Chapter 8: Planning

 

To plan, or not to plan? If you are a public relations practitioner, the answer is always “to plan.” Chapter 8 focuses on the importance of planning. The most important part of a plan, however, is knowing the answer to this question: “What values-based outcome do you seek?” You have to know exactly what you’re looking for before you start searching, and you have to make sure it is in line with your client’s values as well as your own. There are three types of public relations plans: ad hoc plans, standing plans, and contingency plans. Ad hoc plans are temporary; they are not meant to last for very long. Standing plans, on the other hand, are plans intended to foster long-term relationships. Contingency plans are for emergencies. An example of this kind of plan is when KFC came up with an emergency plan for if/when the bird flu struck the United States. The bird flu never really struck the U.S., however, so they did not have to actually implement the plan. Their PR agents just had to make sure their publics knew they were going to be safe if the flu struck.

The structure of a good public relations plan consists of general goals, measurable objectives, strategies, and specific tactics. You start with a general goal, which states the outcome you intend your plan to achieve. From your goal you get your objectives, of which you usually have two or three. The objectives are a little more specific. According to the PRSA Accreditation Board, objectives are “specific milestones that measure progress toward achievement of a goal.” Once you have your objectives, you write your strategies, which are general statements describing your tactics. Finally, your tactics are your specific recommended actions. You usually have several tactics seeing as they are ultimately what you are proposing to do. Put all of your goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics together, and you have a plan.

The chapter ends by discussing what the qualities of a good plan are. First of all, it must support a specific goal of your organization. For example, in Chick-fil-a’s mission statement, it says that their goal is to be the best quick-service restaurant. So, any public relations plan would need to keep that primary goal in mind. Furthermore a good plan is realistic and flexible. There is no point in coming up with a brilliant plan if an organization does not have the budget to pay for it. The plan ought to be a win-win scenario. You want the end result to benefit your publics as well as your organization. Finally, a good plan must be values-driven. Going back to the Chick-fil-a example, in their corporate purpose statement they say that they seek to “glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us.” If their public relations practitioners then told Chick-fil-a to do something that went against their religious values, it would be completely pointless. A values-driven approach is probably the most important part of any plan.

Chapter 7: Research and Evaluation

In public relations, you cannot get accomplish anything without doing your homework. In order to know how to reach your public, you must do the research. More than that, however, you have to do your research well. While evaluation is technically the fourth step in the public relations process, it really ought to be implemented throughout the process. As the beginning our book suggested, public relations is not so much of a step-by-step process as it is a fluid every-step-affecting-each-step-all-the-time kind of process. Therefore, as you conduct your research, you ought to be evaluating all work every step of the way. The two primary questions one ought to ask are “What do I want to know?” and “How will I gather that information?”

There are several types of research that can help you find the answers to the latter question: client research, which focuses on the individual client; stakeholder research, which focuses on identifying specific publics important to the success of the client; problem-opportunity research, which helps the organization decide whether and how to act; and evaluation research, which is procedures for determining the success of a public relations plan. You have formal research and informal research. You can use feedback research, communication audits, focus groups, or survey research. All that to say, the possibilities for research are endless. Having done your homework you now have a foundation for your public relations plan.

But enough regurgitation of the text. Let’s move on to an example of the importance of research in PR. In 2005, the Brookhaven National Laboratory, which had a national spending of $4.76 billion from 1993 to 2003, was facing a $18 million cut in the budget for their Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. I’d rather not get into all the geeky scientific stuff about the project, but basically they made an incredible discovery right at the same time as they found out that they were getting major budget cuts. They wanted to use this breakthrough as incentive for why Washington should not cut their budget, yet at the same time they did not want to it to be obvious that they were trying to sway votes. Essentially they had to use this discovery to their advantage without appearing to do so. They worked with M. Booth & Associates to come up with a plan to figure out how to accomplish their goals. Their first step in the research process was to look up the schedule for any upcoming scientific conferences. They chose one in Florida that was just 5 weeks away. In the weeks before the conference, they called major science reporters to see if they were going, but it turned out they were not. They ended up announcing it on their website on a password protected page so that only certain people could see it. They sought out certain influential people who would understand the importance of this announcement. After the April 18 announcement, everything went according to plan. The budget was not cut, and most people did not even pick up on the fact that the announcement was timed right after the cuts were announced. Several stories saw the irony of it, but they made no accusations. So M. Booth & Associates’ decision to plan and do research ended up working out very favorably for their client.

Publics in PR

Chapter 4 in our textbook focuses on the publics in PR. As the book phrased it, “publics may be as impossible to count as the stars.” The authors did, however, organize the various types of publics into different categories such as traditional/nontraditional, latent/aware/active, intervening, primary/secondary, internal/external, and domestic/international publics. While all publics are important, certain publics take precedence over others. For example, your primary publics’ opinions are always your priority over those of your secondary publics’. The book also discusses the research process called coorientation. To me, coorientation seems to be a very wise strategy to take. It eliminates reliance on assumptions and encourages companies to step out and actually find out what their publics are thinking rather than just guessing and running with it.

One of the traditional publics that the text talks about is employees. As I was reading that particular section, it made me think about a company I have read about that takes the employees first approach to the way they run their business.  Southwest Airlines has always made their employees their priority. Herb Kelleher, the CEO from the company’s founding until his retirement in 2001, said once, “Customers are not always right, and I think that is one of the biggest betrayals of your people you can possibly commit. The customer is frequently wrong. We don’t carry those sorts of customers. We write them and say, ‘Fly somebody else. Don’t abuse our people.’” While I’m sure Southwest Airlines public relations practitioner had to do a little bit of work to ensure that no customers were offended by this statement, one can see the difference that Kelleher’s attitude towards his employees made. By putting them first, he gained their loyalty. Southwest Airlines has been rated one of the top ten places to work, and it’s said that it is easier to get accepted into Harvard than it is to get a job there. And the customers are happy as well because the employees are happier and provide excellent service. So I think this is a prime example of the importance of maintaining a good relationship with your primary publics.

Skills Required in PR/Chapter 2

Chapter 2 takes a practical look at what working in PR really means. It talks about the various employment setting: corporations, nonprofit organizations and trade associations, governments, PR agencies, and independent PR consultancies. Within each of those employment settings there is a wide variety of different possible  jobs. Starting salaries are not typically very high, but surveys say that most people in PR are in it for their own personal satisfaction, rather than for the salary.

As I looked at various ads for PR jobs, many stated that they were looking for someone who takes initiative and is a quick thinker. They valued people who are versatile and basically ready for anything. Many were looking for someone with more experience than a mere college graduate. I think a person would need incredible people skills to be in PR. That is kind of a given, but all the same. In order to establish that “productive relationship” you have to be skilled in tact and diplomacy and persuasion. You have to be good at putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and seeing life from their point of view. I think a person would need to be flexible and be able to expect the unexpected. Considering the fact that all people are different, a person in PR would need to be prepared to have a different approach for each of his or her public(s).

Key Ideas from Ch. 13

Chapter 13 takes a look at the current world of marketing and its shift from mass marketing to consumer-focused marketing. Companies are realizing that they can no longer reach their public through mass media. Consumers want more individual attention, and organizations must find a way to meet that desire. With current technologies, this is a realistic goal. However, this being such a new form of reaching a public, it requires more research and attention from various communications disciplines. Consumer-focused marketing is a combined effort by advertising, marketing promotions pricing, and public relations, to name a few of the disciplines that are a part of this new form of marketing.

Public relations still remains its own field, however. Marketing, consumer-focused or otherwise, is just that: focused on a consumer. Public relations focuses not only on the consumer, but also the employees and stockholders and anyone else who may hear about the represented organization.

Key Points from Ch. 1

Public relations is a growing field that is cause for some disagreement as no one can come up with a simple definition for it. As discussed in previous posts, there are many definitions floating around, some concise, others complicated. The textbook outlines five aspects of public relations that appear in most definitions: Public relations: is a management function, involves two-way communication, is a planned activity, is a research-based social science, and is socially responsible. The gist that I got after reading what the authors had to say about the definition is that public relations is about the relationship between an organization and its public(s).

Another important topic covered in this chapter is the public relations process. There is a traditional four-step model that has stood the test time of time. It involves research, planning, communication, and evaluation. The problem with the model is that it makes public relations sound like a linear process, when in reality it is a dynamic process. All four of the phases can happen repeatedly at different times in different orders. You cannot really know what to expect, so you just have to be ready for anything.

The final aspect of public relations that the chapter discussed was that of the role of values in public relations. The lack of values in the four step process of public relations is its final flaw. The textbook authors suggest a revised version of the model which they call values-driven public relations. Their suggested alternate definition of public relations is this: public relations is the values-driven management of relationships between an organization and the publics that can affect its success.

Thoughts on Everyone Else’s Definitions of PR

It would seem that, along with every other term found in communication studies, PR is impossible to define. Everyone has an opinion on it, and ultimately no one can agree on one simple definition. That is most likely because PR, like the humans that created it, is complex and is constantly evolving as society changes. While everyone cannot agree on a definition, most of the sources I looked at agreed that PR is indefinable. The most common trend in everyone’s takes on PR was that it is a relationship of some kind that spans between the company and its public(s). People differ on whether the company is communicating with the general public, or a specific public. I would think that only having a specific public in mind sounds more like marketing than PR.

While I understand that no one in our post-modern society likes to be boxed in, I do wish we could make everyone’s live a little easier and just decide on a certain way to define PR and leave it at that. I personally liked the Canadian Public Relations Society’s take on it. I do, however, accept that there will most likely never come a day when everyone can come to a consensus.

My Definition of PR

From my limited experience, I consider PR to be basically the information that a company gives out to the public in press releases or press conferences. Sometimes it is a way to get a company’s name out there, other times it is to save a company’s name after they have experienced some sort of crisis. For example, when the bad batch of peanuts went out last year and tons of people were getting salmonella from peanut butter and anything else that had peanuts in it, the Girl Scouts PR people released a statement saying that none of their cookies contained peanuts that came from the bad peanut plant.  Public relations essentially functions as the “face of the company.”

Who is Carolina?

Well, my name is a perfect segway into my background since it ends with an “a” rather than an “e” as one would expect. I was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and they don’t allow people to give their children names that are not Spanish. So rather than being called “Caroline,” I’m Carolina. I moved to the United States when I was thirteen, and have lived in South Carolina ever since.  I’m a Communication Studies major at Clemson, and I love it. It is the perfect major for me becaues I am so fascinated by the subject of communicating. I think I might die if I were a science or math major.  Communication, however, is both challenging and fun and I also like that we are encouraged to have social lives because that looks better on a resume than a 4.0.  My goal for after graduation is to get a job as an interpreter, possibly at a hospital. But I don’t like to think about graduating. I am very happy where I am right now!

Apart from school, I love hanging out with my friends, going swing dancing, going to the lake, anything outdoors, and any other fun adventure I can think of!

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