Lipton Public Relation Campaign - Research Paper Example

 LIPTON PUBLIC RELATION CAMPAIGN Introduction Public Relation is an effective communication tool between an organization and its stakeholders. Companies use this tool to build and maintain a positive relationship and an optimistic perception of an organization in the minds of its public and its stakeholders. Thus it can be stated that PR is used in creating goodwill for the company (Kotler & Armstrong, 485). Further, public relation is also known as an effective strategic management function that helps to support the business goals of an organization. Just like all the other areas of marketing, PR also uses the same communication tools and gets benefit in the same regard. Just like marketing plan helps in achieving success for a business similarly a healthy public relation strategy creates a good impression and reaction. Public Relation also forms such statement that not only defines a company’s product or offering but highlights the actual values it holds and it is such a tool that complements marketing activities in a business (Smith & Taylor, 444-445). Thus, all the strategies should be carefully planned, executed and properly measured to ensure success of a PR Campaign. Even though Public relation is not a very expensive communication tool but still it is not free of cost as PR agencies charge a high price for establishing repute for the existing company or a product. Often companies contact PR agencies to built, maintain or re-form their repute in the minds of the customers and other stakeholders (Baines, Egan& Jefkins, 4-6). Similarly when Lipton was facing problems then it contacted Ogilvy PR Company for assistance. Thus they helped Lipton form a new image and attract the young customers thus achieving a higher market share, and profits. Not alone Lipton but various other companies have also uses PR communication tool to enhance and rebuilt their goodwill among the customers. Some of the known brands are Pepsi, IBM, Adidas, Motorola, Ford etc. Not alone products images are changed by PR but services and celebrities image and repute are also groomed. Often celebrity public relation campaigns have also held in different parts of the world to gain more popularity among the celebrities, athletics and other experts. But in this report we are primarily going to discuss the PR strategy of Lipton: Rethink The Drink. Ogilvy PR Company was responsible to built a new look of Lipton in the eyes of the customers thus using different PR strategies they accomplished this task (Ogilvy PR Company, 1). In the report below we are going to highlight the whole strategy, campaigns, and tools that Ogilvy used. Further we are going to critically assess their strategies and recommend some in return which could have brought more effective results. PR Campaign of Lipton Lipton Hot Tea is known and famous among the elder age group and its consumption is really high but Lipton faces one disadvantage, i.e. very limited target market. The younger generation is more attracted towards other drinks such as juices, cold drinks, cold coffee and all the other substitute of Tea. Thus to expand its market share, Lipton had to focus and target the younger consumers and make Hot Tea favorable among them too. This would involve a brand transformation and brand relevance both in terms of nutrition landscape and involving the brand in the pop culture. Thus, Ogilvy PR Company stepped in and led a PR campaign for Lipton, transforming and infusing the sophisticated Hot Tea into the younger generation’s pop culture and making the Hot Tea a young generation’s drink. But before carrying out any PR campaign they held a research; research is the most crucial and most important part of campaign because it highlights issues and discusses problems in detail. Generally consumers today think less about drinking and more about what they want to eat. Thus when Ogilvy carried a research, the result showed that Americans calorie intake through liquid is 25 percent daily while it should only be 10 percent only. This concluded that the demand for liquid intakes is much more than it should actually be so Lipton Drink could cater to higher target area. For all companies, customers are the biggest asset they have thus to satisfy them and indulging them in the process is equally important. Customers tastes, preferences are highly valued by the company thus when PR campaign was launched they had to work both functionally and emotionally. They had to convince and change the perception of their various stakeholders, i.e. media, other influencers and consumers so the right perception could be created in their minds. Thus Ogilvy PR Company developed a two part campaign for Lipton Tea, i.e. ‘Healthy Beverage Guidelines’ & ‘Lipton Pyramid Tea Party’. In the first part of the campaign, healthy benefits of Tea were outlined and mentioned to the consumers. Famous nutrition expert Dr. Barry Popkin and panel of experts highlighted the healthy benefits of Tea and repositioned Lipton as a leader among various beverages. Further mentioning the benefits of Tea they revolutionized the perception of Americans regarding the intake of beverages in the diet. To launch the Healthy Beverage Guideline they used media outreach, use effective advertisement campaigns, developed a micro site and aimed specifically on registered dieticians using direct mail tool. They also focused and targeted on the Hispanic community and thus a parallel campaign was done with Spanish language media. This campaign was real successful as it generated high profits and revenue, approximately $ 50 million. Lipton Tea sales reached new heights as this was the most targeted brand in the retail business and had the highest purchase among all the departmental stores in America. The campaign itself was a success, as the piece of information was so useful for the general public that it was almost regularly quoted in different food and nutrition stories. Even though in all of these quoted stories Lipton Brand was not mentioned but it still enhanced the Lipton leadership. Further, Lipton created a good media impression as there was media coverage and special byline articles for Lipton Tea in CBS, USA Today, USA News & World Report, Washington Post, Allure, Health, New York Times and Consumer Report. All of these specifying and highlighting the benefits of Lipton Tea; portraying and creating a positive image and goodwill. While in the second PR campaign, Lipton Pyramid Tea Party was executed. This tea party was hosted by Emmy Rossum who was at that time a nominated actress and singer by Global Globe. This event took place in the heart of New York City and all the famous celebrities, fashion influencers, Gen art members and media was invited. The purpose of this tea party was to introduce and reposition the Lipton Tea as a stylish, sensory product and as such a beverage that brings life to the party. The basic concept of introducing all celebrities to the party was to portray to the young consumers that even today fashion celebrities also demand and enjoy the taste of Lipton Tea. As young generation fascinates a lot from the celebrities and fashion influencers thus to attract the younger target market this strategy was indeed effective. Lipton also classified and proved themselves as responsible citizens and due to this they partnered themselves with a non profit organization, ‘Young Aids’. Thus they used a cause-related marketing strategy helps not only in being responsible but it builds a strong and good repute among the customers and other stakeholders (Clow, 399). This results in spreading a good word of mouth and causes profits for the business. With Youth Aids Partnership, Lipton also gained and secured themselves in front of media and other celebrities. New York Times, a famous magazine today published an exclusive story of the whole event further creating a good image in the minds of the public. Further more, other media channels and media press mentioned the success stories of the event all leading to Lipton’s Brand recognition and success for the company. This tea party had not gained popularity after the event but the strategies that Lipton took before the event were also so successful that over 500 big Celebrities attended the event. Some of the famous celebrities that attended the Lipton Pyramid Tea Party were Emmy Rossum, Tori Spelling, Miss Universe, Miss Teen USA and supermodel Karoline Kurkova. Both these campaign that Lipton used did purely did revolutionized the whole Lipton look and now it was not only positioned a drink for elders that provided them comfort but a drink for young generation. With passage of time, the Rethinking began, as the younger population started considering Lipton Tea as a healthy and stylish beverage. And such a drink that not only provides energy and freshness but something they can rely on. Thus, Lipton found a new target market and the younger generation found a new substitute and a new item in their beverages list. Tools for Effective PR Campaign There are certain effective tools that companies should establish when launching a PR campaign. Among the famous PR tools, nine most important tools are; press releases, press kits, tip sheets/ newsletter, bylined articles, awards, online outreach, special events, trade shows/ conferences and speeches (MaGee, 1). All these above nine tools hold similar importance, thus among them all Lipton used Press Releases, newsletter, bylined articles, online outreach and trade shows. Press releases are those short documents that give a detail about the company’s new, different and existing products and offerings and this is a principal tool for publicity (Dolak, 1). Lipton invited the media and involved them in their campaign so that journalists could capture the most important information about the Lipton Tea benefits and the effect it has on the health. Thus one-page press releases by New York Times magazine persuaded and attracted the shareholders towards Lipton Hot Tea and lead the business to favorable grounds. Involving media in the whole process lead the media aware about the two campaigns and thus automatically the media journalists themselves issued bylined articled in their newspapers highlighting the effective strategies that Lipton used in both its campaigns Lipton also issued a newsletter in its first campaign; Healthy Beverage Guidelines that provided information to the customer mentioning the benefits tea has on the Human well being. Internet is today’s most effective tool in promotions and thus companies use it to cater to a large consumer market. Lipton used Online outreach tool and they used chat rooms, published articles and showed their finding and results on their website and also used other internet based tools to raise awareness among the youngsters that Lipton tea was made for them (Ogilvy PR Company, 1). All the tools that Lipton used where highly appreciated and proved to be successful for the business itself and thus they achieved what they desired for, i.e. a new set of consumers; young generation. Steps of PR Campaign There are three main steps or stages involved in launching a successful public relation campaign, i.e. plan, outreach and integrate. In the first stage we need to determine our goals and establish our priorities so that effective and clear results can be achieved. Any company needs to first draft its goals and make them as specific as possible. Thus a company or any PR agency who has been assigned a contract should specify the most important objectives first. A company may have many objectives but there are certain which need important consideration. Along with the established goals, PR tool should also be assigned to them. This will guide the company or PR agency to achieve the desired level of result. But when a goal is set, there should be proper consideration of where the company wants to reach. While after the goals are determined there is a strong need to prioritize these goals, i.e. decide which goals have the highest weightage. But while goals and strategies are being formed they are often faced with two main limitations, i.e. limited time and resources (MaGee, 1). Thus a company has to achieve a target in a desired level of time because time is limited and they should only select those PR tools that will provide direct benefit to the over all business goals. While resources and skills are also limited like time and thus proper analysis of the resources should be done and thus prioritizing these tasks can help utilize the minimum resources and thus it would provide maximum utility and accurate results. So the company or management has to make sure that they manage their time and resources effectively and efficiently thus to give the best result. When goals are defined and prioritized then the second phase starts, in which the company has to implement its plan, i.e. it has to outreach and use those right PR tools to publicize the message. This whole process involves preparing and distributing printed material, making online contacts and meeting relevant customers and other stakeholders personally. But while carrying out a PR campaign one should make sure that it ensures a good media relations (Lake, 1). Thus it should always tell the truth, admit mistakes, justify a press conference, print contact on all the documents, and never deal with the journalist directly related to the Press Releases. Thus the company has to extremely careful even before the campaign is launched and even after it has been launched. Finally the last stage is integration, i.e. to use the PR results to gain maximum advantage and this can be achieved by integrating the campaign efforts into sales and marketing and thus offsetting the cot of production of PR material. Even after following these steps, companies should follow the three main key points while strategizing a PR campaign, i.e. be focused, think of such a strategy that covers several areas that gives maximum benefit and read the editors calendar because editors appreciate those articles that are relevant to their magazine (Bullmore, 1). Lipton has somewhat followed this whole process but what it lacked behind in this was that it emphasized mainly on Press Release as a PR tool. But instead it should have focused more on online outreach because young customers are not much interested in press releases; neither have they gone through all these. But instead they spent most of their time over internet, either browsing or other activities. Further Press release is a slightly expensive PR tool as compared to internet. Lipton could also launch some kind of special event where there would have been participation from the youngsters themselves. Expect of arranging a Tea Pyramid Party where celebrities were involved a concert could be planned for them where they themselves could participate and experience the whole event and experience the real taste of Hot Tea. PR Decisions In the whole PR campaign, a company has to take effective and accurate decisions in every step. Some of the most important PR decision are taken by the management of the company but in case of Lipton, Ogilvy PR Company took them but they were assisted by the Lipton directors too. They should set Public Relation objectives, choose the right Public Relation message, implement the PR plan and then finally in the end evaluate the results. Thus the management has to be involved in the whole campaign from setting objectives to evaluating the results. Setting objectives are like setting goals for the company and thus in this regard not alone Ogilvy is involved in determining the decisions but |Lipton board of directors would also be involved. Thus the first task in drafting the PR campaign was to set the desired objectives, and among those objectives specify the goals so that the results could be evaluated. The main objective of Lipton Tea campaign was to increase their market share of Lipton Tea, expand their target Market, and create the demand of Hot Tea of Lipton among the young generation as well. Thus they focused on creating demand, which automatically resulted in other success of other defined goals as well. But to carry out the research effectively one should choose a specific public relation message so the right message could be reached t the right person. But when Public relation message is incorporated proper care should be made as the message should properly integrate with the organization advertising, personal selling, direct marketing and other marketing fields and departments. Whatever tool, message or communication mix a company chooses it to be extremely innovative in deciding the event because now they are competing in a global village where competitors are always creating new version of events. Further those companies that operate and build strategies on global level are more powerful and influential than other national level ones. And customers highly appreciate and get attracted towards innovation so to remain competitive and to satisfy customers they have to formulate and execute their plans in the best possible manner (Ledingham & Bruning, 148-150). Further, the public relation plan requires special care and attention because this is the most crucial moment and its effectiveness depends on the overall plan. As already mentioned earlier that media holds a high importance in determining and creating good will among the customers and other stakeholders. So, good and personal relationships with media editors should be maintained so that they spread a good word of mouth. Due to this only, Lipton involved media and other respective influencers in both the two campaigns so they could produce goodwill for Lipton Tea. After the whole process has been accomplished the next session is to evaluate the results and check if the company has actually achieved what it really was meant to be. In the case of Lipton, the company’s management saw an upward trend in the sales and mass media coverage lead to company’s overall leadership. Thus, evaluating the change needs to be measured because this only gives the right idea about the overall effectiveness of the whole campaign. According to Ronald D. Smith, there are four main phases of a PR campaign and for any company they should follow them separately to produce better results. The phase one is referred to as Formative research in which the company should analyze the situation, analyze the market and analyze the publics. This whole phase involves thorough and elaborated research. The next phase is the strategy phase, in this the company has to establish goals and objectives, formulate action and response, and use effective communication tool so that maximum number of customers could be attracted. The third phase is Tactics, i.e. choosing an effective communication tactics and thus implementing the strategic plan to the whole process. Finally in the last, the forth phase research is evaluated, i.e. evaluating the strategic plan. While Stephen a research consultant in UK elaborates these 4 phases into twelve steps. He has added three more key steps in the PR campaign and he thinks that timescale, budget and crisis issues and management plan also holds high importance. As whatever tactic or strategy a company uses but the overall strategy would go waste if proper allocation of time is not done. Further, every company is bounded by financial constraints thus allocating budget and calculating (Davies, 1) Lipton before carried out its PR campaign also carried out a research in which it analyzed the situation and also the organization but what they did not analyze the publics and stakeholders in more detail. PR Helped Lipton to Boost Business Ogilvy PR Company launched a successful PR campaign, Rethink The Drink for Lipton tea. Lipton not only achieved a new Target market, i.e. the young generation but Lipton’s business met new heights. Lipton’s sales increased, its credibility enhanced and it forged a strong relationship with its customer. With an effective PR campaign its good will increased and thus new investors were also attracted towards this company, some wanted to align with their business and some wanted to be part of their business operations. The campaign was basically set for the American young group but its side effects were vast as the surrounding regions were also attracted towards it. As now the awareness is already created among the young generation all over the world so Lipton can also penetrate new market to further boost its business. Thus this PR campaign made Lipton a true leader. Conclusion Lipton PR campaign was indeed a great success, even though it was faced with some criticism but still it did really change the perception of the young generation. And it would not be wrong to say that those young individuals liquid intake has defiantly changed. For those who used to first spread a bad word for tea now if not consume it they still value the benefits it causes over the health of individuals. . REFERENCES MaGee, Susan, How To Establish A Public Relation Campaign, Edward Lowe Foundation, accessed on February 1, 2010 from http://www.esmalloffice.com/SBR_template.cfm?DocNumber=PL12_3000.htm Davies, Stephen, 12 Steps To A Successful PR Campaign, accessed on February 1, 2010 from http://stedavies.com/2006/06/12-steps-to-a-successful-pr-campaign/ Lake Laura, Publicity/ PR Success And How You Can Do It Too, accessed on February 1, 2010 from http://marketing.about.com/od/publicrelation1/l/aaprsuccessa.htm Bullmore, Claude, Build Business: PR Tips From Two Pros, accessed on February 1, 2010 from http://www.archnewsnow.com/features/Feature172.htm Baines, Paul, Egan, John, Jefkins, Frank William, Public Relation: Contemporary Issues And Techniques, accessed on February 1, 2010 from http://books.google.com.pk/books?id=XeJOXT5avIcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=public+relations&cd=2#v=onepage&q=&f=false Legingham, John A & Bruning, Stephen D, Public Relation As Relationship Management : A Relational Approach To The Study And Practice Of Public Relations, accessed on February 1, 2010 from http://books.google.com.pk/books?id=FbuDNwgkYgAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=public+relations&cd=7#v=onepage&q=&f=false Smith, Ronald D, Strategic Planning For Public Relations, accessed on February 1, 2010 from http://books.google.com.pk/books?id=OWzFga3K0-kC&printsec=frontcover&dq=public+relations&cd=9#v=onepage&q=&f=false Dolak, Dave, Public Relations, accessed on February 1, 2010 from http://www.davedolak.com/pr.htm Smith, Paul Russell & Taylor, Jonathan, Marketing Communication: An Integrated Approach, accessed on February 1, 2010 from http://books.google.com.pk/books?id=rmKoO0U30x8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=marketing+communication&cd=3#v=onepage&q=marketing%20communication&f=false Clow, Kenneth E., Integrated Advertising Promotion, And Marketing Communication, accessed on February 1, 2010 from http://books.google.com.pk/books?id=pAQ7qsx8dUAC&pg=PA394&dq=marketing+communication+public+relation&cd=3#v=onepage&q=&f=false Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, Lipton Rethink the Drink, Cases accessed on February 1, 2010 from http://www.ogilvypr.com/en/case-study/lipton-rethink-drink Kotler, Philip & Armstrong Gary, Marketing: An Introduction, Forth edition, Prentice Hall International. Read More