1 Introduction
Public Relations is an important and
versatile marketing communications tool. It can be employed both within
and outside the organisation. Many feel that public relations is an
external marketing tool, with the firm attempting to communicate with a
wide range of external ‘Publics’ in order to cast the organisation in a
favourable light in peoples’ minds.
This way of thinking is very
limited, and fails to appreciate the great value of public relations as
an internal marketing communications tool. Good internal marketing i.e.
achieving the right internal organisational culture and getting everyone
‘pulling’ in the same direction in terms of marketing effort, is a
vital prerequisite to effective external marketing, particularly those
based on the concepts of long term ‘relationship’ marketing. Public
relations has a vital role to play in the creation of an effective
internal marketing culture within an organisation. In this sense it has
seen a realisation of its importance as a strategic internal
communication tool.
Public relations Is a very versatile
communications tool and is today used by just about every type of
organisation whether it be a charity, a political party or a commercial
organisation. It is concerned with strategic management of information
in such a way that certain publicity objectives are achieved. It is not
always the case that positive publicity is the outcome of a managed
public relations campaign, because it is often impossible to achieve a
net positive outcome. For example public relations has a particularly
important role to play in ‘crisis management’ scenarios. Where a
catastrophe has occurred, especially where people have been injured or
lost their lives, it is often a case of containing the situation,
putting a fair and balanced account of events forward to the general
public and mitigating the adverse effects of the disaster to the
organisation concerned.
2 A Brief History Of Public Relations
Public
relations (PR) is not new. Its modern day origins in the United States
can be traced as far back as 1807 with President Jefferson’s address to
congress, although evidence suggests that the ancient Greeks and Romans
gave much attention to influencing public opinion. PR in the UK began as
a Government information and propaganda machine during World war One
and was then used more extensively in World war Two. Industry showed
little interest in PR as a commercial communications tool until after
1945, but thereafter its use increased rapidly over the next 30 years in
a sort of PR explosion. PR’s relatively poor image over these 30 years
has been a result amateurish practitioners. In the 1970s the PR
profession was referred to by derogatory terms such as the ‘gin and
tonic brigade’. People who made up this ‘brigade’ often carried
considerable social influence and were able to ‘open doors’ because they
had the right connections. Their main function seemed to be the
‘wining and dining’ of important clients.
The situation has changed a
great deal in the late 1990s and now PR professionals are trained in the
art of communications management. Unfortunately the profession still
operates under its earlier shadow.
Public relations has now
spread throughout industry and commerce. At first, full time PR
appointments were less common than the use of the services of a PR
consultant. Because of this slow internal adoption of professional PR
practitioners by industry and commerce, external public relations firms
quickly developed, many of them lacking skilled staff of sufficient
expertise, but merely taking advantage of and exploiting the ‘boom’ in
the PR profession.
This phenomenon is common; it happened at the end of
the 1980’s when ‘total quality management’ was the latest ‘fad’ and many
became experts in the art of TQM virtually ‘overnight’. Consequently,
because of the hasty expansion of PR firms, the poor reputation of PR
among journalists, businessmen, politicians and the general public that
persists today, can be traced back to this period of uncontrolled
growth. In the last 20 years, however, many PR agencies have built
reputations for highly marketing orientated practices. Many of these
firms tend to specialise in consumer PR, trade relations, corporate PR,
financial, industrial, service and technical PR. A number of firms are
now offering PR services for ‘not for profit’ organisations such as
charities and politics.
3 Recent Developments
From the
mid 1970’s onwards a change has developed in the role and perceived
value of PR, leading to a growth in this form of communication which has
continued right up to the present day. Explanations for the upsurge in
public relations activity are many and varied. Many in the industry
identify the late 1970’s recession as a major turning point. Companies
were keen to reduce costs in order to stay in business. As often happens
in times of economic downturn, managers of many firms look to marketing
budgets as a ‘first strike’ and regard marketing expenditure as a
‘luxury’ and a cost rather than a necessary investment. Many managers
found that PR, with a much broader base and cost effectiveness, would be
preferable to maintaining a conventional advertising budget.
The
‘cost saving’ aspect of public relations is certainly one of the major
reasons for the growth of its popularity. Other factors include the
increasing complexity of the business world that has produced a need for
more complex communications to get the commercial or corporate message
across. Another possible factor is the growth of fast-developing new
business sectors such as information technology, financial services,
travel and leisure which has lead to a ‘new breed’ of marketing manager
who appreciates the value of PR as a communications tool.
A further
factor is a recognition that management, especially those working in
business to business marketing, of the importance of creating and
maintaining ‘relationships’ with a wide range of people and groups.
There has been recognition for a number of years that in industrial and
organisational marketing situations there are complex buyer-seller
interactions involved in the marketing process. Some of these take place
in the ‘official’ marketing channels of communications e.g. between the
sales person and the official buyer or at least the purchasing team or
committee within the buying organisation. However, interactions also
take place on a less formal basis, amongst technical personnel from both
the marketing and buying firms.
It was recognised that these informal
buyer seller interactions were just as important as the more formal
contacts and that these too had to be managed and not left to chance.
The recognition that organisational or business to business marketing
involved an often complex web of formal and informal, but no less
important, commercial interactions become known as the ‘interactive
approach’, and was basically the precursor to what today is often
referred to as the ‘relationship marketing approach’. Of course,
throughout its development as a marketing communications ‘tool’ PR has
always been first and foremost an instrument for establishing,
crystallising, cementing and maintaining mutually beneficial
relationships with various groups of people or ‘publics’.
It is
therefore, no surprise that as the recognition of the importance of the
interactive and relationship driven nature of modern marketing practice
became accepted and practised by firms. The adoption of public relations
as a key marketing communications tool also grew in stature and
importance, particularly in the area of corporate communications.
The
role of public relations in achieving sound relationship marketing
practices as well as its contribution to achieving good internal
marketing is examined later.
4 The Role And Nature Of Public Relations
4.1 Defining Public Relations
The
task of defining the exact nature of PR is not easy. A plethora of
definitions currently exists, each emphasising a slightly different
approach and each attempting to arrive at a simple, brief and accurate
form of words. The difficulty in developing a single acceptable
definition reflects the complexity and diversity of the profession. For
the purposes of this discussion two definitions are useful. The
Institute of Public Relations (IPR) states:
‘Public
Relations practice is the deliberate, planned and sustained effort to
establish and maintain mutual understanding between an organisation and
it’s public’.
The essential features of this
definition is that PR practice should be deliberate, planned and
sustained; not haphazard, and that mutual understanding is necessary in
order to ensure that the communication between the organisation and its
public’ is clear, i.e. the receiver perceives the same meaning as the
sender intends.
An alternative definition is provided by Frank Jefkins who states:
‘Public
Relations consists of all forms of planned communication, outward and
inwards, between an organisation and it’s publics for the purpose of
achieving specific objectives concerning mutual understanding’.
Jefkins is a modified version of the Institute of Public Relations definition and provides two new elements:
- ‘Public’ becomes ‘Publics’, since PR addresses a number of audiences:
- The inclusion of ‘specific objectives’, making PR a tangible activity.
4.2 Achieving a marketing orientation through PR
In
marketing literature there is a lot about how it is important for an
organisation to become ‘marketing orientated’, ‘customer focused’ and
adopt the ‘marketing concept’. For a firm to be truly marketing oriented
all the staff working for it have to be so. There is a saying adapted
from Buddhist philosophy that states ‘for a forest to be green each tree
has to be green’. This principle also applies to the marketing
orientation of the firm for it comes from within the minds of the people
making up the organisation. But how does senior management achieve this
change in attitude and bring about the right customer focused ‘spirit’
within their organisation? Internal PR on its own cannot achieve this,
but it can certainly make a significant contribution.
