Effectiveness of PR Campaigns Initiated by UNICEF - Essay Example

? Public Relations Introduction Public Relations (PR) is often considered to be one of the vital instruments for effective communication with publicswithin the modern day business environment. However, PR is often perceived to be a challenging task when it comes to deal with Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs). There has been considerable pressure observed in the non-profit sector in the recent years for developing PR as one of the core competencies. Many NPOs have already been engaged in performing PR at different occasions. However, these NPOs have been criticized to completely embrace the practice of PR. The primary reasons behind their failure to effectively, efficiently and consistently practice the PR have been further attributed with the lack of proper resources and ineffective time management as well as faulty resource allocation (Gale, 2007). Contextually, involving in community development activities is often considered as a vital strategy for promoting relationships as well as developing long-term prosperous ownership of initiatives with variety of important publics emphasizing on the sustainability needs of the organization through stakeholder engagement. In order to attain successful outcomes from the campaigns that are designed to promote healthy relationship with large group of population and encouraging behavioral change concerning with certain specific issues identified by NPOs, it is crucial that proper strategies and planning is devised prior to the commencement of the campaign. It is equally necessary that effective monitoring and evaluation is developed for ensuring the quality and effectiveness of the undertaken PR campaigns (Gale, 2007). Based on these considerations, the purpose of this paper is to analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of PR initiatives engaging United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and its public in relation to certain health related issues including cancer awareness, drug abuse prevention, smoking cessations and child welfare among others. Identification of Key Publics The primary reason behind determining the target group is to identify the groups and audiences who need to change their perceptions, behavioral traits and attitudes (European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, 2010). The proper identification of audiences and their efficient segmentation can facilitate in determining the course of communication in the most progressive way. Contextually, UNICEF attempts to communicate with a wide range of the public maintaining a mutually beneficial relationship. Each of these public groups is further identified to have unique sets of issues concerning with various health factors (United Nations Children’s Fund, 2005). Correspondingly, the communication campaign initiated with due concern towards health issues, UNICEF targeted the group of public including men and women living in the most deprived areas specially those working in hazardous environmental conditions. For similar kind of PR campaigns, the school and college going young and adult people, who tend to easily get habituated to smoking and are vulnerable to drug abuse, can also be treated as the target audiences. Similarly, parents and teenagers were also targeted for the campaigns in order promote child welfare by UNICEF in its PR campaigns concerning the progress needs for women and children. With reference to the organizational vision and PR initiatives, the communication programs conducted by UNICEF can be divided into three fundamental groups of audiences in general, including men and women working in hazardous working environment, school and college going children and adult prone to unsocial lifestyles, and the parents who are primarily engaged in the working followed by teenagers (NGLS, 2009; United Nations Children’s Fund, 2005). Effectiveness of Communication between UNICEF and Its Intended People The perquisite for effective communication requires timely preparation, effective use of languages, proper understanding of culture where the campaign will be held and the experts who are efficient enough to communicate and convey the intended information to the variety of audiences. It is also extremely important that proper cooperation and coordination is practiced by the members engaged in rendering information through the PR campaign where the task is required to be performed as a team (Ellingson, 2002). Contextually, the goals and objectives of the communication campaigns held by UNICEF can be identified to be focused towards informing the variety of audiences about the negative implications of fatal diseases such as cancer and particular ill-habits such as smoking and use of drugs on the human health in order to promote healthy living practices within the community. The campaigns also intend to promote child welfare among the targeted audiences. In its recent performances, it was examined that the communication between UNICEF and the targeted publics were able to ensure a positive image and bringing behavioral changes to facilitate a health growth of the community. The communication campaigns, intended to generate awareness and promote healthy living between the organization and the variety of audiences resulted in attaining enhance public support and confidence among the key audiences of UNICEF. It was thus ascertained that the communication campaigns being focused on using diagrams and abbreviations facilitated the target publics to better understand the implications of various health related issues and their fatal impacts making the programs successful on the whole (Victorian Government Department of Health, 2010; United Nations Children’s Fund, 2005). Along with the diagrammatic implications of the various diseases and health related issues concerning with cancer, smoking, drug abuse and children welfare brochures and posters were also used in the public relation campaigns of UNICEF which resulted in establishing effective communication between the organization and the targeted publics. In addition, well trained individuals were hired for delivering effective and reliable advice concerning with various health-related issues and the measures that can be undertaken to prevent such outbreak of epidemics. This facilitated in providing an in-depth knowledge to the targeted publics (Maiers, Reynolds & Haselkorn, 2005). The use of videos and slogans also resulted in promoting behavioral as well as attitudinal changes among the publics which ensured that the information that was intended to be communicated was efficiently and effectively conveyed to the targeted audiences (Communication Initiative (Organization), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations & World Bank, 2007). Differentiation between Public Involved In the Campaign Public facing with different issues and challenges can be observed in general to be engaged with the campaigns initiated by UNICEF. Primarily, publics engaged with the campaigns by UNICEF can be targeted and classified into three major groups namely factory workers working in the hazardous working environment, the school and college going young and adult people who are more vulnerable to smoking and getting addicted to drugs as well as other unsocial activities, women and children populaces as well who require a certain degree of attention from the developed society. Another group of the public engaged with communication campaigns held by UNICEF can be classified as the working parents who have very less time to spend on their children. These targeted public groups can be further classified into three major groups according to their vulnerability of becoming victim of any fatal diseases or abuses on the basis of income generation capability, age and gender (Town of Greenwich, 2013). Accordingly anti-smoking campaign was designed by UNICEF to target teenagers and adults in order to familiarize them with the possible negative consequences of smoking on their health and other people in their surroundings. The prime intention behind involving the teenagers and adults was to prevent them from using or getting addicted to smoking and any other types of drug addiction as this particular group of publics are deemed to be highly prone to such hazards. In order to make the campaign more successful and inculcate the significant knowledge about the fatal consequences of smoking and drugs within the youth, use posters as well as diagrams were exclusively made by UNICEF. Another group of public was targeted to working parents who have relatively less time to monitor the activities of their children where teenagers were also included in particular spheres of global economies owing to the increasing rate of teenage pregnancies for its campaigns particularly focusing on children welfare. In addition, children were also involved in the program to make them less dependent on their parents who are often observed to be unable to provide adequate time to their children. In this context, teenage pregnancy was given significant priority in order to make the teenagers aware of the adverse implications of becoming pregnant before the correct age not only on their physical health but also on their children. Moreover, awareness in general were performed for eliminating any sort of abuses to children and promote awareness among the variety of audiences with due concern towards child care and assisting every children to attain the rights as enjoyed by other children in common (The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy , 2013). Impact of Communication on Campaign The communication campaign that was designed to bring awareness among the different categories of public by UNICEF can be related with great success. UNICEF aimed through the communication campaign to change the health behavior of public concerning with fatal diseases like cancer, smoking and drug abuses as well as changing the behavior of people towards promoting child welfare and thus creating a healthy society within the global economy. In the completion of most of these campaigns, UNICEF had been successfully able to address all these issues and inculcate the positive changes in the minds of the targeted public (Snyder, 2007). It was ascertained that women were among the early adapters to the advices and messages communicated regarding cancer awareness by UNICEF. The communication campaign intended towards cancer awareness was further ascertained to significantly change the behavior of people participating in the campaign programs. According to latest reports that were collected from the different sources reported that large numbers of men and women are taking precautionary measures and are getting engaged in diagnostic practices to mitigate any sort of doubts leading to various types of cancer or other health troubles (Lohrisch, Ryan, & Rosenbluth, 1978). It was also identified that communication campaigns by UNICEF, aiming at bringing awareness towards anti-smoking and drugs abuse has also been successful to deliver more positive results in many parts of the global economy. Accordingly, it was identified that there was a considerable decrease in the sale of cigarettes in the nearby areas where the program was held in repeat occurrences, in colleges and schools and other dimensions of the society engaging the target audiences. These results illustrate that the communication campaigns that were conducted by UNICEF was able to convey the messages that it had aimed to, within the targeted audiences (Warner, 1977). Increasing the Communication Effectiveness in the Campaign Initiating and conducting health awareness communication campaigns require certain amount of investment to be made. In order to ensure that the investment made on the campaign reveals the best benefit, the intended message to be communicated to public should be duly achieved at the completion. It is essential that organizations, such as UNICEF remains constantly engaged in dealing with various kinds of campaigning and therefore, must ensure that it has the sufficient resources in the terms of communication proficiency, information availability and capacity to deliver the intended messages and information to variety of targeted audiences (Maibach, Abroms & Marosits, 2013). In order to ensure that best benefits are achieved from the communication campaigns, it is essential that UNICEF develops such programs that are exclusively based on available strengths and resources followed by its core competencies. Additionally, it is required that the organization should avoid programs that demand for creation of new resources and capabilities which involve greater risks. In this regard, UNICEF should prioritize team effort as an essential attribute in its PR campaigns for seeking best outcome through the communication. It is essential that the members of the organization participating in the campaign have adequate knowledge about the issues that they are going to deal with, as unless they are adequately aware of these issues, potential benefits cannot be sought. Consequently, inadequate knowledge about the issues may result in the poor communication thereby rendering the entire communication campaign towards ineffectiveness causing failure (United Nations Children’s Fund, 2005). In order to make the communication more effective, it is essential that those held responsible for communicating and conveying the relevant messages to the variety of audiences, have proper knowledge about the culture of the community UNICEF is approaching. They must also focus on the adequate practice of languages and if possible it is always preferable to use local languages keeping in mind, the audiences’ convenience. It is worth mentioning in this context that the language used while communicating messages to the audiences is the most important aspect in a communication process. Moreover, in order to further enhance the communication efficiency in the campaign, the organization should also make the best possible use of the technologies such as use of projectors, internet and other available options to make the program highly attractive for the targeted audiences. The proper segmentation of the audiences is also essential for the success of the communication campaign which shall assist in better understanding of the audience preferences. It can be further admitted that information that is being delivered to the audiences should involve a two way communication system whereas it has often been observed that the initiatives taken by UNICEF is mostly based on a one way communication. Through a two way communication, the targeted audiences should be allowed to provide their feedbacks and inquiries regarding the concerned issue of the campaign facilitating greater participation of stakeholders in the communication campaign success. Such a measure will also facilitate in developing positive relationship with the targeted audiences and eliminating doubts that may arise in the minds of the targeted audiences (Mara, Babacan & Borland, 2010). Communication Tools Used In the Campaign Effective communication often leads towards interacting purposively and cooperatively during the course of promoting various social issues such as health awareness. Contextually, it is essential that proper planning is made prior to the commencement of the communication campaign. It is worth mentioning in this context that the proper selection of the communication tools often determines the success of the communication campaign and also results in the attainment of a flourishing relationship with the targeted audiences. It is equally important in this context that the PR communication tools and techniques used in the communication health awareness campaign are cost effective and are able to deliver the best outcome (Communication Initiative (Organization), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations & World Bank, 2007). In relation to the campaign conducted, various effective tools can be identified as used by UNICEF to attain a substantial outcome through a positive flow of information to the ultimate targeted audiences. For instance, posters, banners, slogans and logos are widely used by UNICEF to deliver proper understanding of the messages to the targeted audiences for informing, influencing their behavior as well as motivating them to change their ill-habits such as smoking (The Health Communication Unit, 2001). In addition, brochures containing the adverse impacts of the various health issues related with cancer and smoking habits were also distributed among the respective audiences motivating them to practice healthy living. Videos depicting the real cases of victims were also showed to them as a process of story-telling in order to ensure that the audiences are adequately aware and motivated towards potential threats resulting from the use of tobaccos (Vecchio-Sadus, 2007). Broadly speaking, four primary communication tools and techniques are commonly used by UNICEF including interpersonal communication tools, traditional media tools, information and communication technologies tools and group media tools in its communication campaigns (Communication Initiative (Organization), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations & World Bank, 2007). Evaluating Benefits of Selected Communication Tools in the Campaign The PR communication tools and techniques that were used in the communication campaign of UNICEF dealing with health awareness were indeed efficient enough to meet the determined objectives that were intended by the organization after the successful completion of the communication campaign. Contextually, interpersonal communication, as a tool usually deals with face to face communication with an individual(s). It can be affirmed in this context that the interpersonal communication tools that were used in the communication campaign of UNICEF significantly contributed to meeting the needs and addressing various groups effectively. The interpersonal communication tool was primarily helpful in communicating with teenagers and parents concerning with the child welfare issues. Likewise, the teenagers were offered with valuable insights regarding the implications and fatal consequences related with teenage pregnancy through the campaigns by UNICEF. Similarly, the use of traditional media tools of PR communication such as slogans and logos were also identified to be among the crucial factors for delivering positive outcomes in changing the behavior of the variety of important audiences as targeted by UNICEF in its campaigns. The slogans and logos depicting the negative consequences of smoking and drug abuses were significantly helpful in influencing the behaviors of particularly those school going and college going youth and adults who were targeted by UNICEF in its campaigns. Hence, it can be stated that the slogans and logos that were used in the communication campaigns were able to recall the health messages in the minds of the public (Newbold & Campos, 2011). The information and technological tools such as projectors and videos were also used in the campaigns conducted by UNICEF (Mathur, Ramachandran, Cutrell & Balakrishnan, 2011). The use of information and technological tools in the form of projectors and videos also facilitated UNICEF in familiarizing the variety of audiences with the real implications of fatal diseases such as cancer as well as adverse impact of smoking. The use of this technique made the task of communicator or the interpreter engaged in the campaigns of UNICEF to easily convey the messages to the targeted public in an effortless manner. Similarly, the group media tools like posters, banners and diagrams also aided UNICEF campaigns in informing, influencing and motivating the public to practice healthy living. The group media tools also helped in promoting child welfare among the public (Communication Initiative (Organization), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations & World Bank, 2007). Monitoring the Effectiveness of the Campaign Monitoring is one of the important components in communication campaigns. Fundamentally, monitoring tends to play a major in the determination of the campaign progress and evaluating its success on the overall context. Another important reason for monitoring a campaign is to make sure that the pre-determined plan for the campaign is duly followed and the conducted campaign is able to respond when glitches develop in the field. In order to ensure the effectiveness of the campaign undertaken by UNICEF, the teams involved in the campaigns can be observed as rigorously engaged in constant monitoring of the various activities. The teams therefore rendered due significance towards observing interpersonal outreach, inspecting distribution of materials and constantly ascertaining feedbacks from the staff members directly engaged in dealing with the public as well as responsible for obtaining the direct feedback from the audiences (United Nations Children’s Fund, 2005). Apart from above stated activities, team monitoring activities were practiced almost at all the levels of campaigns executed by UNICEF for determining the overall effectiveness and for ensuring high quality of communication between the staff members engaged in the communicating messages and the audiences. The monitoring activities at all the levels of the campaign thus facilitated the team members to identify various barriers that restricted the effective flow of information to the variety of audiences. At the same time, the monitoring activities enabled them to take adequate measures to eliminate any possible hindrances that would have negatively influenced the effectiveness of the communication campaign undertaken by UNICEF (Snyder, 2007). Conclusion As discussed above, UNICEF has been constantly engaged in community welfare campaigns focusing on various issues such as cancer awareness, smoking cessations drug abuse prevention and child welfare among others. In order to achieve the effective outcomes as desired from the campaign undertaken, UNICEF has also been focused towards evaluating the effectiveness of the campaign at its completion. Responsively, in most of the campaigns initiated by UNICEFF, the targeted audiences were classified as workers working in poor working conditions, school and collage going children and adults as well as working parents and teenagers. Variety of communication tools were used for ensuring the effectiveness of the campaigns to make sure that intended messages are duly conveyed to the targeted audiences. The vital communication tools and techniques that were used by UNICEF for facilitating effective communication comprised of interpersonal communication tools, traditional media tools, information and communication technologies tools and group media tools among others. Correspondingly, the applications of these tools were constantly monitored at different levels of the campaign to ensure overall effectiveness. It was also observed through the study that communication tools used in the campaigns by UNICEF were able to bring positive changes in the behaviours, attitudes and perceptions of the targeted audiences. It can therefore be argued that the campaign initiated by UNICEFF was indeed successful enough to render long-term PR advantages to the organisation and also to its targeted audiences. References Communication Initiative (Organization), Food and agriculture organization of the United Nations &World Bank. (2007). World Congress on Communication for Development: Lessons, Challenges, and the Way Forward. United States of America: World Bank Publications. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. (2010). Conducting health communication activities on MMR vaccination. Evaluation of Communication Activities, pp. 1-39. Ellingson, L. L. 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