Public Relation

Module-1
Public relation/ Publicity
 Contents
• Proactive and Reactive Approaches
• Public Relations Process
• Behavoiural Public Relations Model
• Persuasion Model
• Two way symmetrical Communications Model
• When communications is not enough
• 20 great truths about Public Relations
 Meaning
• Public relations (PR) is the way organisations, companies
and individuals communicate with the public and media.
• A PR specialist communicates with the target audience
directly or indirectly through media with an aim to create
and maintain a positive image and create a strong
relationship with the audience.
• A systematic act of building an image of a
product/service/idea/company among the target
group/general public/stake holders through a well–
designed promotion on a regular basis.
• The public relation staff of large corporation may be
responsible for the firm’s relationship with
customers, suppliers, investors, employees and
even foreign governments.
• Public relations practitioners help others establish and
maintain effective relationship with the third parties.
 PUBLIC RELATION
Public relations (PR) is a management function which
deals with public issues. An important component of
public relations is publicity. Publicity deals with news
coverage of events relating to companies products and
services
 DEFINTION
• Public relations is a leadership and management function that
helps achieve organizational objectives, define philosophy and
facilitate organizational change.
• Public relations practitioners communicate with all relevant
internal and external publics to develop positive relationship
and to create consistency between org. goals and societal
expectations.
• PR practitioners develop, execute and evaluate organizational
programs that promote the exchange of influence and
understanding among an organizations constituent parts and
publics.
• Definition :“Public relations is a planned
process to influence public opinion, through
sound character and proper performance,
based on mutually satisfactory two-way
communication.”
• Public relations is the management function
that identifies, establishes, and maintains
mutually beneficial relationships between an
organization and the various publics on whom
its success or failure depends.” -- Cutlip,
Center and Broom
 WHAT IS PUBLIC RELATION?

• "Public Relations is a management function

which tabulates public attitudes, defines the
policies, procedures and interest of an
organization followed by executing a program
of action to earn public understanding and
acceptance"
 Objectives of PR
1. Promoting goodwill
2. Promoting a product or service
3. To give information to internal employees
4. Helps to overcome negative publicity
5. Lobbying(is the act of promoting an organization's
agenda to decision makers)
6. Give advice and council
 Approaches
• Proactive and reactive are two ways for a
company to handle its public relations. In
general, companies see being proactive as
more beneficial than being reactive.

• Proactive
• Reactive
 Reactive vs. Proactive PR
• Reactive PR must react or respond to a public
relations issue or problem.
• Proactive PR allows organizations to plan and
execute public relations activities on their own
timeline.
• Proactive change involves actively attempting to
make alterations to the work place and its practices.
Companies that take a proactive approach to change
are often trying to avoid a potential future threat or to
capitalize on a potential future opportunity.
• Reactive change occurs when an organization makes
changes in its practices after some threat or
opportunity has already occurred.
• A proactive approach gives an organisation more
control over their public relations planning and
enables them to set the agenda. They decide how best
to present the image of the company.
• A reactive approach gives control to someone else,
with the company merely responding.
• A reactive strategy refers to an approach that is taken
to combat negative events after they occur.
• A proactive strategy involves identifying positive
messages and using of tools to communicate those
messages to the public.
• Proactive PR allows the company to strengthen its
brand image through communication tools that are
generally free or have no media placement costs.
• For instance, a company that markets itself as a high-
quality brand may attend local events and hand out
product samples.
• Many companies send out newsletters to customers,
prospects, partners or other contacts that provide
information connected to the brand while supporting
the company as an industry leader.
 PR Process
The Four-Step Process
• Step 1: Research – Define the public relation
problem
• Step 2: Planning
• Step 3: Implementation (taking action)
• Step 4: Evaluation
 Step 1: Research
• Research : An initial fact finding stage defines the
problem area and differentiates between publics.

• Planning : Once the facts have been gathered from

the various publics, decisions must be made regarding
their importance and potential impact on the org.
After these decisions are made, strategies must be
developed to enable the organisation to achieve its
goals.
• Action and communication: strategies are
implemented as new org. policies . Messages are then
constructed to reach target publics.
• Evaluation : Once a public relations campaign is
developed and implemented, it should be followed by
an evaluation of its effectiveness in meeting the
criteria that were set. The result of the evaluation are
used both to asses the effectiveness of the effort and
to plan future action.
• Research is an essential part of the public relations
process. Information gained through careful research
can be used to target audiences and their
characteristics, to guide planning, to pre-test
messages, to evaluate results, and to guide follow-up
efforts.
 Research
Research in public relations is a cyclical process
through which practitioners:
•  Monitor the environments of organizations and their
publics.
•  Identify and track events and trends that may
influence public relationships.
•  Measure the productivity of public relations efforts.
•  Provide data to enhance the program’s efficiency and
effectiveness.
• Effective research techniques for public relations
practice include both scientific, or formal, research
and informal, or non-scientific, research.
• Good public opinion research must be
sensitive enough to identify publics as
definable groups rather than as unrelated
masses.
• Public relations audits, social audits,
communication audits, and environmental
monitoring are effective research methods for
public relations planning and evaluation.
 Role of research
Research enables practitioners to:
• Identify and define publics involved in specific
 problems.
• Pre test messages and media to ensure that
programs will produce the best possible results.
• Evaluate the results of programs and campaigns.
• Design and execute follow-up activities
 QUESTIONS TO BEGIN RESEARCH

Research means gathering information and it is

classified as formal or informal
What preliminary research is needed?- informal
research
• Record keeping
• Key contacts
• Special committees
• Focus groups
• Casual monitoring
 Step 2: Analysis and planning
• Planning permits the development of integrated PR
efforts that support an org. goals in positive rather
than a defensive manner.
• Planning provides the opportunity to involve mgt
from other areas of org. and to ensure their
cooperation and support.

Planning is generally classified into two broad

categories:
• Strategic plans
• Tactical plans
• Strategic plans: are long range plans, made at the
upper levels of management. Environmental
scanning has become a primary tool to identify and
to prioritize the strategic issues upon which an
organizations plans are founded.
• Tactical plans: it develop specific decisions about
what will be done at every level of the org. to
accomplish the strategic plans.
• PR plans are both strategic and tactical. Decisions
concerning the long range nature of an organisation
often take public relations into consideration. PR staff
members must develop tactical plan to implement
and support strategic plan.
 Campaign plans (single use)

• Campaign are designed to accomplish unique

objectives, they must be planned using non routine
procedures.
• Elements for writing the campaign planning include
1. Establishing goals in relation to the mission
statement
2. Determining the present situation
3. Determining the threats and opportunities to
reaching goals
4 Researching and selecting your target audience
5 Developing a theme for the program
6 Developing the objectives for the plan
7 Creating strategies to accomplish the objective
8 Developing tactics to implement strategies
9 Creating evaluation techniques
10 Developing a budget
11 Working out a timetable
12 Assigning personnel
 Standing plans
• Standing plans provide routine responses to
recurring situations. Standing plans allow managers
to make more efficient use of their planning time
because they do not have to formulate a new plan
for every similar situation.
It has three types of plans
• Policies
• Procedures
• Rules
 Step 3: Implementation (action and
communication)
• The action process can be described as the diffusion
of information. The action process begins and ends
with target audiences.
• Characteristics of target audience are categorized as
1. Primary, intervening or moderating
2. Latent, aware or active
• Primary public is the group to which the action is
ultimately directed.
• Intervening publics have direct contact with the
primary audience and can pass messages along to
them.
• Moderating public are groups that share a common
goal and can make an impact on the primary public.
EX: Customers are reached out with distributers and
retailers.
• Latent public is not aware of a need to change or act.
• An aware public recognizes a need but it not prone
to any action, such as accepting a new idea.
• Active public is aware and ready to do something.
• Diffusion process: diffusion is a term used to
describe the way in which new ideas are adopted in
a society.
• Critical paths: to study the diffusion process through
which new ideas, products and technologies have
identified five steps that describe how people
change.
• Awareness : people become aware of the idea
although their knowledge is limited. Awareness
spread through mass media.
• Interest : people begin to develop an interest in the
idea and seek more information about it.
• Evaluation :people begin to apply the idea to their
individual situations.
• Trials : actual application begins, usually on small
scale.
• Adoption : once the idea is proven worthwhile, it is
adopted by the target audience.

EX: Mergers and acquisition in bank with employees

perspective.
 Channels of influence
• Mass media: electronic and print media
• Biased intermediaries: individuals or groups that
stand to benefit form another's adoption.( sales
people)
• Unbiased third parties: consumer groups, government
agencies
• Significant others: friends, relatives
• Personal experience: actual use of innovation
• Designing the public relations matrix: after the
appropriate channels of influence are determined and
target audiences selected, messages are prepared
within basic action categories.
• For ex., a news release prepared by the press relations
groups could have been initiated by the business
consumer manger and closely reviewed by other
managers for potential impact on media, employees ,
and government stakeholders.
 Step 4: Evaluation
• There are three level of evaluation of public
relation efforts:
• Preparation: examining the adequacy of the
background information that gathered, the
appropriateness of the message content and format
and quality of the messages.
• Implementation: measuring the number of
messages sent, the number of messages placed in
media, the number of people receiving the
messages.
• Impact : measure the number or percentage of the
audience who learn the message content, who
change their opinions, change attitude and who
behaved in the desired fashion.
 The need for evaluation research
Evaluation is frequently the beginning of a new effort.
There are three evaluation segments
• Implementation checking
• In progress monitoring
• Outcome evaluation
• Implementation checking: to determine the
difference between planned and actual
implementation.
• In progress monitoring: actions undertaken
should be reviewed and if necessary modified. These
reviews can be planned for regular intervals to
determine the effectiveness of the program in
meeting its objectives.
• Outcome evaluation : Final step is to assess the
program’s end results. Once again objectives and results are
compared to determine the variance.
 The behavioral PR model
• Jackson emphasized in his work that the ultimate
goal of public relations needs to be to change
behavior, not just to spread information
• Companies in crisis don't just need the public to
believe that the company is still trustworthy; they
need the public to continue to buy its products and
invest in its stocks.
 The Five Steps toward Behavioral Change

• According to Jackson, the process of changing the

public's behavior happens in five steps:
• (1) building awareness
• (2) developing a latent readiness
• (3) a triggering event
• (4) engaging in intermediate behavior and
• (5) making behavioral change.
Building awareness: through publicity, advertising, face-to-face
communication
Developing a latent readiness: Publics begin to form opinion at
this stage.
 Triggering event:   Publics want to change their behavior.
  Intermediate behavior: This is the investigative period when an
individual is determining how best to apply a desired
behavior.
  Behavioral change: through the adoption of a new behavior.
• 1. Building awareness -- This first step is perhaps the
most obvious. For ideas to spread, you have to share
them with others. Whether information about an
issue or idea is spread through the mass media or by
word of mouth, the information needs to be
available for public consumption.
• Developing a latent readiness -- Once the information
has reached the public, people begin to form opinions on the
issue.
• Different people may reach different opinions of differing
strengths, based on their personalities, values, and prior
beliefs.
• Those with stronger opinions in favour of the idea fully reach
the stage of latent readiness, meaning that they are
potentially ready to act on their opinion.
• 3. Triggering event -- This is an event or occurrence that is
likely to move those with a latent readiness to action.
• The event could be something natural and/or unplanned by
the public relations team (e.g., a hurricane, a virus outbreak, a
terrorist attack, etc.), or it could be something created by PR
representatives specifically to encourage those people
predisposed to action to finally take steps toward the desired
behavior.

• The new product is distributed in a public event

• 4. Intermediate behaviors -- These are the 'little
steps' that people take when they are considering
the larger behavioral change.
• These steps could include inquiry calls, taking
brochures, signing up for free trial periods, etc.
Although these little steps are not the ultimate
behavioral goal PR executives hope the public will
reach, they are important to note.
• Keeping track of these intermediate behaviors will
help to determine how well a message has been
received by the public and how many people are on
the cusp of taking the ultimately desired action.
• 5. Behavior change -- After demonstrating the intermediate
behaviors, hopefully some (if not many) will be persuaded to
make the ultimate behavior change.
• As mentioned earlier, this is the real goal of the public
relations message. Whether it is buying a product, investing
money, changing health-related behaviors, or taking some
other specific action, behavior changes are measurable
outputs of public relations and the ultimate success of the
process.
 Example
• let's look at a specific example regarding sales. Bob is considering
upgrading his car, and, in the process of reaching a decision to buy a new
car, he goes through Jackson's five-step process:
• Step 1: Awareness -- Bob sees a commercial on television for a new car
model.
• Step 2: Developing a latent readiness -- Bob thinks the car looks nice, and
he is impressed with the car's specifications.
• Step 3: Triggering event -- A local car dealership is having a large sales
event that includes the model Bob likes.
• Step 4: Intermediate behaviors -- Bob goes to the sales event, talks to a
salesperson, and takes a test drive.
• 5. Behavior change
 The Persuasion model

• The “Persuasion” model explains the steps necessary to get

people to change their minds and actions. First developed
by San Diego practitioner Kerry Tucker, this model involves
A. Creating dissatisfaction with existing behavior
B. Offering the desired behavior as a substitute for the
status quo
C. Explaining the benefits of new behavior or the
consequences of the old, and
D. Modeling the desired results
• The key is creating dissatisfaction with the status
quo. In effect, to see and agree that the existing
behaviour is wrong.
• Self persuasion kicks in any time existing beliefs are
challenged, and the normal reaction is to fight back
to defend one’s beliefs and behaviours.
• If a crack can be made in that wall of self-defense,
the second step offers the new idea as a solution to
the cognitive dissonance.
• It is to understand how and why people resolve
conflict in what they know, think or believe.
• Upon hearing that past or existing behavior could be
wrong will want to resolve this conflict. Tuckers
theory posits that offering the desired behavior as a
resolution at this point can lead to adopt the new
behavior.
• Finally modelling the desired behavior
presents a picture for the subject of the new
world in which new behaviour is the norm.
 Two –way symmetrical communication
model
• In 1984, James Grunig and Todd Hunt published the
Four Models of Public Relations as part of their book
Managing Public Relations.
• The model describes the different forms of
communication between an organisation and its
stakeholders.
• Uses communication to negotiate with the public,
resolve conflict and promote mutual understanding
and respect between the organization and
its stakeholders.
• According to Grunigs, communication must start
with understanding the wants and needs of the
subject and publics, and then shape the orgs.
Decisions and actions to meet that needs.
• The first model is publicity or press agent,
• The second is public relations information model,
• The third asymmetric persuasion, and
• The final one — the two-way symmetrical model
 Four frameworks of practice
Model Type of Communication Characteristics
1. Press agent or publicity One-way communication Uses persuasion and
manipulation to influence
audiences to behave as the
organisation desires.
2. Public information One-way communication Uses press releases and
model other one-way
communication techniques
to distribute organisational
information. The public
relations practitioner is
often referred to as the
inhouse journalist.
3. Two-way asymmetrical Two-way communication Uses persuasion and
model (imbalanced) manipulation to influence
audiences to behave as the
organisation desires. Does
not use research to find
out how stakeholders feel
about the organisation.
4. Two-way symmetrical Two-way communication Uses communication to
model negotiate with the public,
resolve conflict and
promote mutual
understanding and respect
between the organisation
and its stakeholders
 Two-way Symmetric
Create a dialogue. Talk with the organization’s publics.
Find out what they want.

THEN,
adapt the organization’s goals, practices, products to the expectations and needs of
specific publics.
 Two-Way Symmetric Model

McDonalds’ customers
tell them they are McDonalds changes Customers are loyal
concerned about Trans cooking oil used to because McDonalds
Fatty Acids in the oil M make French fries. listened…
uses for French fries. Or not…

Excellent Public Relations

Understanding, not Persuasion
• Grunig (1996) claim that use of the two-way
symmertrical model allows public relations
practitioners to “play key roles in adjusting or
adapting behaviors of [institutional] dominant
coalitions, thus bringing publics and dominant
coalitions closer together.”
• The two-way symmetrical model “emphasizes
communication exchange, reciprocity, and mutual
understanding” thereby allowing an organization to
adjust and adapt to each other until consensus is
reached.
• The two-way symmetrical model attempts to
ethically balance the interests of the organization
and its publics and uses research and communication
to manage conflicts.
 When communication is not enough
• Communication alone does not get an org. where it
needs to go. A theory beyond communication
involves altering the way society thinks and acts in
order to achieve the level of change needed to satisfy
an organizations goals.
• The first step in societal change is to affect mores.
More are the informal rules by which all agree to live.
• Although they are rarely written or formally
adopted they are very much a part of the way people
live and work.
• Once more have been in place long enough to become
established policy, laws are enacted to give them an official
status.
• Changing mores and creating new laws help to move an orgs.
agenda well past what could be done through communication
alone.
• A final step in the process is the engineered solution. When
persuasion, mores, and laws are ineffective, then a way to
physically prevent the behavior might follow.
THANK YOU