Chapter 12

 Total Quality Communication

   Public Relations

Advertising, as we discussed it in the last chapter, focuses on messages to consumers about products or services. Advertising also contributes to the overall image of the firm or its products vis-a-vis other audiences identified in the Total Quality Communication plan.

Public relations is a different sort of tool. Traditionally, public relations are defined as an organizational management function that targets the goal of influencing the organization's overall image in the minds of audiences. It is important to note that while advertising contributed to the overall image of the firm, it has a more immediate goal of describing products of services to customers. In public relations, by contrast, image takes center stage.

This definition of public relations is sufficient. Problems may arise in many organizations because of misunderstandings, ranging from misinterpretation of why public relations is practiced to a misunderstanding of the data about the public relations effect on the firm's bottom line profitability.

The role of public relations is increasing, at least if we look at employment statistics. The number of PR professionals hit a high of 120,000 in 1997, and the employment of PR specialists is expected to climb 35% between 1996 and 2006. [1]

Public Relations Activities

Activities that can be associated with public relations include:

• Marketing Public Relations, sometimes called publicity
• Corporate Advertising
• Special Events and Sponsorships
• Public Policy Advocacy
• Press Releases
• Lobbying
• Crisis Management
• Personal Contact

Obviously, public relations are also related to other TQC functions such as advertising.

Marketing Public Relations

Marketing Public Relations is a term that has entered the discussion of Integrated Marketing Communications to describe the concept of publicity, which is a traditional name for this function.

MPR can perform several functions for the product or service marketing effort.

• Building marketplace excitement before advertising begins, especially for new product introductions.
• Creating news about advertising itself- For example, millions of dollars worth of exposure was created for Pepsi during the signing of Michael Jackson, a major singing star in the U.S., to perform in ads.
• Introducing a product with low or no advertising expenditures-For products of firms with high name recognition, new products can be introduced with relatively small promotional budgets using publicity. For example, the introduction of new colors of crayons by the Crayola Division was successfully promoted just through publicity. This was accomplished first through a contest to name the new colors and then announcements of the colors' placement in boxes, replacing less popular colors.
• Providing added value to products or services for customers- For example, Butterball Turkey set up phone lines for customers wanting to prepare turkey for national holidays so customers could call in to get advice about preparation methods.
• Creating customer-to-brand bonds- An example of this sort of MPR is the Pillsbury bake-off, where cooks from all over the United States compete for large monetary prizes for recipes judged to be the best using Pillsbury products. Mileage is enhanced by then promoting the winning recipes to consumers.
• Influencing opinion leaders among groups of people to gather additional information about the product, service, or firm- These opinion leaders then influence the buying decisions of others in their group.
• Defending products at risk and giving customers a reason to buy them- For example, McDonald's Corporation came under attack by environmental activists because of the perceived environmental unfriendliness of McDonald's packaging. The public relations efforts by McDonald's led to a redesign of packaging to a more environmental friendly package and provided an appeal to consumers that now there was a reason to buy McDonald's products.

Marketing Public Relations Advantages

Credibility-- since public relations tools such as press releases and media relations are transmitted to a firm's audiences through mass media such as newspapers or television, the information takes on the credibility of the medium carrying the message.

Cost--in relative and absolute terms, executing a public relations publicity campaign is less expensive than an advertising campaign. Publicity is not, as some define it, free advertising. Good public relations programs incur costs for personnel, production, distribution of information and other costs. However, typically, the cost of a Marketing PR program is a fraction of the cost of a marketing advertising campaign.

Clutter avoidance-because public relations information tends to be carried by media as news items, it tends to avoid the clutter of advertising

Targeting Specific Groups--while advertising through a mass medium such as a newspaper might be thought of as a shotgun approach to communication, public relations can be a rifle, carefully targeting the special interests of specific audiences.

Marketing Public Relations Disadvantages

• Perhaps the biggest disadvantage is loss of control-- the firm has no control over when and where the information appears. By contrast, advertising can be very carefully controlled.
• MPR can be criticized because the effect on sales is less obvious than is the effect of advertising.

Corporate Advertising

This is advertising that focuses on the firm or on the firm's core values, rather than on promotion of a particular product or service. The intention is to contribute to the overall image of the firm. While this will undoubtedly have a long-term effect on the fortunes of the firm, there is no intention to increase sales of a particular item in the short term.

• Studies by critics suggest that only 35% of an audience exposed to corporate advertising is interested in seeing it. Critics suggest that audiences are much more interested in advertising that promotes and describes products. Critics fail to see the objective of corporate advertising.
• While a corporate ad may appear in a mass communication medium, its target audience may be a specific sub-population of the medium's audience. And, while most of the medium's audience may not see the purpose or value of corporate advertising, the targeted public does get the message. For example: corporate advertising appearing in the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers is not trying to sell the firm's products, but to build an image in the minds of stockholders and potential stockholders about the organization. The objective is to gain stockholder support or reduce stockholder resistance to the firm's management and its operational plans.

Special Events and Sponsorships

Special Events

Special events are an effective tool to reach specific audiences ranging from employees to customers. The danger of special events is in not being able to ensure that they do reflect the message statement of the audiences who are exposed to them.

For example, American University in Washington D.C. was concerned about the lack of student participation in on-campus activities. A concert was arranged to encourage students to stay on campus. The concert was advertised as free. More than 200,000 people showed up! The community surrounding the university was angry and called for the university to be shut down. The concert did not contribute to the university's mission.

Sponsorships

Companies such as Mobil, Chevron, Arco and others sponsor arts projects on public television and elsewhere. Their goal is to reinforce the idea, in the minds of those exposed to the events, that the company is a good corporate citizen and a good company with whom to do business. Other companies may sponsor sports events.

In certain situations, sponsorships can showcase a company's abilities. The computer firm EDS, for example, pioneered the use of computer chips embedded in runners' shoes for deciding tight finishes. Says their European marketing strategy director, Martin Trees, "We are trying to sell an idea that we can make things better. That's not something you can get across in advertising. It's not something where you can stand up and say 'we're really good at this.' What you have to do is find something tangible that is an example." [2]

In addition, companies find that sponsorships allow access to tickets and hospitality packages, which are important to clients, customers and staff. At the winter games in Nagano, Japan, IBM "hosted 260 senior executives from companies around the world." [2]

Public Policy Advocacy

Business has only recently begun to participate in the public policy making process. Until now, corporate participation in development of public policy has focused on lobbying; the process of using a paid consultant to provide information to legislators in an effort to ensure that favorable legislation is enacted. Corporations in many countries, especially in the U.S., are now using grass roots appeals to the voting public to support legislation and regulations that are favorable to the business or its industry. For example, a small plastics manufacturer in Kansas used a grass roots campaign to get new requirements adopted for all commercial trucks in interstate transport. Trucks were to carry new plastic warning signs in case the truck was disabled and pulled to the side of the highway. The plastics firm in Kansas is the only company in the United States that had the product in stock when the regulation was adopted.

The Press Release

The press release is among the primary tools of public relations. And, it's among the most abused tools.

Many organizations fail to realize the relationship the firm has with the news media, who are the channel for information distribution. Public relations training courses advise that press releases, in order to have a chance to be used by the targeted medium, must be newsworthy to the editors of the medium.

This means that for the information to be processed and then reach the targeted audience, the editors of the medium must make a decision that the news or information is important to the medium's audience. It's this relationship that gives public relations its strength as a potential communication tool.

By making the judgment that information is newsworthy, the editor of the medium creates an impression among the audience members that the information is credible and backed by the reputation of the medium. This third party endorsement, indicating that the information is important, adds considerable weight in the audience comprehension process.

Unfortunately, many firms don't understand the value the news media attach to their third party endorsement.. Firms all over the world manage to create a mess out of the process by trying to get this endorsement for information that is not very important. The result is an avalanche of press releases every day. Ninety percent of these press releases are trashed by editors.

The primary complaint among editors leading to this wholesale disregard of press releases is the lack of newsworthiness in the releases for the editor's audience.

This lack of relevance is the result of a couple of suspect practices among those trying to use public relations. First, an announcement important to the organization may be written up in a general format and distributed to all media outlets through such distribution companies such as PR NewsWire. Rather than writing a press release from the view of what is potentially newsworthy to the medium's audience, the press release is a generally written from the firm's viewpoint. Second, many upper managers of companies insist that the company announce some information. The opening paragraph of the press release is then interpreted so that the "news" is the company making the announcement. Editors do not see the fact that a firm is making an announcement as news.

When you find yourself assessing a press release, ensure that the opening paragraph is a good solid news lead. An ineffective press release is an ego-stroking fluff piece with the president's or the company's name in the first paragraph.

Lobbying

Until now, corporate participation in the development of public policy has focused on lobbying; the process of using a paid consultant to provide information to legislators in an effort to ensure that favorable legislation is enacted.

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Vignette. In 1998, the Microsoft-U.S. Department of Justice antitrust trial focusing on the "browser wars" became known as the lobbyists full-employment act. An unlikely influence peddler as former Senator and Presidential contender Bob Dole was hired to be a Microsoft lobbyist, to search for a way to influence the process.

Lobbying is increasingly being carried on via the Internet. For example, in 1998 a coalition managed to force the OECD to postpone for six months consideration of a Multilateral Agreement for Investment (MAI), which would govern how MNCs can make investments. The coalition comes from across the spectrum, including trade unions, environmental and human rights lobbyists and pressure groups opposed to the expansion of multinationals. [3]

Businesses seem less inclined (so far) to attempt to start and manage campaigns through the Internet (although the tobacco group may have succeeded).

Crisis Management

An interesting contrast in crisis management styles can be seen in the behaviors of Intel, the computer chip maker, which has gained near-monopoly status by supplying the CPU for IBM-compatible PCs. Two incidents, in 1994 and 1998, show very different communications styles.

In 1994, almost everyone agrees that Intel mishandled the discovery of a flaw in its Pentium processor. It developed that under certain conditions; mathematical operations of division would produce a wrong answer. Although potentially devastating to particular clients, this was not a common problem. Intel's choice was either to insist that the problem was minor and risk destroying the company's image, or to replace the faulty chips and writing off millions of dollars. Intel's tactic was originally to dismiss the problem, and only after IBM itself halted shipments of new machines with the Pentium processor did Intel come clean. [5]

In 1998, Intel found itself in somewhat similar situation. Its newest 64-bit chip, code-named Merced, was running behind schedule. This time, Intel's was under the leadership of a new CEO and its approach was also new. This time, Intel was at pains to warn the public of the potential foul-up.

Organizations planning for crisis are concerned with (1) organizational performance, (2) organizational members' performances, (3) communication to all publics (audiences, groups, stakeholders) who may either (a) be affected by a crisis or (b) affect the organization by the groups' response to the crisis in the short-term or long-term [15]. Organizations use two distinctly different planning processes: (1) preparing for a crisis and (2) managing a crisis [18].

Crisis preparedness involves the process of creating a crisis plan, designating crisis management teams, training personnel to respond during a crisis, and amassing resources to address a crisis. This process is akin to "strategy" in the sense that it provides a framework of goals and objectives to be accomplished in the event of a crisis. Crisis management is implementing activities to achieve the plan's goals and objectives. This process equates to "tactics" where tactical goals and objectives are formulated using input from the plan subject to environment-specific constraints inherent in each situation [18]. In this framework, crisis preparedness is an internal operational process where the organization produces what amounts to roadmaps to follow in the event of a crisis. This preparedness process results in no tangible activity except for developing and distributing crisis plan documents and holding training seminars and drills for employees. Crisis management is all "response" activity during a crisis.

A crisis for an organization passes through four distinct stages. The first is the "crisis build up" or "prodromal* period" [9]. This is a period during which clues or hints begin to appear about a potential crisis. Long before a triggering event happens, symptoms appear as precursors to a crisis. These precursors represent repeated messages and persistent sets of clues that, if they are recognized, may help an organization to implement activities intended to prevent a crisis or, at least, to lessen its potential effects on the organization. Organizations that remain sensitive to their environment, to important audiences and to relevant trends are positioned better to recognize and ward off the impact of a crisis.

The second stage is "crisis breakout" or "acute crisis." This is the period in which a triggering event causes a crisis to erupt into damaging reality. The physical, fiscal and emotional trauma to an organization and its relevant publics may be enormous. It is in this stage that the organization's management is put to its most severe test.

"Abatement" is the third stage. In some situations, it may be called the "chronic crisis" stage because the effects of a crisis may linger for years. Charges, countercharges, demonstrations, inquiries, legal actions and continuing coverage by the mass media may serve to prolong the effects of a crisis. The last, or fourth, stage is the "termination" stage where a final resolution signals that the crisis is no longer a threat to an organization's operational environment or to its constituent publics [9][11].

One potential weakness of this framework for crisis management is the assumption that crisis management is important and that it plays out its role of influencing opinions held by an organization's internal and external constituents only during the time period described as the life cycle of a crisis [9][11]. As this limited view of crisis management suggests it could be mapped, the "Public Opinion Node" for any constituent audience for an organization is illustrated in Figure I. The Public Opinion Node contains all opinions, in various degrees of positive and negative direction, held by all members of any specific audience identified as important to the organization.

Rarely do crisis preparation or crisis management frameworks consider pre-existing attitudes and opinions and their impact on reaction of constituents to a crisis. A crisis does not occur in isolation. Rather, it occurs in the context of an operational environment that existed long before the onset of a crisis. As illustrated in Figure II, the key question for organization is, "What changes in relationships occur among environmental elements between the pre-crisis period, i.e., before-crisis build-up phase, and the post-crisis period, i.e., after-crisis termination?"

Figure III illustrates what may be the ultimate object of crisis management, although this objective is ignored or only alluded to in most discussions of crisis management models. The objective of crisis management, beyond physically coping with the aftermath of a crisis, is to influence public opinion development to the point that opinions held in the post-crisis period are at the same level or greater in positive opinions and at the same level or less in negative opinion among members in any constituent audience.

Crisis management proposes that damage control is one objective [7]. It tries to prevent drastic negative changes in relationships with operational environmental components brought on by the reality of the crisis. But, damage control may be too late to save relationships important to the organization because the real work of saving the relationships should have been done long before an impending crisis looms. In other words, if a hurricane is coming, it is a good idea to tape the windows to prevent glass breaking, to open all the windows and doors to equalize inside and outside pressure, and to stack furniture on blocks to keep it from getting wet. However, if the house does not have a firm foundation and the architectural integrity to withstand wind and water, all efforts will be in vain when the hurricane blows the house off its foundation and crushes everything into rubble. In the case of crisis events, the foundation that may prevent an organization from collapsing is the foundation of positive opinion about the organization held by groups of people whose behavior may affect the organization's operation.

Communication content as a component of crisis management must meet three needs. Each need must be addressed individually in crisis communication execution because of different objectives. First, instructing information tells audiences how they should behave in a crisis context [18]. For example, the audience's members might need to evacuate an area exposed to toxic fumes. Second, adjusting information allows an audience to cope with the emotional aspects of crisis [21][12]. For example, the severity of damage to buildings, extent of casualties or what's being done to counteract danger represents coping information. Third, internalizing information is absorbed by audience members and forms the basis for long-term judgments about the organization's image as it endures a crisis [15].

Crisis communication policy must recognize that each of these component needs must be addressed at each stage of the crisis, although the need emphasized in each crisis message changes at each crisis stage as shown in Figure VI. During a crisis build-up, for example, messages probably emphasize internalizing information to precondition the audience to the organization's position related to a crisis situation. As build-up continues and the crisis is determined to be unavoidable, the message emphasis may shift to instruction to prepare audience members to respond with specific actions to a crisis. At the crisis breakout stage, the emphasis is oriented to instruction as the need to induce immediate behavior responses among audience members increases dramatically. As the immediate danger of the crisis breakout subsides, emphasis shifts to adjusting information. And, as the crisis enters abatement, internalizing information again assumes a primary emphasis. A crisis that truncates the build-up stage puts considerable stress on an organization to carefully plan and execute initial breakout messages to take advantage of pre-existing public opinion of constituent groups.

Personal Contact

Often overlooked as a public relations tool is "personal contact." In a later chapter we'll talk about personal selling, which is one of the fundamental tools of marketing and management communication's tool mix. In this case, we're talking about activities organizational members become involved in to reinforce the image of the organization in the minds of specific audiences. For example, if the firm's objective is to ensure that competitors respect and fairly treat the firm because of a high image in the competitor's mind, one method for creating such a position is participation in trade or professional associations. Likewise, participation in civic or social organizations can help reinforce images in the minds of community or political entities. The primary consideration by the organization is, "Does the participation contribute to an objective appropriate to the organization's mission?" If it does, then participation by firm members can be an effective tool in the overall TQC mix.

Advice for Public Relations

Like advertising, using public relations tools effectively and efficiently is an art based on science. Too many uninformed communicators try to use PR techniques without success. They only waste their time and effort at the least, and otherwise make things difficult for everyone.

References

1. Maricris G. Briones (998), "PR's Role, Spending Increasing," Marketing News (May 11), 1-2.
2. Patrick Harverson (1998), "Why IT Companies Take the Risk," The Financial Times Information Technology Supplement, (June 3), 12.
3. Guy de Jonqui�res (1998), "Network Guerillas," The Financial Times (April 30), 12.ÊÊÊÊÊÊ
4. Paul. M. Barrett (1998), "Bully Tactics: As a 'Crisis Manager,' Malcolm Kelso Fights Suits With More Suits," The Wall Street Journal (April 29), A1, A6.
5. The Intel story is told in Tim JacksonÕs (1997), Inside Intel: How Andy Grove Built the World's Most Successful Chip Company, HarperCollins.
6. Sturges, D.L., Carrell, B.J., Newsom, D.A., Bararra, M. ÒCrisis Communication Management: The Public Opinion Node and Its Relationship to Environmental NimbusÓ. Journal of Business Communication.
7. Burson, H. (1985). ÒDamage control in a crisisÓ. Management Review. Dec. Ê44.
8. Cantril, H. (1947). Gauging Public Opinion. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
9. Donnelly, J.H., Gibson, J.L. and Ivancevich, J.M. (1987). Fundamentals of Management. Plano, TX: Business Publications, Inc.
10. Dutton, J.E. (1986). ÒThe Processing of Crisis and Non-Crisis Strategic IssuesÓ. Journal of Management Studies 24(4).373-385.
11. Fink, S. (1986). Crisis Management: Planning for the Inevitable. New York: American Management Association.
12. Kuklan, H. (1986). ÒManaging Crisis: Challenges and ComplexitiesÓ. SAM Advanced Management Journal. (Autumn). 39-44.
13. Mitroff, I.I. (1988). ÒCrisis Management: Cutting Through the ConfusionÓ. Sloan Management Review. (Winter). 15-20.
14. Newsom. D. and Carrell, B.J. (1990). ÒCommunication Campaigns and Cultural Awareness in the Global Village: The Spill-Over FactorÓ. Paper presented to the 7th Annual Intercultural and International Communications Conference. University of Miami. Feb. 22-24, 1990.
15. Newsom, D. and Carrell, B.J. (1986). Public Relations Writing: Form and Style. Belmont, CA.: Wadsworth Publishing.
16. Oskamp, S. (1977). Attitudes and Opinions. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
17. Pincus, J.D. and Acharaya L. (9187). ÒEmployee Communication During a Crisis: The Effects of Stress in Information ProcessingÓ. Paper presented to the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. San Antonio, TX.
18. Quarantelli, E.L. (1988). ÒDisaster Crisis Management: A Summary of Research FindingsÓ. Journal of Management Studies. 25:4 373-385.
19. Ressler, J. (1982). ÒCrisis ManagementÓ. Public Relations Quarterly. (Fall). 8-10.
20. Shaw, M. (1981). Group Dynamics: The Psychology of Small Groups. New York: NY: McGraw-Hill Book Company.
21. Shrivastava, P. and Mitroff, I.I. (1987). ÒStrategic Management of Corporate CrisisÓ. Columbia Journal of World Business (Spring). 5-11.
22. Wisenblit, J.Z. (1989). ÒCrisis Management Planning Among U.S. Corporations: Empirical Evidence and a Proposed FrameworkÓ. SAM Advanced Management Journal. (Spring). 34-41.
23. Zaltman, G. and Duncan, R. (1977). Strategies for Planned Change. New York, NY: John Wiley and Sons.

Practice Exam

When you have completed reading this chapter, you may elect to take a practice exam on-line. You may take the practice exam as many times as you wish. Each time, the test will be compared to the answer key. You then have the option to review the results or not. You may wish to try the exam again before seeing the results of the comparison.

©1997 2000 David L. Sturges and Michael Minor

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