Public Relations Effectiveness and Application - Essay Example

? Public Relations effectiveness and application s Public Relations Effectiveness and Application Introduction Public relations is defined as either an art or science applied in establishing a good and favorable relationship with the public. It is, therefore, the degree at which an organization achieves a favorable relation with the public. An organization is mainly judged by the kind of relationship that is has with its clients. This always necessitates the creation of public relations department to ensure that the organization relates positively with the public. Public relations in normally offered free of charge to create public understanding and acceptance. Public relations, therefore, target a wide group of people in the society. These include the employees, investors, the media, the sponsors’ supplies of the company and the community around. In this research, therefore, I seek to explore how companies ensure effective planning and execution of public relation. BBC’s promotion of the new series of Spook Public relations is a major tool that a company or an organization uses to create credibility with the public. Media coverage attracts quality prospects, avoid competition and make an organization a player (Smith, 2011). This is the reason the writers of spook decided to carry out their promotion program on the media. Spook is a drama series that was being run on the BBC news channel in an effort to make the public understand the effect of complex relations that existed between the United States, United Kingdom and Iran. The drama ran on the channel for a decade after which it came to an end registering high number of public viewing of close to six million audiences. This number of audience viewing was registered as a result of good public relations created by the media. To create good relations with the public, an organization has to set its objectives which will define the organization’s target and vision. An organization that knows where it wants to be would be able to work towards these set objectives. In the promotion of Spooks by BBC One, the writers of the drama new in mind that they wanted to portray a good image of their work by running the drama on a public channel to attract many viewings from the public. BBC in tern builds this relation by airing the drama at 9 Pm when everyone is probably in the house. This attracted close to six million audiences in its decade of running. To avoid criticism from the government, episode four was to be aired on Tuesday to give way for the Queen's Golden Jubilee celebrations in the UK. In this way, the BBC avoided a situation where the Queen would have felt disobeyed which could have affected the good relation and acceptance by the government. According to Smith (2004) planning for public relations is vital in the creation of a good relationship with the public as it is considered more important than the advertisement itself. This involves defining objectives for creating public awareness, building good will with the public, creating good corporate image, and identifying and eliminating those issues that may portray your organization in a negative way. In this regard, Spook chose BBC to promote its product through televised means to reach many audiences across he UK. For effectiveness, the BBC plans and allocates the 9 pm time as the best time for viewing the play. The time duration for each series is effectively planned; where each series was allocated 50 minutes and the series was to be shown every Monday. This kind of planning is important in public relations as each audience knows the time the drama was being aired. This gave them opportunity to plan for their activities of the day. Measures to create goodwill with the audience at the planning stage must be put in place as they are the main target. It was, however, unfortunate that by the time the bomb last hit Britain in July 7th, the drama had been written on terrorism. The airing of this drama we find causing eyebrows at some squatters claiming it was promoting terrorism; this prompted the editing of the subsequent episodes in order to build goodwill with the audience. This was also meant to mitigate the negative publicity from the audience (L'Etang, 2006). The next step involves the definition of the goals to be fulfilled in achieving the objectives. These goals must, however,, be specific in nature, can be quantified and time-bound. The goal in this case is to win public interest to the organization’s side. In promotion of Spook, the goal was to illustrate to the audience the kind of sore relationship that existed between the United Kingdom, United States and Iran, and the effects of terrorism. The drama was organized into ten episodes, some divided into parts, and were to be aired at definite time, which ran for ten years from 2002 to 2011. BBC does the promotion of Spooks and at the end of it in its 10 years of showing; it had registered an audience viewing of more that 6 million. This is because the promoters had set a specific target for the goals they wanted to fulfill at the end of the show since they were found to be satisfied with the results of the first episode. It is then important to identify the kind of audience being targeted and the kind of message one wants to covey to this audience. The audience targeted in Spook drama was the citizens of the state. The message being conveyed to them was in relation to the poor relation that existed between the US and the UK, its ally, and Iran. These episodes are brought in a manner that attracts people to the program. In some instances he uses music to create suspicion and to entertain. This shows the importance of knowing the kind of information you want to deliver and the kind of audience the information is being communicated to. It is always important to build an effective communication with the public. This depends on the kind of information you want to convey and the targeted groups. As a public relation officer, establish the best mode to use in conveying the information. The various tools and techniques to be used include the use of mass media, newspapers and the internet among others. If the information is targeted at a large group, then the three means would suffice. Spook therefore chose the use of mass media to do his promotion at the BBC channel to attract wide viewing. This is because his message was meant to reach many people in UK and the world at large. Various kinds of crisis do occur and it is therefore important for the public relations officer to plan for this crisis. They exist in different forms, natural, technological economical and social among others. Identify the crisis, by conducting an audit, establish the probability of occurrence and establish measures to handle the crisis. It will then call for the establishment of a team of experts to handle the disaster when it strikes. In this way the organization would be able to handle any kind of contingent disaster that may strike the organization thus affecting its reputation to the public ( Zerfass et al 2008) So as to capture the confidence of the public, it is important to carry out quantitative and qualitative strategic plans to inform and monitor the public response. It is therefore important that a research be conducted to identify and examine the kind of communication that exists between the organization and the audience targeted. The research assists the public relations officer in getting information that assists them in performing their duties (Stacks, 2010). The information also assists them it tracking events and activities that are vital to the organization. This way, the public relations officer would be able to carry out an evaluation and makes adjustment where need be. In promoting spooks by the BBC, a research must have been conducted to identify the channel which could air out the drama effectively to reach the audience. BBC was therefore the preferred channel as it receives wide viewing in Britain and the world at large. The numbers of audience who viewed the drama was approximated to be about six million, this was in attempt by the public relation officer to judge as to whether the means used was effective and the kind of criticism they received. The message being passed to the audience is very critical, as it would determine whether the audience would be willing to listen or watch the article being presented (Lesly, 1998). According to spook, the message being passed in the spy drama is all about terrorist and its effect to the nation. However at some point negative criticism came in as the audience felt that the drama was promoting terrorist activities. This outburst acted as a wakening call to change their strategy in public light in order to win the confidence of the public. This shows that the effective public relation must focus on the needs of the audience. The negativity in the play is what must have led to the drop in the number of viewers to 5.8 million in the third series. BBC also attracts more viewing by adopting the digital signal as the public are so sensitive to changes in technology. This shows that a good public relations officer must be able to understand the needs of its audience. The medium will assist in addressing the question of who, what, where and when as was seen in the promotion of Spooks. It was done on the national television channel to attract wide viewing. These questions must all be answered in an effective communication. Once the audiences have received the information, it is now the work of the public relation to try to receive the feedback because the comments received is what will determine whether the information has served the intended purpose. A satisfactory comment is always encouraging but any negative criticism is also looked at as it helps in making adjustments in areas the public are not fully satisfied. There are various techniques the public relations may use to get the feedback of its audience. This includes, the internet, questionnaires, surveys and interviews, telephone calls among others. The comments on viewers’ opinion on Spooks were mainly received online via the internet because BBC does not only air its programs in the UK but also in other parts of the world. In order to deliver the public relations tactics, it would be necessary to invest in the use of social media to build good public relation. The use of Facebook and tweeter as a social media tool has improved communication and this has improved the work in public relation department which should be costed in order to deliver the public relations tactics. Bloggers relations should also be costed to deliver the public relations tactics (Gustavsen, 2011). Evaluating the performance of the organization can be measured by carrying out an evaluation test. Various techniques may be used to carry out the evaluation process, such as measuring the key performance indicators, carrying out survey, putting a benchmark on predetermined objectives where comparison will be made with another firm believed to have best public relations practices. The evaluation of performance has several advantages in that it allows the management to gage as to whether the organization’s money is being spent as projected and whether the audience is getting satisfied with the services they receive (Newsome, 2010). In Spook promotion, an evaluation is conducted by receiving the audience comments online. The comments received in the first episodes will allow the public relations department to adjust on the criticisms received in the earlier show, so that the next audience can receive quality shows. Public relations is therefore, a very important tool in any organization as it is what is used to judge the organization. An organization with good public relations tends to attract many people towards it as opposed to those with poor public relations that many people tend to shy away from. Reference List Don S. and David M., 2010, A Practioner's Guide to Public Relations Research Measurement, Business Expert Press. Gustavsen PA. (2011) “Public relations communication through corporate websites: Towards an. understanding of the role of interactivity”, Online PR Journal. L'Etang J. and Pieczka M., 2006, Public relations: critical debates and contemporary practice, Routledge. Lesly P., 1998, Lesly's handbook of public relations and communications, McGraw-Hill Professional. Newsom D. and Haynes J., 2010, Public Relations Writing: Form & Style. Cengage Learning. Smith D., 2004, Strategic planning for public relations, Routledge. Smith P., 2011, Marketing communications: an integrated approach. Kogan Page Publishers. Zerfass A., Ruler V. and Sriramesh K., 2008, Public Relations Research: European and International Perspectives. VS Verlag. Read More