Public Relations

What is public relations?

• “Public relations is a
management tool for
leaders in business,
government and
other institutions to
establish beneficial
relationships with
other institutions
and groups”
 Four steps necessary for PR
• First, identify your
publics--your
existing
relationships
• Second, evaluate
the relationships
using research
• Design policies to
improve the relation-
ships

• Implement the
policies
– “enlightened self-
interest”
 Role of public relations in a
democracy
• A way for public to • A safety valve for
speak its desires & freedom
interests to • An essential
organizations element to keep us
• A way to achieve informed
mutual adjustments • Can help activate
between institutions social conscience of
and groups organizations where
we work
Origins of public relations
• Moguls in trouble
• Vanderbilt
• social Darwinism
• Ivy Lee
• Rockefeller
• Ludlow Massacre
• Philanthropy
 Public relations on a new
scale

• World War I
• George Creel--Creel Committee
• World War II
• Elmer Davis--Office of War Information
• Corporate giving
– Minneapolis--5% club
– United Way campaigns
 Edward Bernays
• Freud’s nephew
• WWI Creel Comm.
• 1923 Crystallizing
Public Opinion
• 1955 “Engineering
of Consent”
• Social responsibility
 Structure of public relations

• Arthur Page at AT&T

• PR as a management function
• External relations
• Internal relations
• Media relations
• PR agencies
 PR services
• Publicity & • Fundraising
promotion • Contingency
• Lobbying planning
• Political • Polling
communication • Events coordination
• Image consulting
• Financial PR
 PR and advertising
• Both persuade
through mass media
• PR shapes org
policy
• Sells points of view
and images
• PR tries to influence
media to tell its story
a certain way
 Integrated marketing
communications

• Hot new buzz word.

• IMC--attempts to coordinate advertising
as a marketing tool with promotion and
publicity of the sort that PR experts can
provide.
• Ad agencies move into PR
• Overlap in institutional advertising
 Media relations: crisis
management
• Open media
relations
– Tylenol case history
• Proactive media
relations
– Persian Gulf
 Steps in Tylenol case
• Halt Tylenol • Staff press center -
manufacture & 50 PR experts for
distribution media & consumers
• Remove Tylenol • Ordered internal co.
from stores investigation
• Launch massive ad • Full cooperation with
campaign to gov’t investigators
exchange Tylenol • Tamper proof pkg.
for safe product
 Proactive media relations
• Crisis management
– seize leadership on a
story
• Persian Gulf war
– Pentagon
spokesman with
Defense Sec’y &
Chiefs of Staff
– Lots of news
briefings
 Adversarial media relations

• General Motors 1954 severed media

relations with information boycott
• Mobil oil’s Herb Schmertz attacked
media critics
– Use of paid advertising, ‘advertorials’
– Use corporate reps to tell Mobil’s side
– Respond to any media criticism of oil
industry
 Professionalization of PR

• Tarnished image
– PT Barnum “Huckster”
– “whitewashing”
– “Flaks”
– “public information,” “public affairs,”
“corporate communication” departments
• Standards,certification, accreditation
• Professional associations