Where you likely have heard some things about public relations

Public relations is a large industry. By late 2021, Business Insider reported that, in the U.S. alone, more than 270,000 people worked in U.S. public relations.  Even though the COVID pandemic of the early 2020s led to some shrinking of the industry, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) predicts that public relations specialist positions will increase by 11 percent by 2030—BLS indicates that is a “faster than average” growth.

Odds are, however, that unless you have a friend or family member working in public relations, or have interned in the field, you have not had direct exposure to public relations. You certainly have witnessed public relations products (see “Who uses public relations” below), but likely you have not seen how the field goes about creating the products in a systematic way.  Instead, you have likely seen public relations alluded to in news accounts, where journalists may fall into two extremes: either willingly quoting PR people in their news accounts, or at least sharing PR info sometimes word-for-word.  Secondly, you may have witnessed popular portrayals of public relations people in TV shows like “Scandal” or “Better Call Saul” or movies like “Our Brand is Crisis,” or “Thank You for Smoking.” Finally, you likely have seen public relations directly in action during crisis situations like product recalls, school shootings and recovery from natural disasters like hurricanes and floods.

It is common to learn much about our world through news and entertainment, and the examples listed above provide some approximations of how public relations works. The problem, however, with overreliance on these portrayals of public relations people is that they tend to distill these professionals into stereotypes: the unscrupulous publicity seeker, the spinner of bad information, and the glad-hander who simply can’t stop being a sycophant to the client/boss who cuts their check.

With this book, you have a more accurate portrayal of what public relations is about—strategic approaches to a client’s stakeholders that are designed to advance mutual goals.

What is public relations?

The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) defines public relations as “a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” Simply put, public relations helps to influence an audience’s perceptions by building relationships and shaping public conversations about a client or company. These public conversations often take place through mass media and social media, which is why public relations professionals need to understand how to work with and write effective messages for the media.

Who uses public relations?

When you’ve seen news stories (whether in print, online or in video form) that communicate that, for example, an airline is opening new routes at your local airport, or a military member has returned early for the holidays, or a blood drive has broken a record, or Tom Cruise is donating to a charity 10 percent of his earnings from his newly-released movie, you’ve seen evidence of the range of institutions and individuals who use public relations.  These are all forms of proactive public relations. You’ve also seen evidence of public relations when a company announces a recall, or an oil company communicates how it is dealing with a gas leak. These are evidence of reactive public relations. In fact, in the early 20th century, clients tended to not see the value of public relations, unless a crisis happened. Even now, some public relations professionals face challenges in convincing key executives of their value to the function of the company.

With the abundance of information readily available to audiences worldwide, clients are more vulnerable than ever to misinformation about their brand. An audience’s attitudes and beliefs about a company can greatly influence its success. Therefore, the public relations professional helps to monitor and influence conversations about a client and manage its reputation among its stakeholders. Viewing public relations as a key management function or an essential strategy to manage one’s reputation will help accomplish important goals such as establishing trust among key publics.

Differences between marketing, advertising, and public relations

Many people confuse public relations with marketing and advertising. Although there are similarities, there also are key differences.

Probably the most important difference between marketing, public relations, and advertising is the primary focus. Public relations emphasizes cultivating relationships between an organization or individual and key publics for the purpose of managing the client’s image. Marketing emphasizes the promotion of products and services for revenue purposes. Advertising is a communication tool used by marketers in order to get customers to act. The image below outlines other differences.

The differences and relationships among marketing, public relations, and advertising, by Jasmine Roberts and Michael Shiflet is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Clarifiers about the Venn Diagram:

Marketing

Public Relations operates within an ecology of stakeholders. “Stakeholder” by Grochim is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Four models of public relations

Grunig and Hunt (1984) developed four models of public relations that describe the field’s various management and organizational practices. These models are good reference points for public relations practitioners as they create programs, strategies, and tactics.  Public relations activities often flow back and forth among these four models.

 

In the press agent/publicity model, communications professionals use persuasion to shape the thoughts and opinions of key audiences. In this model, achieving awareness is more important than complete accuracy, and organizations do not seek audience feedback or conduct audience analysis research. It is a one-way form of communication. One example would be a public relations campaign to help advance the sale of concert tickets for a celebrity musician’s comeback tour.

The public information model moves away from the hype tactics used in the press agent model and presents more accurate information. However, the communication pattern is still one-way. Practitioners do not conduct audience analysis research to guide their strategies and tactics. Some press releases and newsletters are created based on this model, when audiences are not necessarily targeted or researched beforehand. Another example of this model is the one-way communication that a government office uses, in the midst of a pandemic, to inform and instruct members of a community about how to lower their risks of contracting a deadly virus.

The two-way asymmetrical model  features public relations professionals conducting research to better understand the various audiences’ attitudes and behaviors which, in turn, informs the message strategy and creation. Still, persuasive communication is used in this model to benefit the organization more so than audiences; therefore, it is considered asymmetrical or unbalanced.  An example of this is a rideshare company researching how various demographics uses their service so that they can make adjustments and improvements and then sending out messages to those various demographics about these adjustments.

Finally, the two-way symmetrical model argues that the public relations practitioner should serve as a liaison between the organization and key publics, rather than serving solely as a persuader. Here, practitioners are negotiators/facilitators and use communication to ensure that all involved parties benefit, not just the organization that employs the public relations professional. The term “symmetrical” is used because the model attempts to create a mutually beneficial situation. The two-way symmetrical model is deemed the most ethical model, one that professionals should aspire to use in their everyday tactics and strategies (Simpson, 2014). An example of this would be a fast-fashion company that seeks out feedback from their audiences about what changes they need to make to be more environmentally friendly (e.g., enhancing the durability of their products, using less natural resources to create their products). The company’s adjustments would be communicated to the audiences with the intent of getting more feedback and making additional changes to their business model.

General roles in public relations

According to Smith (2014), public relations practitioners can be placed in two groups based on responsibilities: communication managers and communication technicians. Communication managers assist in the strategic planning of an organization’s communication efforts. The broad term “communication manager” includes several similar public relations positions: expert prescriber, communication facilitator, and problem-solving facilitator (Broom & Sha, 2013).  Problem-solving facilitators provide crisis management to an organization during an obstacle. Liaisons speak on behalf of the brand and facilitate communication between the organization and its key publics.

Before entering a managerial role, most public relations practitioners begin their career as a communication technician. This can refer to a variety of entry-level positions, including public relations specialist, communication assistant, and junior account executive. Communication technicians write press releases, pitches, feature articles, and other communication materials and assist in event planning.

Expert prescribers do more with strategic planning than communication technicians. They are seen as an authority on public relations and develop specific communication plans and roll out tactics to help achieve organizational goals.  Because management perceives       this role as “owning” public relations, practitioners in this role need to be aware that a particular downside of this role is that other managers and workers in the organization may not see the roles they play in advancing good relations with stakeholders.  Instead, public   relations concerns and approaches can be simply routed to the expert prescriber, off-loading the wider public relations responsibilities to the expert prescriber.

The communication facilitator role focuses on serving as a broker between the PR client and its audiences. This role is more about the exchange of information between the organization and its audiences.  This role is not primarily focused on problem-solving but on facilitating the exchange of ideas and information.

Problem-solving facilitators are part of the “C” suite planning team.  They consult management on the nature of the problem and how to approach it in ways that help advance the organization’s goals while also addressing the attitudes and needs of the stakeholders. This role is often filled by senior public relations people.

Together, communication managers and technicians play a vital role in relationship building. They are all vitally  important and a public relations professional, over the course of their career, will likely advance from communication technician to problem-solving facilitator. However, even a senior public relations person will often fufill the other roles at various times. It’s not unusual to see a senior practitioner help in problem-solving planning, and then move into helping write a part of the annual report (communication technician) or lead a focus group (communication facilitator).

PR functions

Either private PR companies or in-house communications staffers or PR firms carry out PR functions. A PR group generally handles all aspects of an organization’s or individual’s media presence, including company publications and press releases. Such a group can range from just one person to dozens of employees, depending on the size and scope of the organization. The chart below shows most of the key roles that PR people carry out (with the surprising omission of risk and crisis communication).

Public Relations’ Components and Roles

Components of Public Relations	Explanations of Role
Counseling	Providing advice to management concerning policies, relationships, and communications
Research	Determining the attitudes and behaviors of groups to plan public relations strategies. Such research can be used to generate mutual understanding or influence and persuade publics.
Media Relations	Working with mass media (television, web sites, newspapers, magazines, and the like) by seeking publicity or responding to their interests in the organization.
Publicity	Disseminating planned messages through selected  media to further an organization’s interests.
Employee Member Relations	Responding to concerns, informing, and motivating and organization’s current employees or members.
Community Relations	Undertaking activities within a community to maintain an environment that benefits both an organization and the community .
Public Affairs	Developing effective involvement in public policy and helping an organization adapt to public expectations. The term “public affairs” is also used by government agencies to describe their public relations activities and by many corporations as an umbrella term to describe multiple public relation activities.
Government Affairs	Relating directly with legislatures and regulatory agencies on behalf of an organization. Lobbying can be part of a government affairs program.
Issue Management	Identifying and addressing issues of public concern that affect an organization.
Financial Relations	Creating and maintaining investor confidence and building good relationships with financial community.
Industry Relations	Relating with other firms in the industry of an organization and with trade associations.
Development/Fund-Raising	Demonstrating the need for and encouraging the public support charitable organization primarily through financial contributions.
Multicultural Relations/Workplace Diversity	Communicating with individuals and groups in various cultural groups.
Special Events	Stimulating an interest in a person, product, or organization by means of focused “happenings” as well as other activities designed to encourage interacting with publics and listening to them.
Marketing Communications	Employing a combination of activities, designed to sell a product, service, or idea, including advertising, collateral materials, publicity, promotions, direct mail, trade shows, and special events.

Anatomy of a public relations campaign

Not everything in public relations is about campaigns.  Sometimes public relations people put out important announcements about breaking news (e.g., the appointment of a new CEO) or help management find out what employees and stakeholders are thinking about through focus groups, interviews, and management by walking around (walking the workroom floor to see what is happening or visiting with news media contacts).

However, it is important to understand the dynamics of a public relations campaign because a) it will sharpen your thinking about how public relations makes a difference for clients and b) it will prepare you to take on the larger inter-connected components that more senior public relations people need to manage.

PR campaigns occur for any number of reasons. They can be a quick response to a crisis or emerging issue, or they can stem from a long-term strategy tied in with other marketing efforts. Regardless of its purpose, a typical campaign often involves four phases.

Research phase

The first step of many PR campaigns is the initial research phase. First, practitioners identify and qualify the issue to be addressed. Then, they research the organization itself to clarify issues of public perception, positioning, and internal dynamics. Strategists can also research the potential audiences of the campaign. These audiences may include media outlets, constituents, consumers, and competitors. Finally, the context of the campaign is often researched, including the possible consequences of the campaign and the potential effects on the organization. After considering all of these factors, practitioners are better educated to select the best type of campaign.

Action Planning (or “strategy”) phase

During the action planning phase, PR professionals usually determine objectives (both quantitative and qualitative) focused on the desired goals of the campaign and formulate strategies to meet those objectives. Broad strategies such as deciding on the overall message of a campaign and the best way to communicate the message can be finalized at this time. In essence, the action planning phase is about determining what themes need to be communicated to what audiences. This phase of the campaign may be the most challenging as it requires empathy regarding what audiences care about and then figuring out what kind of thematic messaging can connect/resonate with the different audiences.

Communication (or “tactics”) phase

During the communications phase, the PR team decides on the tactics to implement the strategies they formulated during the action planning phase. This process can involve devising specific communication techniques and selecting the forms of media that suit the message best.

Evaluation phase

This phase involves capturing the objectives (or outcome) data that were established in the action planning phase with an eye toward assessing how well the public relations campaign helped the client achieve their objectives.

Public relations and risk and crisis management

As mentioned at the start of this chapter, the general public is often aware of public relations through its efforts to manage risk and crisis. Although it is beyond the scope of this book, it is important to understand a few important elements of this part of public relations.

In 1982, Johnson & Johnson’s Tylenol medication commanded 35% of the US over-the-counter analgesic market and represented 15% of the company’s profits. Unfortunately, one individual succeeded in lacing the drug with cyanide. Seven people died as a result, so a panic ensued about how widespread the contamination might be. By the end of the episode, everyone knew that Tylenol was associated with the scare. The company’s market value fell by $1 billion as a result. When the same situation happened again in 1986, the company had learned its lesson. It quickly ordered that Tylenol be recalled from every outlet, not just those in the state where it had been tampered with. The company also decided that the product would not be re-established on the shelves until something had been done to provide better product protection. As a result, Johnson & Johnson developed the tamperproof packaging that would make it much more difficult for a similar incident to occur in the future.

The best way to build good PR is to carefully maintain a good reputation over time and to avoid behaviors as an individual, company or corporation that might harm others. In other words, avoid actions that present undue risk to the organization and its stakeholders. At a basic level, prevention against bad PR calls on your organization to follow your industry’s ethical codes and you to follow the ethical codes of public relations (the Public Relations Society of America provide an excellent set of codes for the PR profession). Even if you and your organization do this, you might face a crisis. For example, a politician might decide to target your brand regardless of whether your business practices are ethical.

The first rule of crisis communications is to plan ahead by anticipating the kinds of problems your company might have. Chemical companies should prepare for chemical spills. Sports teams will probably not prepare for environmental disasters, but they may have to prepare for the social media scandals that players sometimes land themselves in. If there is a disaster, the advice is to “be truthful and transparent,” to not say too much, and to correct any exaggerations that emerge in the news media and on social media, within reason. The major, overarching goals of PR efforts during a crisis is to fix the problem, do better, and, in the process, help people forget there ever was a crisis.

Journalists often have the opposite interest because reporting on conflict is interesting. Helping people to survive is one of the primary functions of journalism. This explains why negative news gets so much more attention than positive news. No one dies when people do their jobs salting the roads and drivers maneuver safely in snowstorms. When people crash, that, sadly, is news. Journalists know that people care about safety perhaps more than any other issue, so they focus on safety concerns during times of crisis. At these times, PR and journalism can be at odds, but truth and transparency are still advisable to the PR professional. You do not legally have to tell journalists everything that has happened (and, in fact, there may be legal reasons to not tell everything you know about the crisis) but if journalists discover a negative impact that you failed to disclose, they will wonder what else you are hiding, and they may give your critics and detractors extra consideration and attention.

In any emergency situation, it is imperative that a company put the public interest ahead of the organization’s interest. The company’s first responsibility is to the safety and well-being of the people involved. Once safety has been restored, the company needs to face the public and face the facts. The company should never try to minimize a serious problem or “smooth it over” in the hope that no one will notice. Conversely, don’t blow minor incidents out of proportion or allow others to do so. Social media has accelerated the speed at which information about a crisis can spread; the viral affect of social networks such as Twitter means that stakeholders can break news faster than traditional media, which makes managing a crisis harder. However, a company should not speculate; if they don’t know the facts, they should say so and promise to get back to the media as soon as possible.

Finally, in PR there is the need to learn from mistakes and to analyze a company or corporation’s crisis responses. As difficult as it might be to go back and discuss where communication failed, it is essential. Reflection is a critical step in learning and corporations are like any other social institution. They need to learn to survive and to thrive.

Ultimately, one of the core lessons of risk and crisis management is this: you and your organization don’t determine if a risk has elevated into a crisis — your stakeholders do.

Public relations and branding

Pioneered by such companies as Procter & Gamble during the 1930s, the older, advertising-centric model of branding focused on the product, using advertisements to associate a particular branded good with quality or some other positive cultural value. Yet, as consumers became exposed to ever-increasing numbers of advertisements, traditional advertising’s effectiveness dwindled. The ubiquity of modern advertising means the public is skeptical of—or even ignores—claims advertisers make about their products. This credibility gap can be overcome, however, when PR professionals using good promotional strategies step in.

The new PR-oriented model of branding focuses on the overall image of the company rather than on the specific merits of the product (see the NYPD’s outreach bus, at right). This branding model seeks to associate an organization or company with specific personal and cultural values that hold meaning for consumers. In the early 1990s, for example, car company Saturn marketed its automobiles not as a means of transportation but as a form of culture. PR campaigns promoted the image of the Saturn family, associating the company with powerful American values and giving Saturn owners a sense of community. Events such as the 1994 Saturn homecoming sought to encourage this sense of belonging. Some 45,000 people turned out for this event; families gave up their beach holidays simply to come to a Saturn manufacturing plant in Tennessee to socialize with other Saturn owners and tour the facility.

Toyota faced a crisis when it instituted a massive recall based on safety issues. To counter the bad press, the company launched a series of commercials featuring top Toyota executives, urging the public to keep their faith in the brand (Bernstein, 2010). Toyota used a style of self-awareness to market its automobiles. The positive PR campaign presented Toyotas as cars with a high standard of excellence, backed by a company striving to meet customers’ needs.

Branding backlashes (or, be true to who you are)

An important part of maintaining a consistent brand is preserving the emotional attachment consumers have to that brand. Just as PR campaigns build brands, PR crises can damage them. For example, the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010 became a PR nightmare for BP, an oil company that had been using PR to rebrand itself as an environmentally friendly energy company.

In 2000, BP began a campaign presenting itself as “Beyond Petroleum,” rather than British Petroleum, the company’s original name. By acquiring a major solar company, BP became the world leader in solar production and in 2005 announced it would invest $8 billion in alternative energy over the following 10 years. BP’s marketing firm developed a PR campaign that, at least on the surface, emulated the forward-looking, two-way symmetric PR model. The campaign conducted interviews with consumers, giving them an opportunity to air their grievances and publicize energy policy issues. BP’s website featured a carbon footprint calculator consumers could use to calculate the size of their environmental impact (Solman, 2008). The single explosion on BP’s deep-water oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico essentially nullified the PR work of the previous 10 years, immediately putting BP at the bottom of the list of environmentally concerned companies.

A company’s control over what its brand symbolizes can also lead to branding issues. The Body Shop, a cosmetics company that gained popularity during the 1980s and early 1990s, used PR to build its image as a company that created natural products and took a stand on issues of corporate ethics. The company teamed up with Greenpeace and other environmental groups to promote green issues and increase its natural image.

By the mid-1990s, however, revelations about the unethical treatment of franchise owners called this image into serious question. The Body Shop had spent a great deal of time and money creating its progressive, spontaneous image. Stories of travels to exotic locations to research and develop cosmetics were completely fabricated, as was the company’s reputation for charitable contributions. Even the origins of the company had been made up as a PR tool: The idea, name, and even product list had been ripped off from a small California chain called the Body Shop that was later given a settlement to keep quiet. The PR campaign of the Body Shop made it one of the great success stories of the early 1990s, but the unfounded nature of its PR claims undermined its image dramatically. Competitor L’Oréal eventually bought the Body Shop for a fraction of its previous value (Entine, 2007).

Branding as a part of public relations

That so many different groups have adopted branding as a means of communication is a testament to its ubiquity. Even anticommercial, antibrand groups such as Adbusters have created brands to send messages. Social media sites have also encouraged branding techniques by allowing users to create profiles of themselves that they use to communicate their core values. This personal application is perhaps the greatest evidence of the impact of PR on modern culture. Branding, once a technique used by companies to sell their products, has become an everyday means of communication.

Branding focuses on the lifestyles and values inherent in a brand’s image as opposed to the products that are manufactured. Ultimately, however, public relations is about more than branding. This is because branding is always associated with a performative element; it is concerned with how well a product or service connect with the values, attitudes, and lifestyles of key audience. Public relations certainly addresses these elements, but it encompasses more.  Public relations works to help clients adjust their policies, organizational culture and their mission/goals so that they come into some degree of alignment with the concerns and ambitions of key publics.

References

Broom, G. & Sha, B-L. (2013) Effective Public Relations (11th edition). New York: Pearson.

Grunig, J. & Hunt, T. (1984). Managing Public Relations. New York: Holt, Rhinehart and Winston.

Smith, R. (2013). Public Relations: The Basics. New York: Routledge

Image Attribution

“The differences and relationships among marketing, public relations, and advertising”, by Jasmine Roberts and Michael Shiflet is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

“Stakeholder” by Grochim is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

“Four Models of PR” by Michael Shiflet and Jasmine Roberts is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

“Extra Strength Tylenol and Tylenol PM” by Ragesoss is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

“Public Relations NYPD Style” by Dave Hamster is licensed under CC BY 2.0.