Week 7 Textbook Chapter 3, 4 & 5

Week 7

Week 7's lecture was slightly different from previous ones. In this lecture, we went in depth into how a public relations campaign is carried out. The sportswear label Reebok was used as a case study.

In Reebok's public relations campaign, it roped in the aerobics guru Mr Motivator for its brand promotional activities. The campaign aimed to increase public awareness on the brand and encourage females to work out regularly. Mr Motivator was scheduled to appear on talk shows on television and radio, where he would dish out advice on healthy living and exercising.

This campaign aimed to reach out to audiences globally and Mr Motivator travelled to many countries to promote Reebok. In the Singapore leg of the promotional activities, a mass workout was held at Vivocity and an aerobics dance party was held at Zirca.

The campaign was largely successful, judging from the overwhelming response from the public and rave reviews from the media. I have learnt that it is important for organisations to have a clear idea of their target markets in order to execute their campaigns effectively.

In Reebok's case, the organisation had a very specific target audience - young and health conscious females. In this way, it allowed Reebok to plan its promotional activities so that it could have a maximum outreach. For instance, Reebok arranged for its workout events at a shopping mall and a nightspot - places which its target audience is likely to frequent. Thus, it is important for a PR practitioner to have adequate research while planning a campaign in order to pin down its target audience.

Chapter 3

In Chapter 3, I learnt about some theories which are utilised in public relations practice. The system theory postulates that an organisation has to adapt to the surrounding environment in order to survive. A change in environment will lead to response by the organisation as it adapts to the new environmental conditions. The extent in which an organisation interacts with its surrounding environment depends on whether it is closed or open. An open organisation interacts frequently with its surrounding environment and constantly adapts to changes, and vice versa for a closed organisation.

Is it possible for an organisation to be completely closed then?

In my opinion, any business oriented organisation has to be open and adapt quickly to changes in order to stay afloat. A business-oriented organisation functions by making monetary deals and exchanges with consumers and other organisations, thus there will definitely be external interaction involved.

For instance, an apparel retail business has to keep up with the latest fashion trends so that it will know which products to manufacture or import, in order to maintain consumer appeal. The organisation has to alter its range of products according to the changes in environment (i.e. trends). In this way, it would not risk losing its clients to competitors.

Chapter 4

In this chapter, I read about how three organisations' public relations campaigns were criticised for being unethical: Walmart, Coke Zero and Al Gore's party. All the above campaigns were likely to have come under fire for misleading the public. In all cases, the audience was given the impression that the publicity messages were created by members of the public and were not related to the organisation. While this was not illegal, it was unethical as the public was deliberately misled.

I feel that behaving ethically is important in public relations practice as an individual's or an organisation's image is at stake. This chapter brings me to the Australian Wheat Board (AWB) saga, which was also mentioned in the debate. The AWB had been embroiled in a legal tussle for allegedly having shady deals in the Iraqi wheat market. While the organisation was advised to issue a public apology during the ongoing lawsuit, AWB chose to deny all involvement instead. Evidence of AWB's illegal activities was made public after the lawsuit ended, and AWB's reputation was left in tatters. The public was particularly unhappy with AWB's dishonesty when it refused to apologise during the court proceedings.

The saga also had an adverse effect on AWB's revenue as there was a loss of consumer confidence. Thus, it is important to behave ethically as can help to build a positive image for the organisation and prevent unnecessary losses.

Chapter 5

In this chapter, I learnt that it is important for public relations practitioners to conduct thorough research on clients and consumers when planning a campaign. Research enables a PR practitioner lay concrete plans which can be beneficial for the organisation, without having too many doubts or speculations.

When researching, a PR practitioner can look at primary and secondary data. Primary data refers to information that is gathered by the PR practitioner himself, specifically for the campaign. Secondary data is information that has been gathered by other researchers for other purposes.

I feel that secondary data may not be as useful as primary data sources. Secondary data sources are not specifically tailored for the subject campaign, thus it may not be able to provide as accurate or as useful information in comparison to primary data sources. However, secondary data can come in useful if the PR practitioner would like to compare results. For instance, a PR practitioner may need to compare the number of guests who turned up for the same publicity event at different locations, and these statistics may be gathered by another researcher. In this way, the PR practitioner would be able to judge which location would be a better place to hold a PR event.

By having appropriate research, the PR practitioner would be more well-learned on the clients' and consumers' needs and expectations. In this way, the PR practitioner would be able to find ways to reach out and engage the audience while keeping the clients' interests and values in check.

Week 6

This week's lecture gave additional insight into the different job scopes of PR practitioners and journalists. While journalists are free to interpret information at their own discretion, PR practitioners have to interpret and find an angle directly from the sources provided by the client.

PR practitioners may also look for third party sources to support the organisational positioning of the client. For instance, a PR practitioner doing a feature on sports may also look for sport apparel brands to strengthen the newsworthiness of the press release.

I have learnt that a PR practitioner cannot rely only on the resources provided by the client to create a good press release. A PR practitioner has to do additional research in order to fully understand the position of the organisation in the market. A PR practitioner can include the SWOT guidelines in his research to gather adequate information required for the PR campaign.

Relationships between PR practitioners and the media have to be built on trust and positive experiences from both parties. I have learnt that a PR practitioner's job does not just involve creating a positive image for the client. A PR practitioner also has to foster good relationships with journalists so that there will be a better chance of his press release being used in the publication. In the highly competitive media industry, it is important to have an edge over other competitors and this can be achieved by having positive media relations. However, I have some suspicions on the ethical issues linked to this. Would a journalist publish a media release of a poor quality just because he has close media relations to the PR practitioners?

What do you think?

Case Study - Australian Lunch Week

Sanitarium Lunch Today was the first to introduce heat-and-eat lunches to cater to the busy lifestyles of working women. However, there was a lull in the sales of the products due to misconceptions on the nutritional value of packaged meals and there was low awareness of Lunch Today.

Australian Lunch Week was launched to increase public awareness on the nutritional value of Sanitarium's products and the convenience of packaged lunches.

Interestingly, Sanitarium's PR campaign followed all aspects of the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, objectives and threats) guidelines, and the campaign proved to be a success, with the outcome exceeding the measurable objectives.

Sanitarium secured speaking events at major organisations such as Telstra, Pfizer and Ernst & Young. Besides, it also engaged high profile spokespeople to convey their marketing message to the public. From this, I have learnt that using prominent organisations or individuals enables the PR practitioner to increase the credibility of the campaign, thus increasing its chances of succeeding.

Experiential marketing was also employed in the campaign. Product samples were distributed to consumers and the spokespeople talked about their personal experiences with Lunch Today. This form of marketing enabled the public to judge for themselves if the food was nutritious and convenient enough for a quick and healthy lunch. Getting the spokespeople to relate their experiences with Lunch Today would play on the public's emotions and convince them to buy the product.

However, I feel that Sanitarium could have done even more to achieve its objective. Besides hiring high profile spokespeople to endorse Lunch Today, laymen could have been roped in to speak too. The target audience of the campaign had been young women who were too busy with work to get a healthy lunch. Perhaps Sanitarium could get a few individuals who fall within this category to sample Lunch Today and then get them to speak about how it has benefited them. The target audience would probably be convinced to buy Lunch Today more easily as the spokespeople have similar lifestyles and would be able to relate better to them.