Hello. Here's a warm welcome to my blog - 'A PEEP INTO PR'. This blog is a reflection of the course (MA Public Relations) I am presently studying at the University of Westminster. Through this blog, I intend to throw light on the contemporary issues and theories in Public Relations.Please feel free to opine, criticise and comment. Thank You so much for giving me your valuable time.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a relatively recent phenomenon imbibed in corporate business culture today, although the very thought that organisations do have a social responsibility had begun earlier.
In today's era of global competition, declining brand differentiation and increasing media clutter, companies are going beyond the conventional Public Relations and marketing policies to increase the value of intangible assets. Today, brands must be inspirational in a socially responsible way to all stakeholders. To achieve the same, CSR has become more common in business practices. Organisations now integrate CSR initiatives into their communication plan to build and sustain a competitive advantage.
The totality of CSR can be best understood by three words : 'corporate' , 'social' and 'responsibility'while CSR is a concept whereby organisations consider the interests of the society by taking responsibility for the impact of their activities on customers, employees. shareholders, communities. Companies have realised the fact that it is an investment with multiple benefits and CSR is no more viewed as a liability on corporate resources. The social responsibility stems from the fact that all organisations work in the interests of the public to cater to the market demand by providing products and services. For the organisations to profit or gain through its efforts, it has to first achieve the acceptance and approval of the people. Many organisations through getting profit from society do not show their concern for the latter's welfare and thereby end up having problems. Therefore, over the past few years stakeholders (employees, community, suppliers and shareholders) today are redefining the role of corporates taking into account corporates' broader responsibility towards society and environment. As a result of this shift (from purely economic to 'economic with an added social dimension') corporates today, are endorsing the term 'Corporate Social Responsibility'
The 'Ethical Model' of CSR was revived and reinterpreted by 'Father of Nation' Mahatma Gandhi
The 'Statist Model' of CSR came into being under the aegis of Jawahar Lal Nehru
While some perceive CSR to be a commitment of a company to manage its various roles in society as producer, employer, customer and citizen in a responsible manner, others make it synonymous with Corporate Responsibility (CR) or Corporate Citizenship or Social Action Programme (SAP). Of late, the term has also been started to link up with Triple Bottom Line Reporting (TBL) which essentially measures an enterprise's performance against economic, social and environmental indicators.
CSR at India
India ranks 4th in Asia when it comes to laying heavy emphasis on corporate social responsibility. Several major CSR initiatives have been launched in India since the mid 1990s. The term CSR itself came in to common use in the early 1970s although it was seldom abbreviated but by late 1990s the concept was fully recognised.
Vodafone group plc happens to be one brand / company which has been pretty prominent with its CSR initiatives. Having won an Outstanding Achievement in CSR Award for its project'World of Difference' - giving four people in Qatar the opportunity to work for a local cause of their choice with their costs paid by Vodafone, this company associated itself with the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India, where it introduced e-rick - hybrid vehicles designed Eco-Active, offering a pollution free alternative mode of transportation in the national capital in India. Barring this project Vodafone committed $10 million to the Vodafone India Foundation back in 2007. This foundation partners with NGOs to provide support for projects associated with education.
Achieving Sustainability
One issue which is time and again associated with CSR is the sustainability issue. Achieving sustainability is impractical without managing all aspects of life cycle. The sustainability dialogue has made huge progress in the corporate setting from the traditional CSR. In this light, sustainable sourcing has emerged as a key dimension alongside traditional CSR to measure and track sustainability initiatives. CSR aims to achieve overall sustainability considering the economic, ecology and social aspects so as to maximise and safeguard 'profit, planet and people'. The TBL concept captures the range of values and criteria for measuring organisational success and sustainability performance. So corporates now are incporating the sustainable sourcing practices into their business model depending on demand from their consumer and / or stakeholders. The term sustainable sourcing is interchangeable used with Sustainable purchasing, Green Purchasing, Responsible Purchasing and Ethical Purchasing by the firms to produce goods or services.
CSR vs Greenwashing
Coca-Cola, India's one of the largest beverage companies, realised that CSR had to be an integral part of its corporate agenda. Thus, it decided to implement a wide range of initiatives to improve the quality of life to its customers, the workforce and society at large. however, it came under severe criticisms from activists and environmental experts who charged it with depleting groundwater resources in the areas in which its bottling plans were located, thereby affecting the livelihood of poor farmers. The company was already involved in unethical business practices in developing countries which let to it becoming one of the most boycotted companies in the world. Coca-Cola then planned to become water neutral in India by 2009 as part of its global strategy of achieving water neutrality. But criticism against the company did not die down and critics felt that Coca-Cola was spending millions of dollars to project a 'green' and 'environment-friendly' image of itself. They felt it was an attempt at greenwashing as Coca-Cola's business practices in India had tarnished its brand image not only in India but also globally.
In today's world Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs) and non-profits play an unique and important role. Some ten to fifteen years back NGOs and non-profits were considered secondary players in the world of public opinion, public policy, government, etc but today they occupy a primary position influencing and shaping what we think and do about issues that are central to our lives and our world.
Phenomenon of globalisation during the twentieth century has increased the importance of NGOs which in turn has led to an increase in the public relations sector as compared to profit business.
A non-governmental organisation is defined as a group of people interested in serving the community at large on an honorary basis in some area of community development. It seeks to raise its own funds through voluntary contributions or donations from both the individuals and the institutions for undertaking service-oriented schemes.
How NGO PR is different
Public relations in the NGO sector differs from other sectors, in terms of persuasive components of at least five reasons :
to communicate and transmit reliable messages relating to activities, initiatives, projects under the participatory citizenship, solidarity and altruistic
to create conditions for social adhesion which programs and action oriented to community and people
to capture attention and interest policy and administrative makers to promote programs to support ideas and projects that advocate
public relations activities are not subject to the existence of endogenous crisis by non-profit organisation but are caused by external factors objective in case content for the NGO campaigning in public
primary mission of public relations achieved for the benefit of NGO is to encourage social participation around the ideal of sustained public without ignoring the other dimensions of organisational public relations (reputation, credibility, transparency, adherence)
NGO PR strategies
It would be misleading to suggest that conservative-minded governments and oil companies are the only ones that use PR in influence the media, public and policy agendas. In an effort to appear more politically relevant, environmental NGOs increasingly utilize public relations techniques and rely heavily on corporate communication consultancies to assist them in reaching the hearts and minds of key publics and policy-makers. Greenpeace, arguable, happens to be the most visible and well-known environmental NGO in the world. It first demonstrated its grasp of publicity by releasing footage in 1974 of its initial whaling protest, which it released to the Canadian media (Doyle,2007). These attempts have been traditionally in-house, but contemporary environmental NGOs are also increasingly leveraging PR firms and consultancies to streamline their message to solicit media attention and influence policy and public discourse.
The David Suzuki Foundation (DSF) is a good example of a Canadian environmental NGO leveraging its influence and PR industry connections to influence the global warming debate.
Need For NGO PR
A special feature of all NGOs is that they heavily depend on fund-raising activities to build their financial resources. Such fund-raising campaigns need public relations communication support as fund-raising is seen to be a major exercise for the NGOs. The need for PR in NGOs is basically four-fold:
NGOs entirely depend for their finances on fund-raising campaigns
NGO has to attract the attention of charitable trusts and donors for financial help
Third, relates to the dissemination of information about its services, plans as to enable the people to make use of them for their betterment
Fourth, a NGO has to maintain good media relations so that the media carries their messages both to the donors and to the beneficiaries besides building image f the organisations.
It is for these reasons that NGOs must have PR set up with adequate trained personnel to carry the goals and in the process gain in the goodwill of their stakeholders. PR is seen as an essential responsibility of NGOs in seeking donations on one hand and projecting the organisation as service oriented for the public on the other. PR practised in the NGO sector is not very different from how PR is practised in the business or corporate sector and happens to be the best way of promoting NGOs producing far more positive results in fund-raising, media coverage and projection of the organisation.
This year July will mark the 40th anniversary of the conceptualisation of 'Social Marketing' by Philip Kotler known as 'the world's foremost expert on the strategic practice of marketing' and Gerald Zaltman.
In the recent years, the attention of public sector agencies, non-government organisations and the private sector is increasingly drawn to the potential of social marketing. In an age of climate change, environmental destruction, natural resource shortages, fast population growth, hunger and poverty, as well as insufficient social services, what contributions might marketing make? Will its application help encourage wider socially and environmentally beneficial behavioural changes, increase use of community services - the behaviour, that is, not just of individual citizens but also of public sector agencies, non-government organisations and the private sector.
Since 1971, social marketing has been used, literally, around the world to remediate a variety of health, environmental and societal concerns. Talking about the concept of social marketing, marketing guru Kotler says : " The societal marketing concept holds that the organisation's task is to determine the needs, wants and interests of target markets and to deliver the desired satisfactions more effectively and efficiently than competitors, in a way that preserves or enhances the consumer's and the society's well-being". A small group of users who have stressed on this concept of social marketing include:
In its highest form, marketing is now considered a social process, composed of human behaviour patterns concerned with exchange of resources or values. It is no longer a mere function used to increase business profits. It is important here to mention that the concept of social marketing calls upon marketers calls upon marketers to balance three considerations in formulating the marketing policies viz, company profits, customer satisfaction and public interest. Traditionally, the companies concentrated on profit maximisation but then they recognise the long-run importance of satisfying consumer which paved avenues for the marketing concept. The concept of social marketing, thus, calls for balancing all three considerations. In plain simple vanilla, social marketing focusses on application of marketing principles keeping in view the public or social interests. The main philosophy behind the theory is to protect the social interests.
The process of Social Marketing
Social marketing is constantly evolving from 'influencing ideas' as presented by Kotler & Zaltman (1971) to large-scale broad based behaviour change focused on programs offered by Lefebvre & Flore (1988). But one of the simplest ways of understanding different influences on social marketing is to refer to it as having 'two parents' [NSM Centre 2006] :
a) a social parent = social sciences / social policy / social reform and campaigning
b) a marketing parent = commercial and public sector marketing
UNAIDS Social Marketing Initiative
One organisation which has been promoting and supporting social marketing since its establishment in 1996 is UNAIDS, which has been involved in the social marketing of condoms, as a key strategy in the fight against the psread of HIV / AIDS and STDs. In the mid 1980's, condom social marketing (CSM) emerged as an effective tool in combating the spread of HIV / AIDS. Social marketing, in case of condoms, has acted as a 'normalizer' of the product reducing the stigmas popularly attached to it. Today, in countries across the world, condoms are widely available from a variety of outlets, are openly discussed in public and in the media unlike before when public access to condoms was difficult as the product was often available only in pharmacies and health clinics. This is all because of social marketing.
The Indian Perspective: Community based social marketing
India was also not left behind in its own initiative of Contraceptive and AIDS social marketing. A couple of projects, one on each, involved marketing condoms and oral contraceptive pills with the aim of increasing contraceptive prevalence through the use of temporary methods. These social marketing initiatives were taken by NGOs like Parivar Seva Sanstha (PSS), an associate of Marie Stopes International (MSI) and Indian Institute of Community Health(IICH) respectively.
The case studies can be accessed by clicking on the following links :
And...Social Marketing is not Social Media Marketing
When Kotler was asked abouy current practices of calling social media 'social marketing' , he said:
"We wish that those who talk about social media use that term [i.e. social media]. They can call it social media marketing but it should not be abbreviated to social marketing".
So there is a brief history of social marketing from one of its fathers. And the next time we hear someone say 'social marketing' when they are talking about social media, we should resist the impulse to whip out the quote from Dr.Philip Kotler.
Historically, the link between public relations and the political sphere is very distinct but the term political public relations is rarely used. Public relations and politics have been two firmly entwined concepts since the beginning of recorded history.
Edward Bernays
Aristotle
For evidence from ancient times, we can look at Aristotle and his schools of rhetoric thoughts that taught the art of persuasive communication. Or more so in more recent times, the work of the man commonly thought of as 'the father of modern day public relations', Edward Bernays, and his belief that PR is an art applied to a science. Both these school of thoughts provide a clear connection between the two.This post, based on our lecture on contemporary theories and issues in PR, looks into the concept of political PR within a campaigning, representative and governing context.
Public Relations and politics have a lot in common. Not least is the fact that both PR practitioners and politicians are frequently criticised by people. But on a more serious note, public relations plays a role in politics and government policy by influencing public opinion to support a certain candidate or piece of legislation.
Political Public Relations < Political Communication
PR is a widely recognised term, and political actors rely on communication to reach their key audiences, yet the term political public relations is rarely used, as commentators tend to refer to therm 'political communication' (Chaffee 1975, Franklin 1994, McNair 1995, Negrine 1996).
How PR plays 'Politics'
PR plays a great role in politics, in ways more than one:
The PR function of publicity is a great tool of gaining awareness for candidates and cause. Whether through mass media exposure, special events or targeted direct communication, making candidates' names known to voters is a basic function of political PR. Candidates can't win if voters don't know their names.
PR's role in providing voters with enough information to develop an understanding of candidates' position is another role of PR closely tied to politics. Knowing who's running is important, but once they have an awareness of who's in the contest, understanding where each candidate stands on the issues becomes a priority.
Due to modern-day public relations, another dimension comes into play, though- one that moves public relations beyond publicity and the use of one-way messages and toward two-way communication.At the highest level, this two-way approach allows for both persuasion of the public and modification of the politician with an eye to bringing both to that most valuable of outcomes- mutually beneficial relationships.
PR techniques in Politics
Until very recently political communications was dominated by primarily one PR technique: media relations. From the early1960's through to the early 1990s research focused primarily on the impact of mass communication, especially television. As a result, political communication stressed the impact of journalists and political actors on shaping public opinion.
However, since the mid-90's the dominance of mass communications has been challenged by three interrelated developments. Firstly, the introduction of the permanent campaign which has blurred the difference between campaigning and governing so that politicians seek to dominate the agenda every single day. Secondly, there has been an increased professionalisation of communication with public relations and marketing professionals transferring their skills to the political arena. Thirdly, the growing importance of new communications technology, namely new media, especially the internet, has encouraged political actors to use a much wider range of PR tools. Under such developments, political communicators do not rely on one dominant channel to reach their target audiences.
Here's a look at how politicians have campaigned in the past:
To cut the long story short, four main activities that stand out in political PR are:
Media management (controlling messages)
Image management (protecting an identity or brand, relationship building etc)
Internal communication (engaging people within the party and controlling opinionated messages)
U.S. President-elect Barack Obama showed other politicians how to harness the power of the Web in 2008, bringing political campaigns kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Obama went beyond the static web pages of most past campaigns, by tapping the power of web 2.0 tools including Facebook, YouTube, Blogs and discussion boards, to create an engaged conversation with potential voters.
Ofcourse, Obama was not the first presidential candidate to raise a million dollars online (McCain '00), nor was he the first to use the internet grass-roots efforts to moblize online supporters to meet up in their local communities (Dean '04). However, McCain failed to convert his online donors into votes and Dean failed to channel the online fervor into effective ground support. Obama was the first to do both, by weaving technology and the Internet into the fabric of his campaign.
Lessons from Obama's Social Media Campaign and his Social Media kit can be viewed by clicking here.
Political PR is essentially persuasive as it represents an interest and requires representative democracy were different competing interests can be heard. Although political PR may often be shouted in a loud voice, it should utilize a range of both 'loud' and 'soft' PR encourages using both direct and indirect communication channels. Political PR encourages a rich interaction at a range of different levels between those active, interested or even uninterested in the political process and political discourse.
A case study on the Barack Obama Strategy can be viewed below:
Thanks to the recent explosive growth of New Media and Social Media, the practice of public relations has been changed forever. But this does not mean that public relations as a tool is dead. In fact it may be more important than ever. The goals of public relations remain the same, but the strategies and mechanisms for carrying out PR have changed drastically in the last few years.
Tim Berners-Lee is credited with inventing the World Wide Web.
With the dawning of the new media, something happened within media. This was the beginning of technological socialisation. Everything began with the desire for information; information about everything. This slowly blossomed into social media, which let's face it is really information about people. Now, the internet as a whole and the whole new media revolution as a whole is being seen taking one step further. It is going beyond merely socialising or information seeking and is becoming something more, much more. Users are driving content in ways never before seen.
The Web is an increasingly important component of public relations. This digital revolution has provided public relations practitioners with a new communication challenge: social networking sites.
A new 'MEDIA' challenge for PR
The terrain of public relations practice is also shifting with new media. The new media is giving public relations practitioners a unique opportunity to collect information, monitor public opinion on issues, and engage in direct dialogue with their publics about a variety of issues.
Some of the ways New/Social Media is changing PR can be pointed below:
'Conversation' vs 'A Speech' - In the old model, the practice of PR was primarily a one-way street. PR pros can no longer get away with blasting information out at an audience Two-way communication directly with the consumer is a tremendous opportunity for businesses to gain real-time feedback.
Information gathering - the speed of information sharing is faster than ever before and PR professionals have access to a wealth of content that can be shared with consumers seeking solutions to a problem.It has changed long-standing dynamics of the PR / Journalist relationship. Journalists seek information and sources online and PROs have benefited from the addedd access available, courtesy social media.
Personal Service - The growth of social media has led to vast expectations from consumers that they will not be subjected to mass, non-targeted information and that any concers will be addressed quickly and personally.
But........There is a 'Cost' to 'Free'
Having said loads about the new media revolution, we must realize that whether we are creating any form of content online (text, audio, images or video) or are simply consuming it, there is a huge cost to all of this free goodness. The main question that arises out of all this is
"Who is going to pay for all of this content that we are all now consuming online?"
The answer to this ever ignored question by us consumers can be found in the BBC documentary Virtual Revolution: The Cost of Freethat reveals behind the scenes of the new media business. The documentary mains that online activities like searching on Google, uploading pictures on Flickr, or even using social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter or Myspace, YouTube seem to be free, but come at a price: the disclosure of private information to companies that sell these data to advertising clients in order to make money profit.
The documentary also shows that officials of internet companies such as Amazon, Google or Netflix tend to argue that targeted advertising and targeted recommendation systems that are based on online data surveillance enrich the users' experience and provide them with information that they cound find interesting. The maker of the documentary, Aleks Krotoski, maintains that our "thoughts and desires that we express online are being traced, tracked and traded in pursuit of profit". She speaks of the 'brave new web' and remarks: "In return for our free web, our privacy has become a commodity".
She concludes her investigation of how the World Wide Web is transforming almost every aspect of our lives. Aleks, in her documentary, examines the popularity of social networks such as Facebook and is joined by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Chad Hurley, Al Gore, Susan greenfield who tell us how social netowrking sites are changing our relationships.
One issue in the Public Relations industry that has had an overwhelming influence on how people view professional communicators, especially those working in a political environment is the role of 'spin doctors'. It has had a much wider public policy implications because they appear to be at the heart of the relationship between government and its stakeholders.
If you have never heard the word 'spin doctor', look again at the nearest photograph or television image of your favourite politician. Is he sounding a little more articulate than you remember? Are his clothes set off better against his surroundings and do his eyes gleam with a new camera-friendly sincerity as he announces noble schemes for the upliftment of the nation?
What we see are 'doctored' politicians, phantoms conjured up by the efforts of relatively unknown image builders of political parties. These image builders manipulate media images, publicise friendly opinion polls and sponsor articles, advise leaders on what to wear and in short, create marketable political commodities.
British Labor Party politician Tony Benn quotes : "We should put the spin-doctors in the spin clinics, where they can meet other spin patients and be treated by spin consultants. Then the rest of us can get on with the proper democratic process."
A 'spin doctor' can be simply described as a political press agent or publicist employed to promote a favourable interpretation of events to journalist.
Like it or not, the role of politicians, the expectations of the electorate and the role of communications in the political process have all changed radically. The reality remains that like politicians, spin doctors are forced into existence because there is no such thing as objective truth. As a very famous slogan says, "perceptions are facts because people believe them".
The modern term 'spin doctor' was first used in the New York Times during the 1984 US Presidential election when Reagan's advisers were observed during the daily media briefings. They arrived carrying brief cases (hence the association with the traditional image of carpet-bagging doctors of the mid-West) and they worked the room (back and side-ways: spinning), while giving rapid-fire answers to the jostling reporters.
The Oxford English Dictionary now defines a spin doctor as 'a spokesperson for a political party or politician employed to give a favourable interpretation of events to the media'. The term also has conveniently come to be understood as an amalgam of 'spin'- to place a slant on events- 'doctor' in the pejorative sense of patching up, falsifying and manipulating.
UK Politics and News from No.10
Media Management has played a significant role in UK politics for some time, with 'spin doctor' figures like Alastair Campbell. Campbell was the first real British spin-doctor holding considerable power which we get to watch in the BBC TV documentary News from No.10.
Former Labour Spin Doctor Alastair Campbell.
This BBC film sheds unique light on the relationship between the Prime Minister Tony Blair and his influential press agent, Alastair Campbell. Mr Campbell was appointed as Tony Blair's official spokesman in 1004. The documentary breaks new political ground by showing some of the inner workings of the relationship between Number 10 and Westminster's lobby journalists.
Arguably, he has been the most famous press secretary the UK has ever seen.
The scale and variety of the media today has made it vitally important for politicians to maintain a positive media image. More and more effort and money is put into this with every election that comes around, with style now ruling over substance in most political spheres.
References:
Cutlip, S. et al. (2000) Effective Public Relations, 8th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall
Tench, R. & Yeomans, L.(2006) Exploring Public Relations. Essex: Pearson Education Limited
Social Networking websites popularly referred to as Social Media , have rapidly increased in popularity over the past few years, so much that many are wondering why.
Social media hаѕ never bееn ѕο prevalent. Everywhere wе turn, wе see thе constant allusion tο social media. Sο іt’s small surprise thаt аn understanding tο social media іѕ a mυѕt fοr еνеrу type οf organisation аnԁ thе key element tο success іѕ mаkе рƖеаѕеԁ – targeted аnԁ constant.
When you hear the term, social media, what do you think about? If you say proper nouns like Facebook,LinkedIn, MySpace, and Twitter, you’ve proven social media is a fad.
The following web-cast discusses all the major topics relating to Social Media and Public Relations.
The management function which evaluates public attitudes, identifies the policies and procedures of an individual or organisation with the public interest and plans and executes a program of action to earn public understanding and acceptance.
Given such a definition, the function of an organisation and the public relations manager is to be externally oriented in order to make the company sensitive to the concerns of the external environment and to convince the external environment (the public) of the worthiness of company
positions.
Public relations strategies have focused a great deal on understanding audiences, publics and stakeholders. Communication and PR are directed at audiences and stakeholders or publics often via the mass media. Public Relations process models such as RACE, ROPE and others emphasise the need to analyse audiences to effectively tailor communication strategies to specific audience groups. Several scholars also, have developed various models and approaches to define target publics (Grunig, 1997; Cutlip, Center & Broom, 200; Heath & Coombs, 2006).
How we plan and do public relations (PR) depends on our understanding of the nature of audiences, stakeholders or public. Theories, concepts and models surrounding these three major keywords (audience,stakeholder and publics) are very important as they help us understand and explain our PR campaigns and therefore determine how we plan and conduct PR.
Public Relations scholars have developed several models for segmenting audiences and stakeholders taking into consideration the way communicators imagine their audience and thus communicate with that audience.
According to John Dewey, philosopher of sociology, a public is a group of people who :
face a similar situation
recognise the consequences
seek to deal with the situation
A public is identifiable, homogeneous, important to the organisation, large enough to matter and reachable.
Linkages Theory
Milton Esman's linkages theory / model classify publics based on their functional relationship with the organisation (cf.Grunig & Hunt, 2984). Linkage is a sociological concept that identifies a pattern of relationships between an organisation and its publics within interdependent or inter penetrating systems.
There are four key linkages:
Enabling - groups of people who allow the organisation to exist and these include governments who allow the public sector organisations to operate or investors for private sector firms.
Normative - represent groups that experience similar issues as the organisation
Functional Linkages (Input / Output) - Input:comprise groups of people who bring something into the organisation, such as suppliers and employees ; Output: described as those who take something from the organisation, such as students and customers.
Diffused - represent other groups of people not belonging to the other three linkages
Freeman's Stakeholder Theory
Another common segmentation framework is drawn from Freeman's Stakeholder Theory (1998) which defines stakeholders as "those groups who are vital to the survival or success of the corporation. He also offers a broader definition to include groups or individuals who "can afffect or is affected by the corporation". These stakeholders include: management, owners, suppliers, employees, customers and the local community. This model shares commonality with Esman's linkages theory in that it focuses on the role individuals have in relation to the organisation. Criticisms of this model comes in the form of a neglect of possible role overlaps such as employees who are residents of the community and the assumption that their 'professional' alues override their individual and cultural values.
Grunig's Situational Theory of Publics
This theory argues that publics can be identified based on how an issue or problem affects them.
Grunig and Hunt (1984) drew from Dewey’s typology of publics: latent public are groups of people who face similar issues but do not detect a problem; aware publics are those who recognise there is a problem; active publics are those who organise, discuss and do something about the problem; and non-publics are those who do not belong to any of the other groups. Grunig (1997) built on these concepts and developed the situational theory of public: all issue publics who are active on all problems and issues; apathetic publics are those who do not care about any of the issues; single issue publics are interested in only one part of the issue; and hot issue publics are active on issues that already generate extensive media coverage.
The purpose of this theory remains to explain when and how people communicate and when communication aimed at people is likely to be effective.
Communication behaviour is affected by three conditions:
Problem Recognition - the extent to which people detect a problem
Constraint Recognition - the extent to which people identify obstacles to act on the problem
Level of Involvement - The extent to which people feel connected to an issue
The Power / Interest Matrix
Power / Interest Matrix classifies stakeholders in relation to the power and the extent to which they are likely to show interest in the actions and strategies of the organisation. This model is used to indicate the nature of the relationship which should be adopted with each group.
Stakeholders in :
Group A : need only minim effort in monitoring
Group B : should be kept informed as they may be able to influence more powerful stakeholders
Group C : are powerful, but level of interest is low. Generally expected to be passive, but may move into group D on an issue of particular interest
Group D : are both powerful and interested. Their co-operation is of key importance for new strategies.
Is Social Media changing the paradigm?
Whether or not social media is fundamentally changing the paradigm is an interesting angle to look at. Professor James Grunig says 'Public relations has not been changed by the revolution in digital media." The illusion of stakeholders being controlled, according to him, existed before and it still exists now. Stakeholders create their own reality. The only way to impact on this reality is to engage and share information, to evolve based on this sharing and to enhance the meaning that relationships bring.
Social media is providing public relations with an opportunity to reinforce its importance to business and society. The profession is, in many cases, trying to take advantage of this opportunity. The question, however, still remains - will it succeed?
Let us have a look at a presentation on Stakeholder Analysis:
"Success does not happen overnight but failure does."
Among other functions, public relations is a fundamental process to mitigating harm, responding to stakeholder needs and repairing image following an organisational crisis. Crisis Management is vital component of (and perhaps the second half to positive) public relations. Responding to a crisis is an important part of public relations professional's job duties.
Before delving deep into this domain of 'crisis management' let us try and define 'crisis'.A crisis is a major, unpredictable event that threatens to harm an organisation and its stakeholders. While I do not propose a formal definition of the word crisis in this blog, I intend to treat any event that can, within a short period of time, harm an institution's constituents, its facilities, its finances or its reputation as a crisis.
Crisis events are unpredictable but not unexpected. It affects all segments of society. Three basic elements in a crisis can be summed up as follows :
Threat to company/organisation.
Element of surprise
Short-decision time
The various types of Crises can be listed as:
Economic
Physical
Personnel
Criminal
Information
Reputation-al
Natural disasters
Crisis management is the new buzz word for the society, firm, businesses, etc. Everyone from celebrities, politicians, auto-mobile companies to theme parks in dire need to salvage their reputation from getting tarnished online. No organisation / person / firm / business wants to be in a situation that would earn them a bad name, image or reputation.
Crisis management is the art of making decisions to head off or mitigate the effects of such an event, often while the event itself is unfolding. This often means making decisions about your institution’s (organisation, firm, client,etc) future while you are under stress and while you lack key pieces of information. It is the systematic attempt to avoid organisational crisis or to manage those crisis events that do occur. It involves skills and techniques required to assess, understand and cope with any serious situation from the very moment it occurs to the point the recovery
procedure starts.
PROCESS OF CRISIS MANAGEMENT: FINK's MODEL
In 1986, Steven Fink was amongst the first to examine crisis occurring in stages. According to his model, a crisis consists of four stages:
PRODROMAL (PRE-CRISIS): This is the warning stage. If this stage is not recognized or does not actually occur, the second stage (acute crisis) can rush in, requiring damage control. Clues in the prodromal stage must be carefully observed.
ACUTE CRISIS: In this stage, the damage has been done. The point here is to control as much of the damage as possible. This is often the shortest of the stages.
CHRONIC CRISIS: This is the clean-up phase. It is a period of recovery, self-analysis, self-doubt and healing. A survey of Fortune 500 CEO's reported that companies that did not have a crisis management plan stayed in this stage two and half times longer than those who had plans.
CRISIS RESOLUTION: This is the crisis management goal. The key question here is: What can and should an organisation's leaders do to speed up this phase and resolve a crisis once and for all?
Managing a crisis is the second thing one can ever do for a successful business or organisation. Dealing with crisis needs accurate and decisive action. Here is an interesting example to show how a rapid and precise action saved the company from getting a bad name.
' A gun manufacturing company loses a gun while on transit and before the public or the media ever comes to know about this, the company is able to find it and put it back into the inventory.'
Such should be the approach of managing a crisis. Let us, in brief, look at the various steps of handling a crisis:
ASSESS: Reasonable amount of time should be devoted to actually assess the whole situation. It is important, for a moment, to step backwards, gather facts, objects and develop a clear picture of the situation / crisis.
ENGAGE: It is important to engage all stakeholders. Trust insiders who will have the knowledge and will help in analysing the crisis or planning effectively to manage it.
PLAN: Once all data has been put in place, develop the best, typical plans. This helps to act quickly, confidently and effectively.
ACT: Be pro-active, not re-active. It's about execution.
COMMUNICATE: It is of utmost importance that communication should take place transparently and honestly. Consider and respect your audience.
A Crisis should follow the simple principle of :
Be First- Get message out first to control content and accuracy
Be Right-Say and do the right thing
Be Credible-Be open, honest and speak with one consistent voice
The other guidelines of Crisis Management are :
Communicate accurately and openly about the crisis and maintain openness with stakeholders.
Communicate quickly to maintain a proactive response to the crisis.
Maintain flexibility consistent with the relative levels of uncertainty and ambiguity.
Closely monitor reactions in the media and from various stakeholder groups.
Maintain consistency of message with a credible designated spokesperson, usually the CEO.
Use a crisis management team to co-ordinate and assess the crisis response.
Engage in crisis planning to create and maintain a crisis response capability.
Work to establish positive stakeholder relations and corporate image prior to the crisis.
ISSUES vs CRISIS
Whenever we talk about Crises, we often tend to invade borders of Issues and Issue Management. But the fact remains that there are differences between Issues and Crises.
In the quest to achieve strategic objectives, an entity to ensure that it has sound issue management practices in place to meet the expectations of its stakeholders, externally and internally. The need for a strategic 'common sense' approach to managing business issues has never been more important for any entity, specially when radical changes are taking place at national and international levels.
An Issue can be defined as "an emerging or unresolved matter which can impact the business and affect reputation; or the 'gap' between what an entity and does, and what stakeholders expect it to say or do." Issue management is the process used to close that gap. Issue management involves many parts of an organisation. That is why it is unique from traditional strategic planning, or corporate governance or public relations.
CRISIS: DANGER OR OPPORTUNITY ?
In the very context of crisis management, we often end up asking ourselves whether Crisis happens for good of for bad. In other words, is Crisis a Danger or an Opportunity. In the Chinese language, the meaning of crisis is actually made up of two word signs. The first one is pronounced wei, which means danger while the second symbol which means jei, indicates opportunity. When combined together, it has the meaning of crisis. It is interesting to see how a symbol, which denotes a message of distress, combines in itself a symbol for opportunity.
WHAT TO DO WHEN IT ALL GOES WRONG?
Let us know browse through a couple of case studies that will help us to learn and know more about this subject of crisis management. While one talks about 'How Best To' handle a crisis, the other shows 'How Not To.'
Crisis need not strike a company purely as a result of its own negligence or misadventure. Often, a situation is created which cannot be blamed on the company- but the company finds out pretty quickly that it takes a huge amount of blame if it fumbles the ball in its response.One of the classic example of how a company can get it right is that of Johnson & Johnson, and the company's response to the Tylenol poisoning.
What Happened
In 1982, Johnson & Johnson's Tylenol medication commanded 35 per cent of the US over-the-counter analgesic market-representing something like 15 per cent of the company's profits. Unfortunately, at that point one individual succeeded in lacing the drug with cyanide. Seven people died as a result and a widespread panic ensured about how widespread the contamination might be. By the end of the episode, everyone knew that Tylenol was associated with the scare. The company's market value fell by $1bn as a result.When the same situation happened in 1986, the company had learned its lessons well. It acted quickly- ordering that Tylenol should be recalled from every outlet -not just those in the state where it had been tampered with. Not only that, but the company decided the product would not be re-established on the shelves until something had been done to provide better product protection. As a result, Johnson & Johnson developed the tamper proof packaging that would make it much more difficult for a similar incident to occur in future.
Danger & Opportunity
The cost was a high one. In addition to the impact on the company's share price when the crisis first hit, the lost production and destroyed goods as a result of the recall were considerable.
However, the company won praise for its quick and appropriate action. Having sidestepped the position others have found themselves in- of having been slow to act in the face of consumer concern- they achieved the status of consumer champion.
Within five months of the disaster, the company had recovered 70% of its market share for the drug-and the fact this went went on to improve over time showed that the company had succeeded in preserving the long term value of the brand.
In fact, there is some evidence that it was rewarded by consumers who were so reassured by the steps taken that they switched from other painkillers to Tylenol.
Conclusion
The features that made Johnson & Johnson's handling of the crisis a success story can be enumerated as follows:
They acted quickly, with complete openness about what had happened and immediately sought to remove any source of danger based on the worst case scenario- not waiting for evidence to see whether the contamination might be more widespread.
having acted quickly, they then sought to ensure that measures were taken which would prevent as far as possible a recurrence of the problem.
They showed themselves to be prepared to bear the short term cost in the name of consumer safety. that more than anything else established a basis for trust with their customers.
In Japan, there is a proverb, "If it stinks, put a lid on it." Alas, this seemed to have been Toyota's approach to its crisis (2009-2010), initially denying, minimizing and mitigating the problems involving brakes that don't brake and accelerators that have a mind of their own. President Akio Toyoda, grandson of the founder appeared less than forthcoming about critical safety issues, risking the trust of its customers world-wide. The following is a bulleted time-line of the major events from a public relations standpoint :
Lexus ES350 fatal crash
3.8 million Toyota/Lexus floor mat recall
4.2 million brake override amended recall
2.3 million accelerator recall
Sales halt for eight models
Televised Congressional hearings
Toyota is synonymous with Japan so when trouble hit the world's leading auto-maker, it was easy to conclude that a cloud has fallen over the Land of the Rising Sun. Toyota's troubles started in 2008 when its global sales started shrinking due to the financial crisis that hit the US, its biggest market. It had hoped to recover its sales figures last year through cost-cutting measures.
This has been a public-relations nightmare for Toyota, as its brand name has been synonymous with quality and reliability. Crisis management does not get any more woeful than this and the cost of this bungling was- the initial $2 billion recall and the loss of 17% of share value when the gas-pedal recall was announced. For some people, it was not surprising that Toyota's response was dilatory and inept, because crisis management in Japan is grossly undeveloped. Over the past two decades there has been not one instance where a Japanese company has done a good job managing a crisis. The pattern has been the same ever- typically involving slow initial response, minimizing the problem and too little compassion and concern for consumers adversely affected by the product. The absence of a structure to quickly get accurate information to top management hampered an accurate and adequate response. that left the management unprepared to deal with media questioning and conveyed an image of stonewalling and indifference. Perhaps, there was a cultural element to this penchant for mismanaging crisis. the shame and embarrassment of owning up to product defects in a nation obsessed with craftsmanship and quality raises the bar on disclosure and assuming responsibility. The shame of producing defective cars is supposed to be other firm's problems not Toyota's and PR disaster that was in place during the crisis clearly showed how unprepared the company was for crisis management and how embarrassed it was.
Another reason why this was a poor crisis management, was the fact that Toyota did not actively p utilize social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. Toyota had that opportunity to manage its own branding crisis but was not pro-active. The consequences of poor crisis management severely damaged its reputation as the number auto-mobile brand with $30.5 million brand earnings (according to Interband).
The crisis, though, offered an opportunity to reform Toyota's corporate culture and improve quality assurance by becoming more focussed on the customer, using two-way flow of information and feedback' improving corporate governance by appointing independent outside directors and making risk management more than an after-thought.
Successful crisis management requires timing, response and sincerity that Toyota unfortunately did not show.
Social Media and Crisis Management
In this digital age, crisis management, crisis management is not just about contacting news outlets or writing an apologetic press release. Today, crisis management requires swift, sweeping action on all digital fronts: social media, blogs and company websites. Digital crisis communications is a new aspect that needs to be management plan in times of crises. Social media, blogging and tweeting have proven to viable, usable communications tools with far reaching uses- some of which are still being defined or refined. One such use just now emerging is to incorporate social media resources with traditional media to communicate in a crisis. Some experts are referring it to as 'digital crisis communications.'
As with all aspects of PR, marketing and advertising the internet is changing things up, making them easier and also at the same time, more difficult. As a result, consumers/buyers are able to contribute to the PR surrounding a company through W-O-M (word-of-mouth), reviews, etc, making crisis PR more difficult for companies than ever. This particular characteristic of PR today means one important thing for companies: a crisis can grow and fast. There are things that a company can do to help prevent a crisis from growing too out of hand in the first place, though. For example, creating and maintaining relationships with consumers, so that when a crisis does arise buyers know and are perhaps advocates for a company. Companies can also try to diffuse the damage of a crisis as it is taking place. With correspondence, action and taking responsibility, a company can help to halt the spread of negative W-O-M a crisis can generate.
Toyota, during its crisis, had a great opportunity to utilize social media channels, such as Facebook and Twitter, but showed half-hearted effort. Facebook was not utilized by Toyota to reach out to its nearly 70,000 fans. The Japanese company also under-utilized its Twitter account to get the news to its 14,000 followers. They had posted a mere six tweets regarding the recall- not as much as one might expect a brand in crisis management mode.
An interesting case study in the domain of social media-crisis management and digital crisis communications is the Domino's Pizza fiasco that damaged the reputation of a 50-year old brand. let us look at the presentation below to get an in-depth picture of the crisis.
The role of PR practitioners in crisis communication, is expanding to match this broadened notion of crisis. Public relations, from this perspective, is a crisis and risk management function responsible for understanding the role of communication in crisis incubation, the development and maintenance of crisis management plans and response capacities and the contingent elements of effective post-crisis communication.
