Public Relations Methods

Public Relations is a global activity with

excellent prospects for growth. In the US,
organizations spend an estimated 10 billion
USD annually, while in the EU, companies are
estimated to spend
not less than 3 billion USD per year.
 A variety of definitions

Public Relations is the deliberate, planned and

sustained effort to establish and maintain mutual
understanding between an organization and its
publics.
There exist many definitions of PR, but they all
share a few key words:
Deliberate, Planned, Performance, Public interest,
Two-way communication, Management function.
 A variety of definitions

Deliberate: PR activity is intentional. It is designed to

influence, gain understanding, provide information and
obtain feedback.
Planned: PR activity is organized. Solutions to problems
are discovered and put into use, with the activity taking
place over a period of time. It is systematic, requiring
research and analysis.
Performance: Effective PR is based on actual policies and
performance. No amount of PR will generate goodwill and
support if the organization is unresponsive to community
concerns.
 A variety of definitions

Public interest: PR activity should be mutually beneficial to

the organization and the public. It is the alignment of the
organizations self-interests with the publics concerns and
interests.
Two-way communication: PR is more than one-way
dissemination of informational materials. It is equally
important to solicit feedback.
Management function: PR is most effective when it is an
integral part of decision-making by top management.
 PR and related activities

Press Agentry
Promotion
Publicity
Public Affairs
Research
Graphics
Advertising
Marketing
Merchandising
 Other terms for PR

Corporate Communications
Public Affairs
Communications
Corporate Relations
Corporate Public Affairs
 The evolution of PR

PR is a 20th century phenomenon whose roots extend deep

into history.
Babylonia, Greece and Rome in ancient times practiced PR
in various forms.

Early development:
Julius Caesar ordered the posting of a news sheet
(Acta Diurna) to inform citizens of actions of Roman
legislators and to inform about achievements.
 The evolution of PR

The Colonial Era:

The American Revolution started and it was through the
existence and distribution of pamphlets that the common
feeling was made to endorse it.

19th century:
Andrew Jackson elected President in 1828, understood the
importance of PR and named Amos Kendall, the first
presidential press secretary. PR was used to promote
Antislavery, Womens rights etc.
 The evolution of PR

Early 20th century:

Among those who employed PR methods to promote their
organizations or causes were Henry Ford and President
Theodore Roosevelt.

The first PR counsel

Ivy Ledbetter Lee changed the way PR is conducted up to
today. Working for a number of organizations, he
established the need for the public to be informed on any
subject.
 The evolution of PR

Ivy Ledbetter Lee is remembered for four important

contributions to PR:
a) Advancing the concept that business and
industry should align themselves with the
public interest and not vice versa.
b) Dealing with top executives and carrying out
no program, unless it had the active support
and personal contribution of management.
 The evolution of PR

c) Maintaining open communication with the

news media.
d) Emphasizing the necessity of humanizing
business and bringing its PR down to the
community level of employees, clients
and neighbors.
 The evolution of PR

World War I
President Wilson organized a PR office led by
George Creel to provide advice to him and his
Cabinet and to influence United States and world
opinion.
World War II
Elmer Davis headed the office of War Information
which was successful in promoting the sale of
War bonds and in obtaining support for other
wartime necessities.
 The evolution of PR

Further development of the Counseling function

Edward Bernays and his wife and partner Doris
Fleischman played an important role in the growth
of PR.
His books on PR which were co-written by Walter
Lippman, were the first to define the role of PR.
By 1950, companies opened PR departments or
expanded existing ones. There were an estimated
19,000 PR practitioners in the USA.
 Major developments in todays world
The need for PR has become greater nowadays, due to the
following major developments:
- A global economy
- Quality of the environment
- Increased Management role for Business
- New emphasis on Issues management
- Decline of traditional Mass Media
- Rapid spread of New Media technology
- One-to-one communication
- International PR
- Higher priority on employee communication
- Skilled PR practitioners
 The range of PR work

Corporations
PR departments seek to protect and enhance a companys
reputation. They provide information to the public as well as
to special audiences such as stockholders, financial
analysts and employees.
Non-profit Organizations
Trade and environmental associations, social and cultural
groups, hospitals and other health agencies. Fund-raising
is often involved.
 The range of PR work

Entertainment, sports and travel

Practitioners in these areas are often concerned
with publicity for individuals and promotion of
events ranging from football games to motion
pictures.
Government and the Military
This area includes promotion of political issues,
sometimes through lobbying, work with politicians,
dissemination of information about government activities
to citizens and distribution of information about the armed
forces.
 The range of PR work

Education
At the college level, PR people work primarily with alumni,
faculty and administration and the public to promote the
schools image, recruit students and raise funds.

International Public Relations

PR people with language skills and familiarity with other
cultures are in demand.
 PR organizational roles

Communication Manager
Makes communication policy decisions. Held accountable
for the success or failure of communication programs.
Follows a systematic planning process.

Communication Liaison
Represents the organization at public meetings and creates
opportunities for management to hear the views of
priority publics.
 PR organizational roles

Media Relations specialist

Seeks to place messages about the organization
in the mass media.

Communication technician
Produces communication products and also
implements decisions made by others.
 Personal qualifications and attitudes

Basic personal attributes

a) Ability with words, written or spoken
b) Analytical skill, to identify and define problems
c) Creative ability, to develop fresh, effective
solutions to problems
d) An instinct for persuasion
e) An ability to make compelling and polished
presentations
The PR practitioner: Personal traits and education

Edward Bernays, listed eleven personal characteristics

needed by the PR practitioner:
1. Character and integrity
2. A sense of judgment and logic
3. The ability to think creatively and imaginatively
4. Truthfulness and discretion
5. Objectivity
6. A deep interest in the solution of problems
7. A broad cultural background
The PR practitioner: Personal traits and education

8. Intellectual curiosity
9. Effective powers of analysis and synthesis
10. Intuition
11. Training in the social sciences and in the mechanics of
Public Relations
 Sources of friction

a) Legal: There is occasionally conflict between the PR and legal

departments as to what should be released to the public.
b) Human Resources: There also exists friction between PR and
Human Resources departments on issues such as layoffs.
c) Advertising: Friction exists since they usually communicate for
funds to communicate with external audiences.
d) Marketing: Friction between Marketing and PR departments has
reached a peak, since Marketing Departments have advocated
the concept of Integrated Marketing Communications
 Public Opinion
Public Opinion is a collective opinion that is, what most
people in a particular public think.
It expresses beliefs not necessarily on facts but on
perceptions or evaluations of events, persons, institutions
or products.
Public Opinion is unstable and is only as good as the
information involved in its formation.
 Publics and Public Opinion

Stakeholders can be employees, suppliers, government,

investors, a local community, special interest groups and
others.
Stakeholders have expectations of an organization and the
organization owes them some level of accountability.

Identifying and describing Publics

1. External Publics
2. Internal Publics
 Priority Publics

Priority Publics are generally chosen for economic

or political reasons.
The key to identifying and rank-ordering (prioritizing) target
publics accurately is research.

Describing Priority Publics

a) Nominatively: Giving the public a name.
b) Demographically: Based on statistical characteristics.
c) Psychographically: Based on examining emotional and
behavioral characteristics.
 Important Publics
a) Employees: What seems to cause more employees to
respond with loyalty is being made to feel valued. PR
people can make important contributions in this area.
b) Women: Companies that get a reputation for abusing
women as employees or customers face monetary and
image damage.
c) Minorities: Companies should be sensitive to the
differences created by the diversity of cultures.
 Important Publics
d) Seniors: Men and Women over 65 years old. They form an important
opinion group and a consumer market with special interests.

Characteristics of Seniors
- Less easily convinced than young adults
- Vote in great numbers
- Intense readers of newspapers
- An excellent source of volunteers for charities and NGOs.
- Extremely health-conscious
- They have more discretionary income than any other group.
 Publics

It is important that a practitioner grasps the distinction

between a Public and an Audience.

Public: any group that has some involvement with an

organization.
Audience: a group of people who are recipients of a
message. It is usually passive.
 Publics

Characteristics of Publics
a) The public is increasingly visually oriented.
b) Fervent support is generated for single issues.
c) Heavy emphasis is placed on personality and
celebrity.
d) Strong distrust of authority and suspicion of
conspiracy exist.
e) The international audience for PR is expanding
swiftly.
 Matching Audience and Media

General guidelines
a) Print media are the most effective for delivering a
message that requires absorption of details and
contemplation by the receiver.
b) Television has the strongest emotional impact of all
media.
c) Radios greatest advantages are flexibility and the
ability to reach specific target audiences
d) Online media are usually used as a supplemental
method of reaching a generally well-educated, affluent
audience interested in new ideas and fresh
approaches.
 Issues: Identification, Monitoring, Evaluation and Management

Identification:
Identifying issues that are likely to create problems is the first step for
the PR department.
The handling of issues takes five steps:
a) Sensing the problem (research)
b) Defining the problem (through judgment and priority setting)
c) Deriving solutions (through policy and strategy selection)
d) Implementing them
e) Evaluating outcomes
 Issues: Identification, Monitoring, Evaluation and Management

Issues Evaluation and Management

The appropriate strategy to use depends on the life-cycle stage of the
Issue.
a) Containment: for an emerging issue
b) Shaping: for one that has media attention and therefore is on the
public agenda
c) Coping: for issues that face legislative, regulatory or interest
group action.
 Issue forecasting
Issue forecasting is the research part of
issues management and environmental
scanning.
It is used by organizations to determine how
it and its publics might react to a future
event, trend or controversy.
 Issue forecasting
There is a five-step plan to establish an issue-management
system:
a) Anticipate issues and establish priorities.
b) Analyze issues by developing a formal situational
analysis or issue belief.
c) Recommend an organizational position on issues.
d) Identify publics/ opinion leaders who can advance your
position.
e) Identify desired behaviors of public/ opinion leaders.
 Persuasion and Communication Theories

Persuasion and change

When a person or a group holds a strong opposing opinion,
you are probably wasting your time trying to win them over
to your view.
The attitudes and opinions of publics greatly interest the
PR practitioner, but more, he/she is interested in what
these publics are doing.
The aim of the PR practitioner is to preserve what favorable
opinion exists and win over undecided individuals to his/her
point of view.
 Persuasion and Communication Theories

There are three ways to get people to do what you

want:
a) Power: involves the use of authority and the
implied threat of compulsion.
b) Patronage: May vary from bribing people, to
quite delicate methods such as using a
celebrity to endorse a cause.
c) Persuasion: involves using communication to
win people over.
 Persuasion and Communication Theories

There are six steps in the Persuasion Process:

1. Pretesting: A person must be in a position to receive a
message.
2. Attending: The receiver should pay attention to the
persuasive message.
3. Comprehending: The receiver must understand the
message. Symbols should be used to make the
receiver understand.
4. Yielding: The receiver accepts the message and
agrees with the point of view it expresses.
 Persuasion and Communication Theories

5. Retaining: Repetition is important to keep the receiver

involved with the issue.
6. Acting: The persuader must be able to observe the
results of persuasion in the receivers behavior.
 Mind Managers
Mind Managers: who controls the media, controls the message.
Public Relations persuasive strategy are planned around three elements:
media, message and source.

Media orientation: the choice of the medium is critical for PR. It must be a
believable source, able to reach the priority public and technologically capable
of carrying the message. People use the media to see whats going on that
might interest them or for sheer entertainment or to prepare for anticipated
conversations or interactions with others.

Message orientation: to be effective, persuasive appeals must combine the rational and
the emotional. To be persuasive, a message has to present something of value to the
target public. It must be compatible with that publics motives.

Source orientation: people tend to believe sources that are like them, or what they want
to be like, or like they perceive themselves to be. They also seek authority. They can be also
emotionally swayed into accepting someone elses advice.
 Persuaders and their appeals

Personal Persuaders
Organizations and authorities, family members and
what sociologists call significant others people
you care about- exercise leverage over you.
Impersonal Persuaders
These are found in the mass media in the forms of
editorials and advertisements. Also, they are found
in the content of various types of entertainment
and among persons who perform.
 Persuaders and their appeals

These impersonal institutions may persuade

you through your fears of the punishments
that they have available for noncompliance
or because of the personal persuasiveness
of their representatives.
 Opinion Makers and News Managers

A News manager is someone who:

a) Creates an event that becomes news when it
is made to happen, usually on a carefully
detailed and prearranged schedule.
b) Focuses media attention to an event that might
otherwise be overlooked.
c) May attempt to control information.
 News Managers

A News Manager is someone who:

a) Creates an event that becomes news when it
is made to happen, usually on a carefully
detailed and prearranged schedule.
b) Focuses media attention to an event that might
otherwise be overlooked.
c) May attempt to control information.
 Public Relations and Opinion Molding

Those in command of information control its

dissemination.
The publics only defence lies in being aware that
someone is always trying to influence its opinion.
The major point that differentiates the PR function
from the unprofessional- news management one
is its strict adherence to a code of ethics.
 Propaganda and Persuasion Appeals

Common propaganda devices used to mislead publics:

a) Name Calling: Characterizations (positive or negative)
of a person.
b) Glittering generalities: Use of words such as
enthusiastic crowds etc.
c) Transfer: Transferring a famous persons aura to a
lesser well-known person.
d) Testimonial: Endorsement of products/ people by
celebrities.
e) Plain folks: A favorite of politicians, through which they
try to show that they are one of us.
 Propaganda and Persuasion Appeals

f) Bandwagon: Influencing undecided people to go with

the majority.
g) Card stacking: Telling one side of the story.
h) Emotional stereotypes: These evoke all kinds of
images, such as Good American etc.
i) Illicit silence: Suggesting and insinuating. It involves
withholding information that would create / correct a
false impression.
j) Subversive rhetoric: Discrediting a persons motivation
in order to discredit the idea.
 How to choose the right message

a) The purpose of a Message: the goal of a PR

campaign must be measurable. It is important
to recognize the needs and values you want to
appeal to.
b) The texture of a Message: Depending on the
characteristics of the primary audience, the
message must contain specific verbal as well
as non-verbal characteristics.
c) The language of a Message: The words must
mean the same thing to the receiver that they
do to you.
 Characteristics of the Media

Newspapers
Newspapers depend upon information brought to them
voluntarily.
The Wall Street Journal for example, obtained 45% of its
188 news items from news releases, according to the
Columbia Journalism Review.
Newspapers receive nearly 50% of their income from
advertising and about 50% from selling papers to readers.
As a result, they cannot afford to publish press releases
That are nothing more than commercial advertising, since
They would cut into a source of income.
 Characteristics of the Media

Newspapers cannot publish whatever they desire, since

two severe limitations hang over their decisions:
i) The laws of libel and invasion of privacy.
ii) The interests and desires of their readers.

Created events: Making News happen

Some news stories happen. Other stories must be created.
Practitioners must use ingenuity and organizing ability to
create events that attract coverage in the news media.
Those events are called pseudoevents.
 Characteristics of the Media

Magazines
i) Periodicals for the Public at large
General interest, News Magazines, Womens Interest,
Mens interest, the Senior market.

ii) Periodicals for Specific Audiences

Special Audience Magazines, Trade Journals, Company
and Organizational Magazines.
 Characteristics of the Media

Books
Books as channels of communication, reach thoughtful
audiences, including opinion leaders.
Literary agents have an influential role in the creation of
books. An agent represents the author in dealings with
publishers, urging a publishing house to accept a
manuscript and negotiating contracts that include
provisions for subsidiary rights, film rights and other
sources of income.
 Characteristics of the Media
Radio
The special attributes that make radio unique among the
major media of communication are speed and mobility.
Public Relations opportunities in Radio
i) Newscasts
ii) Community calendars
iii) Actualities
iv) Talk shows
v) Editorials
vi) Disc jockey shows
vii) Community events
viii) Public Service Announcements
 Characteristics of the Media

Television
Public Relations opportunities in Television
i) Guest appearances on news and talk shows
ii) News releases and story proposals to network news
department
iii) Video news releases
iv) Program ideas
v) Silent publicity
vi) Public Service Announcements
 Characteristics of the Media

The local station level

i) Guest appearances on local talk shows
ii) Protest demonstrations
iii) Videotapes for news shows
iv) General-interest films
 Characteristics of the Media

Motion Pictures
Silent publicity is the most common Public Relations
techniques found in motion pictures.
 Politics and Government

Government Relations
The actions of governmental bodies at a local and
state level have a major impact on how a business
operates.
As a result, many companies in highly regulated
industries have separate departments that deal
with government relations.
 Politics and Government

Government relations specialists have a number of

functions: they gather information, disseminate
managements views, cooperate with government
on projects of mutual benefit and motivate their
employees to participate in the political process.
Lobbying
Lobbying is a more specific activity than what
government relations is. A lobbyist is a person
acting for a special interest group who tries to
influence the voting on legislation or the decisions of
government administrators. There are 20,000 lobbyists in
Washington.
 Politics and Government

Grassroots Lobbying
Grassroots Lobbying uses advocacy advertising,
toll-free phone lines, mass e-mails and other ways
aimed at generating action from various publics
toward the government.
 International Public Relations

International Public Relations may be defined as

The planned and organized effort of a company,
Institution or government to establish mutually
Beneficial relations with publics of other nations.
Language, Cultural differences and other problems

1. Differences in languages and the multiplicity of

languages in some countries.
2. Longer chains of command stretching back to the
home country.
3. Evident and subtle differences in customs.
4. The varying levels of development of the media and
public relations.
5. Antipathy expressed toward multinationals, a
pejorative word in many countries.
6. A dislike grounded in such factors as national pride,
concerning foreign influence.
 Organizational Role and Function

1. PR deals with facts, not fiction.

2. PR is a public, not a personal service.
3. PR practitioners must have the guts to say no
to a client or to refuse a deceptive program.
4. PR practitioners should never lie to the news
media, either outright or by implication.
5. The PR practitioner must be an effective
communicator.
6. PR cannot afford to be a guessing game.
 Organizational Role and Function

7. Intuition is not enough.

8. The PR field requires multidisciplinary
applications.
9. PR practitioners should alert and advise, so
people wont be taken by surprise.
10. A PR practitioner is only as good as the
reputation he or she deserves.
 PR Campaigns

Types of campaigns
Campaigns are coordinated, purposeful, extended
efforts designed to achieve a specific goal or a set
of interrelated goals that will move the organization
toward a longer-range objective expressed as its
mission statement.
Campaigns are designed and developed to
address an issue, to solve a problem or to correct
or improve a situation.
 PR Campaigns

A campaign may be constructed around a positioning

statement an objective operating statement for the
organization.
The main types of campaigns are:
1. Public awareness campaign.
2. Information along with awareness.
3. Public education campaign.
4. Re-enforce the attitudes and behavior of those who
are favorable toward us.
5. Change the attitude of those against us.
6. Behavior modification campaign.
 Characteristics of successful campaigns

1. Assessment of the needs, goals and capabilities of

priority publics.
2. Systematic campaign planning and production.
3. Continuous monitoring and evaluation to see what is
working and where extra effort needs to be made.
4. Consideration of the complementary roles of mass
media and interpersonal communication.
5. Selection of the appropriate media for each priority
public.
 Characteristics of successful campaigns

Studies of successful campaigns indicate that

elements of characteristics are always present:
1. The educational aspect of a campaign.
2. Engineering.
3. Enforcement.
4. Entitlement.
5. Evaluation.