Applying PR Theory and Concepts - Essay Example

Applying PR theory and concepts Table of Contents Introduction 3 Part 4 Key stakeholders in Vodafone- PR activities to communicate with them 4 PR activities to communicate with key stakeholders in NCPCC 5 PR activities- Theories and Practices 6 Part 2 7 Multi-step Flow theory of PR Communication 7 Diffusion of Innovation and adoption theory 8 Crisis Management 9 Conclusion 10 Reference 12 Introduction Public relations in businesses have been playing a major role in the changing world of today. It is directly associated with the businesses and commerce, occupations and professions, encompassing the different areas of marketing, market research, advertising and internal and external communication in both the private as well as the public sector. The idea is to create a strong connection between all stakeholders of the company allowing them to communicate with one another and work together. In this context the project seeks to put forth the different ways in which the two organizations, namely, Vodafone and NSPCC uses PR activities to communicate with their stakeholders. Vodafone is the largest mobile phone operators in the world and NSPCC is one of the leading charity organizations located in UK. The objective of the PR department in Vodafone is to create a positive and favourable image of the company in the customer’s minds. This is especially applicable during times when the company launches a new product or service and communicates the message to the customers. Similarly NSPCC also undertakes different kinds of PR activities for communicating with its stakeholders. PR activities are considered especially important for the company because it is a charitable organization and makes little investments on advertisements. In such a condition, public relations are considered to be the most cost effective and authentic model of communication with stakeholders. The second part of the project mainly focuses on the different theories of public relations describing them elaborately. Moreover the applications of the theories in practice are also highlighted along with comments about the ways it could be improved in the future. Part 1 Key stakeholders in Vodafone- PR activities to communicate with them The three main stakeholder groups identified in Vodafone are its investors, consumers and employees. Maintaining proper relationship with stakeholders is considered to be of prime importance as they are the people who could affect the company’s business or who can be affected by it too. Vodafone seeks to communicate its perspectives with them and at the same time gains their feedback too. The feedback received provides information about the judgement about the sustainability priorities for the company’s strategies and also feeds into the appropriate sustainability strategies (Vodafone, 2011). In order to communicate with stakeholders the company undertakes PR activities like conducting conference calls, or meetings with investors on a regular basis. This is done with the aim of understanding their concerns about the sustainability risks which helps to identify the potential and future issues (Vodafone, 2011). Investors are especially communicated in terms of the company’s financials in terms of the profits and turnovers through conferences and meetings. Few of the key strategies of the company for communicating with customers are corporate advertising, press releases and media interviews. Corporate advertising mainly entails revealing or not revealing facts about the company which could maintain confidentiality about its future strategies. Press releases are directly meant to connect with customers for maintaining a favourable image in their eyes. Since the media acts as the spokesperson of the customers, maintaining a positive image of the media and attaining their confidence happens to be some of the key objectives of PR activities of Vodafone. For the purpose of seeking attention of the customers and also handling the media the company uses press conferences as a powerful tool of PR. The most common strategy of communicating with customers about the launch of a new service or plan is through advertising. The company also works closely with its suppliers in order to ensure that they continue to maintain high standards by conducting regular assessments and holding workshops to assist them to improve. They keep a connection with their network suppliers which helps them to cut down on the impacts on the climate and also improve efficiency of their operations. The Global People Survey conducted annually is meant to get feedback from the employees on how they were performing. Also different internal communication channels and regular meetings with managers are some of ways of connecting with employees (Vodafone, 2011). PR activities to communicate with key stakeholders in NCPCC The children whose interests are safeguarded by the company are considered to be the most important stakeholders of the company. The vision of the company is to bring an end to the cruelty faced by the children in UK. It also takes the help of external bodies to engage in its public relations activities. The Nottingham public relations agency better known as Tank PR is chosen is responsible for handling the publicity campaign for “NSPCC’s Nottingham Child’s Voice Appeal Board” (Tank PR, 2011). NSPCC undertakes extensive campaigning for spreading awareness about cruelty on children for ensuring that child protection remains among the top priorities among the political agenda of the nation. Press releases and media interviews are two most common PR techniques used in the company for communicating with the kids and society. Employees also account for an important stakeholder of the company as they are to ensure that the company’s objectives are being fulfilled. Employees are treasured in the organization as they directly bear a link to the quality of services that people receive. The media centres and press releases also account for the popular ways of keeping in touch with employees and attracting talents and committed employees in the organization (NSPCC, 2011). It is also important that the company communicates with its investors in order to retain their commitment and loyalty. It is them who are responsible for generating the money which helps the organization to carry out its objectives. The popular ways of conducting PR activities with investors is through their business plans, investor summary in order to communicate to the about the business opportunities and advantages. PR activities- Theories and Practices In the above cases, two PR strategies are chosen which finds relevance with the PR theories and practices. It is seen that in both cases media interviews account for an important and crucial way of communicating with stakeholders of the organizations. This can be explained with the help of the network theory of communication. Under this theory the stakeholder is provided comprehensive and complete information about the organization. It offers and allows communication to happen from different angles and perspectives. The following figure would explain network theory of communication. It is also seen that the network theory mode of communication helps to develop and allow for the sequential relaying of the message sent by the receiver. It is not very specific about the number of steps which is sued for communicating the message. Moreover it also does not consider the fact that the message must originate from a particular source and get directly transmitted to the media organization. Rather it focuses on the relays in the communication process and ensures that the receiver receives the message throughout the different steps in the process. This is where this theory finds relevance with the media interview process of public relations. Both in the case of Vodafone as well as NSPCC media centres allow networking of the communication process. Under this system viewers and audiences are also allowed to communicate their queries and questions towards the companies. Moreover, the media interviews are also published in the newspapers which allow users to get the relevant information in case they have missed out on any. Information published in the newspapers is also talked about by the common audience which helps to relay the message which originally originated. It is the media personnel through whom the information is spread across to more receivers who belong to the network of those personnel. This allows rapid and faster spreading of information throughout the network (Ruler & Vercic, 2008, p.66). Part 2 Multi-step Flow theory of PR Communication The multistep flow theory of PR Communication is the concept which helps to dissipate message mainly through word-of mouth from one to the other sources. In this type of communication technique the company is passing a message to the mass media which in turn acts as the communicating media for the society. On the first step the company with its quality service satisfies the needs of the customers on the top level who are in direct contact with the company. This develops the public relation on the top level. Then from the mass media the message is communicated to the lower level from the word of mouth technique. Social contact of the individual plays a vital role in the dissipation process of the multistep Public Relation communication. Starbuck can be a classic example of the multistep communication and PR building case. The company successfully implemented its strategy to develop better relationship with the customers through the process of ‘word-of-mouth’ which not only helped the company to gain market share but also on the other hand gain the trust of the customers for the long term development of the business in the competitive market of Starbucks. The company realized the need to promote their coffee product to the customers but it identified that it’s very difficult to portray their product through promotion. Thus the unconventional strategy of ‘word of mouth’ helped them to scatter the flavour or their product to the customers which is the best way one could believe on a product. This unique strategy gave a strong base for the company to build long term public relationship and develop strategies accordingly (Prlog, 2011). Diffusion of Innovation and adoption theory The process of transfer of innovation through proper communication process is the known as diffusion. Certain channel of communication is used in the transfer process for a certain period of time into the society. It is a new type of communication technique which is done when a new idea is passed to the society through slow induction process. When an individual or a adoption system perceive a new idea the time of adoption process varies with type of adoption process along with the capability and implementation of the approach towards the adaptor (Parsons, n.d. p. 1). Diffusion of Innovation plays a vital role in the persuasive Internet communication and building public relation through advertisement and social networking with the aid of network communication. With the help of social networking websites various organization are enlarging their customer base and stakeholders. Innovations like Facebook, Orkut, My space and others are gaining popularity with days and people are more connected and interested in building relations. The organizations are able to create their own profile on the different sites and incorporate strategies for their public relation programs. Many non profit organizations that are not able to invest in promoting their products through proper means of communication are using this innovative platform for placing their products in the mind of the customers and in turn strengthen their existing customer base through regular public relation communication. Publishing articles on websites and placing promotional offers for the products on various social networking sites and also gaining feedbacks from the people for their different strategies and implication of innovative approaches keeps the customers in contact with the company and also facilitates the process of brand awareness and brand recognition along with building strong public relationship (Elsevier, 2009, p. 1). Crisis Management The process dealing with the various threats of the organization from the environment which may harm the organization, its stakeholders and the public related with the organizations products or services. Managing the various threats and dealing the surprises and manipulating decisions in short period of time is the major issue with crisis management. Previous techniques of the organization are not applied at crisis situation and the company need to implement new strategies to manage the organization’s problems and cope with the situation. Responses to a particular situation can be before the event has occurred by understanding the situation and forecasting the consequences and taking creative initiative and also risk taking ability of the firm plays a vital role to cope the crisis situation (Aidoo, 2005, p. 4). Crisis management is a messy decision of the organization and need to be planned very effectively for successful implementation of the strategies and regain public relationship through proper communication. While defining a crisis management approach of the organization it is best understood by citing cases which helps to understand the successful implementation of the company and the technique used to cope with the situation. Pepsi Corporation has a classic experience of crisis management and the company handled the syringe crisis very effectively during their 95th anniversary in the year 1993 (Learning Spaces, 2009). Initially with the complaint of syringe the company was not much concerned but later realized the tampering of bottle can only occur either before bottling or after opening the bottle. After investigation of the matter it was found to be a scam but it could not be convinced to the public without evidence. To maintain the public relationship and brand name the company then decided to release videos of the manufacturing process to catch public eye and convince the customer that their products are full proof from any tampering and then again another video news release was done by the company to show the public about the arrest of a person who is responsible for spreading the scam and described that the product in particular city is completely unrelated with the production line from the company. Then again a third video was released showing directly how the syringing was done by a woman in a store. For the public relationship the company revealed all its information to everyone who needed. All the field persons are communicated regularly for better control of the situation. Though the company has lost sales for a period of time but prompt investigation of the matter helped them to gain their reputation back in the eye of the customers which accounted for an additional sales percentage in future. Conclusion Public relation is the technique of communicating with the customers and cultivation of favourable relations with the stakeholders through various forms of communication channels and tools. On this ground the public relation officers of the companies are in direct contact with the different communication media for transfer of messages from the company to the public and understanding the market reaction for the different activities of the firm. Media is one of the essential tools for the company to constantly inform the customers and other stakeholders about the updates of the company to maintain transparency between them. Public relation can be a broader concept in the modern technique of communication. It’s not only limited to the traditional form of connectivity between the customer and the company. In the context we have seen from the examples of the different companies how they implemented their strategies to understand the situation faced by the companies in their business process and their different forms of building public relationship. In today’s world companies are using social media websites, advertising media and direct communication or even word of mouth technique to build better customer relationship and monitoring the public interest on the different issues. Crisis and issue management are also getting involved into public relationship theory. Management crisis often hampers the reputation of the firm. PR plays a vital role in evaluation and identification of problems and addressing issues to cope with situations of crisis for building a strong and sustainable brand name for the future. Reference Aidoo, K. (2005). Public relations issues and crisis management. Cengage Learning Australia. Elsevier. (2009). Engaging stakeholders through social networking:How nonprofit organizations areusing Facebook. [Pdf]. Available at: http://www.richardwaters.org/PRRNPOfacebook.pdf. [Accessed on: August 24th 2011]. Learning Spaces. (2009). PepsiCos Response to Product Tampering. [Online]. Available at: http://learningspaces.njit.edu/elliot/content/pepsicos-response-product-tampering. [Accessed on: August 24th 2011]. NSPCC. (2011). Recognising your contribution. Available at: http://www.nspcc.org.uk/what-we-do/working-with-us/what-you-can-expect-from-us/recognising-your-contribution/recognising-your-contribution_wda72709.html. [Accessed on August 24, 2011]. Parsons. (No date). Diffusion of Innovations Theory. [Pdf]. Available at: http://a.parsons.edu/~limam240/thesis/documents/Diffusion_of_Innovations.pdf. [Accessed on: August 24th 2011]. Prlog. (2011). Starbuck’s Success is it’s Word of Mouth/Social Media/Viral Marketing Strategy. [Online]. Available at: http://www.prlog.org/11406212-starbucks-success-is-its-word-of-mouthsocial-mediaviral-marketing-strategy.html. [Accessed on: August 24th 2011]. Ruler, B.& Vercic, A. T. (2008). Public relations metrics: research and evaluation. Taylor & Francis. Tank PR. (2011). Tank News and Blog. [Online]. Available at: http://www.tankpr.co.uk/blog/tag/nspcc/. [Accessed on August 24, 2011]. Vodafone. (2011). Stakeholder engagement. [Online]. Available at: http://www.vodafone.com/content/index/about/sustainability/reporting_our_performance/managing_sustainability/stakeholder_engagement.html. [Accessed on August 24, 2011]. Read More