Week 4 + Textbook Chapter 2

This week's lecture gave me some insight to how PR practitioners plan marketing strategies. Planning is important as it enables organisations to minimise losses and maximise their resources.

Research is an integral part of planning. It ascertains how best to position the organisation's offering and enables the PR practitioner to create a suitable marketing strategy. Research also allows the PR practitioner to gather essential data which can aid in deciding which type of strategy to implement.

However, public relations is not a sure-win way to attract consumers, as the marketing strategies may not impress the audience enough to persuade them to purchase the marketed product or join the marketed activity.

Public relations work best when an integrated communication campaign is involved. An integrated communication campaign employs various forms of media to transmit the same message. For instance, the same public relations campaign used for promoting a particular product can be found in both newspapers and on advertising billboards. With the advent of new media, integrated communication campaigns have become more complex and have a larger outreach now.

Within new media, communication trends are also constantly evolving. In the recent years, many public relations campaigns have taken to social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace to send out communication messages. Organisations have also taken to the micro-blogging website Twitter to send live updates and morsels of information, instead of junking all its information on an independent website.

Hence, PR practitioners will have to keep up with the latest communication trends and explore multiple media outlets so that they can create successful integrated communication campaigns. In my opinion, these guidelines which were discussed during lecture - research, analysis, goal setting, objectives, developing strategies, devising and implementing tactics, monitoring and evaluation are also important in planning PR campaigns.

I would recommend PR practitioners to follow the guidelines carefully while keeping a lookout for the latest communication trends when planning strategies to achieve successful plans. However, it is difficult to predict the future and there may be unexpected circumstances which hinder the effectiveness of the strategies. Thus, I think that PR practitioners should also have a flexible mindset and implement necessary changes while executing the tactics to cater to different circumstances.

Reflections - Chapter 1

Chapter 1 of the textbook has answered my question posted on the previous blog entry on January 10. I have learnt that PR practitioners have to ensure that the organisation's values and goals are in line with the values and goals of the public. PR practitioners also have to practice transparency and advocate two-way communication while handling PR issues. In this way, it would ensure that PR matters are handled fairly and are above board.

I have also learnt about various PR theories. These theories are useful and can be applied to real-life situations, but they do not completely prepare a person to handle PR matters. A PR practitioner has to have experience and constant practice to effectively tackle PR issues.

The first PR theory which I have learnt is the communication theory. It postulates that the receiver of a message has to interpret it and respond to the message. This is similar to Schramm's communication model, which portrays communication as a circular flow where messages are passed two-way between parties.

This theory can be linked to crisis management in PR practice. PR practitioners have to handle the communication between the organisation and the public when there are disputes between both parties. For instance, the communication theory is utilised when PR practitioners have to respond to complaints from the public. Messages from the public are sent to the organisation and PR practitioners have to interpret them to understand the complainant's objective and then find the best possible way to respond.

The behavioural change theory postulates that the objective of public relations is to increase awareness on a particular cause and provoke action from the public. In this theory, PR is seen as a form of education for the public and a catalyst for people to take action against a particular issue.

This theory can be applied to awareness campaigns, which are organised by PR practitioners. An example of such campaigns would be blood donation drives, which aim to garner more blood donors among the public. The Singapore Red Cross Society regularly recruits donors by conducting talks in schools, companies and community organisations. These talks increase the public's awareness on the importance of blood donation. Their increased knowledge on blood donation means that the public is more aware that they can help to save lives. This incentivises them to step forward and sign up as donors.

Week 3

This week's lecture gave me some insight into experiential marketing. Unlike traditional marketing which focuses on the functional features and benefits of a product, the crux of experiential marketing lies in swaying consumers' emotions using creative and compelling methods.

Experiential marketing involves one-on-one interaction the marketer and the consumer. The marketing strategies go beyond grabbing consumers' attention. Instead, these strategies engage and impact consumers using methods that are memorable and relevant to them.

As consumers are allowed to sample the products, they can immediately judge if the products are of an acceptable quality and if they need the products. This advocates transparency and product authenticity, deterring organisations from committing fraud and reducing the possibility of consumer complaints and disputes.

However, experiential marketing also has its disadvantages. Word-of-mouth advertising is a large part of experiential marketing. This means that if a consumer has used a product and is satisfied with it, he or she markets that product to friends and relatives by telling them about it and influences others to buy the same product. As a result, it is difficult for the organisation to measure how effective its advertising strategies are.

An example of experiential advertising, as discussed during the lecture, is the Sony Ericsson T68i mobile phone advertising campaign. In this campaign, product ambassadors pose as travellers and ask strangers to take a photo of them as a memento, using the mobile phone. In this way, the consumers are able to see if the mobile phone is of a good quality and if it suits their needs.

However, I feel that these advertising campaigns may not be as effective in Singapore. Many Singaporeans have a "mind-your-own-business" mindset and are more wary of strangers. Hence, if a similar ad campaign was done in Singapore, many people are likely to ignore the product ambassadors. This would defeat the purpose of experiential marketing as the consumers do not get to sample the products at all.

Week 2

This week's lecture was an introduction to the various responsibilities of PR practitioners.

In short, public relations refer to managing an individual's or an organisation's reputation and image. This involves communication with the media, consumers and fellow business entities. Besides helping to build a desirable image for the individual or organisation, PR practitioners are also involved in crisis management, where they monitor and respond to issues which may potentially damage the organisation's reputation.

I have also learnt that declining to comment is taboo in the public relations industry, as maintaining silence can create more speculation and rumours among consumers and the media. This can potentially harmful to the organisation's image, which will in turn have a detrimental effect on its stakeholders.

From this, I can infer that public relations is a delicate task which requires a high level of eloquence. PR practitioners have to choose their words carefully, especially when responding to crises as the organisation's reputation may be at stake.

While it is important to build a positive image, I feel that ethical dilemmas may exist in public relations practice. Since the organisation's image is of utmost importance, I daresay that there is a possibility of information manipulation in PR communication.

Here's a possible scenario: an organisation comes under fire for defective products. Naturally, consumers would demand an explanation for that. Wouldn't it be possible for the organisation to deliberately omit some information (eg. the defects were caused by deliberate negligence, but the organisation leaves this fact out to make it seem like an unfortunate accident) in order to protect its reputation?

I wonder if there're any solid examples to back up my claim though. I'll leave readers to comment on that.