What is PR

What is Public Relations?

"The management function which seeks to establish and maintain, through deliberate planning, mutually beneficial relationships between an organisation and its various publics on whom its success or failure depends." (Cultip & Centre, 2007)

There's two types of PR Proactive and Reactive. Proactive is the better of the two. Re-active can be dangerous.

Edward Lous Bernays - Studied crowed psychology, Set up PR 'counsel' in New York (1912) - Wikipedia.

PR is about Building relationships... PR is about trust: achieved overtime through words and deeds. PR Practitioner's job: To become experts at managing the communication programme of an organisation. Consult management to consider consequences of the organisation's actions on its publics.

With hard-work and planning the negative consequences of a campaign can be minimised.

What PR is Not 

It suffers from a negative image. It s not a magic potion (REMEDY) for abad policies, products, or services.

Not a substitute for good/bad management. If the head isn't attached to the body, the head wont get anywhere.

PR is not a device for deceiving the public. 

PR is not what should be used should something negative come up within an organisation, PR is ongoing and works best when there are ongoing campaigns.

PR Campaigns are coordinated, purposeful, extended efforts designed to achieve a specific goal or set of interrelated goals, that will move the organisation toward longer range objectives. (Newsom, Turk & Kruckeberg, 2007)

Examples of campaigns; awareness campaigns (for organisations that need more public awareness), knowledge campaigns (more information about a particular subject as part of your campaign).

A systematic set of communication activities, each with a specified purpose, continued over a set period of time and dealing with objectives relating to a particular issue.

Campaigns are designed and developed to address an issue, solve a problem, or to correct or improve a situation. The problem might be as simple as creating awareness about a company or a company's mission.

Examples of Campaigns; No Plane, No Gain. 

"We're all trying to battle misperception," said Ed Bolen, president and CEO of the National Business Aviation Association, which represents corporate-jet owners. "The vast majority of the time, these jets are flying offices, where people can conduct business and have confidential discussions that could never occur on a commercial jetliner," Mr. Bolen said - Read more at the Wall Street Journal.

Not all campaigns are so central to the organisation as to change its positioning or alter its corporate culture.

Mergers are good PR campaigns... I.e. Hewlett Packard and Compaq in 2001 - Read more at HP.com.

Types of PR Campaigns 

• Public Awareness - Cyclones, Sports complex in Townsville etc... 
• Public Information Campaigns - 
• Public Education Campaign - Emotional aspects of a situation etc... 
• Reinforcement of Attitudes and behaviours - Those who are in agreement with your organisation's position - Clean-up Australia (above and below) 
• Changing or attempting to change the attitudes - Those who do no agree.
• Behaviour modification campaigns - New legislation -> Use booster seats... 

Theories that Inform Public Relations Campaigns - Theories are used to determine the consequence of a campaign. If X then Y... If we do this than this will happen... Models of communication.

• Models of Comm Theory. 
• Hierachy of Effects Theory. 
• Situational Theory. 
• Maslow's Hierachy of Needs Theory. 
• Elaboration Liklihood Theory. 
• Agenda-Setting Theory. 
• Social Learning Theory. 
• Source, Message, Channel, Receiver model. 

Need to be able to assess the needs, goals and capabilities of priority publics. 

Systematic campaign planning and production.

Continuous monitoring and evaluation to see what is working and where extra effort or changes need to be made; 

Consideration of the complimentary roles of mass media and interpersonal communication. 

Selection of the appropriate media for each priority public, with due consideration for each medium's ability t deliver the message. 

Five elements crucial to successful campaigns

• The Educational Aspect - Always enlighten it's public. 
• Engineering - Ensure that the means are there (or convenient) for publics to do what you want them to do. 
• Enforcement -  Must be something beyond the incentive to underscore the significance of the campaign. Seatbelt campaigns - laws for non-compliance enacted.  
• Entitlement (form of Re-inforcement) - Publics are convinced of the value of the appeals of the campaign and 'buy into' the message. 
• Evaluation - Evaluate the effectiveness of the campaign with a statistical analysis. 

One of the most successful campaigns in Australia - (Slip, Slop, Slap) and Smokey the Bear in the USA.

New campaigns building on old campaigns... etc... counter-campaigns which work against someone else's campaigns... i.e. people who are vitamin D deficient.