly to the president. An internal PR department might typically include subordinates in charge of such areas as press relations, internal communications, and community relations. External PR agencies, somewhat similar in organization to an ad agency, are more complex because of the wider range of services they provide.


THE PUBLIC RELATIONS PROGRAM

A typical PR campaign involves the following four stages. Though separately defined, these steps are more likely to be a continuing and overlapping process rather than distinct PR efforts.

Information Gathering

Information caan come from several sources: organizational records, trade journals, public records, research, polls, surveys, advisory committees, personal contacts, and so on. Information gathering is a crucial first step in the process, since what's learned here will influence all that follows.

Planning

There are two general types of planning: strategic and tactical. In short, strategic plans are your long-term goals, the what part of you want accomplished. Tactical plans are the ways and means by which you can best get those long-term goals actually accomplished.

Part of the planning process here would be to frame the objectives, consider the alternatives, assess risks and benefits, decide on a course of action, draft budgets, and get the go-ahead approvals. A strong PR trend in recent years is the planning technique of management by objectives, or MBO. Simply put, this approach has the organization set observable and measurable goals for itself and allocate sufficient resources to meet those goals.

Communication

In the third stage, PR personnel decide which media channels are best suited to get planned messages across to their various publics. Communications might take the form of interviews, press releases, press conferences, video news releases, paid advertising, posters, e-mail, staged events, speeches, demonstrations, an open house, tours, press kits, information booths, faxes, letters, etc.

Evaluation

This stage tries to answer the question, "How well did it work?" and is generally accomplished through the use of sophisticated analysis techniques using questionnaires, polls, surveys, panel discussions, meetings, and various audience responses. If a measurable MBO goal was proposed for the PR program, then an evaluation technique should be able to measure the relative success of how well that goal was or was not reached.


ECONOMICS

Companies, nonprofit groups, and government agencies spend large sums of money on PR, but the total figures are difficult to hard to measure. One estimate, however, can be reflected in the fact that the top 50 external PR firms in the U.S. earned more than $2.8 billion in 1999. Today the PR industry is dominated by giant firms owned by ad agencies.

External PR agencies earn revenues in a number of ways; some, for example, perform a specific job for a set fee; some charge their clients monthly retainers; others will charge by the hour; still others will charge by time plus expenses.


PR ONLINE

The Internet has already had a significant impact on how PR professionals gather information and communicate messages to their various publics. For example:

. the Internet has streamlined how PR data is distributed to media; PR Newswire, for example, takes data from PR departments and makes it available to newsrooms nation wide

. Internet sources can also provide everything journalists need to prepare a story from a PR source: the latest news, background data, bios, official commentary, and audio/video clips

. PR workers can now more easily monitor how their efforts are being covered in the media; one firm, eWatch, monitors 1,000 web-based newspapers, magazines, and news sites

. the Internet now provides a treasure house of resources for a PR staff, such as photo archives, information directories, conferences, and trade shows

. corporate web sites have now become the electronic equivalent of an organization's store-
front display window and portal to its products and services; an increasing amount of company web pages are now directed and produced by PR staff members

. a PR department can more easily communicate within its own company via Intranet systems, a PC LAN with access limited to company employees

The downside of increased communication via the Internet is corporate sabotage. Most of the above sources could just as easily be turned against the parent firm by information vandals.