News - Nov 06
The Role of Public Relations in Today’s Business Climate
In the world of integrated marketing, the lines between advertising, communications and public relations have become almost non-existent. Just what role does Public Relations play in the today’s mix?
To find the answer, experts in the field were called upon. In order to get a good cross section of opinions, both PR agency and corporate people were asked to respond. The responses that follow leave no doubt why these people are experts in their field.
As the corporate scandals of 2002 made abundantly clear, a company’s reputation is paramount to its success, if not its survival. The fallout of corporate greed has broad implications, including some that hit home for average civilians in the form of unemployment and depleted retirement savings.
As a result, corporate credibility is at an all-time low, and public mistrust has spilled over into investment markets. This creates a considerable need to restore public faith, and public relations professionals will play a vital role in leading the charge.
Reputation and Why it Matters
Reputation can account for a large portion of a company’s market capitalization, and can be its most important long-term asset. It impacts an organization in a myriad of ways, including stock price, and the ability to attract and retain customers and employees. Corporate reputation is based on factors such as:
- Quality of products or services
- Earnings and business performance
- Stability and fairness as an employer
- Level of integrity in business practices
- Degree of honesty and openness
- Involvement in local communities.
Today, with distrust of the corporate world at an all-time high, corporate credibility is an over-riding factor. Whether they like it or not, companies today are at the mercy of public constituencies. That means there is growing recognition of the need to foster a good reputation by developing positive relationships with various publics.
How Corporate America Got Into Trouble
Each of the companies caught up in scandal made the same mistake: failing to focus on the concerns of their publics. If publics are the groups a company relies on for success, it is dangerous to neglect them by:
- Focusing on share price to the detriment of quality and integrity
- Forming boards that are not designed for strong corporate governance
- Misleading shareholders, employees and others by not sharing the full story
- Emphasizing what is legal, rather than what is ethical
- Jeopardizing employee jobs and savings through business misconduct
How Companies Can Restore Trust
There are formal definitions of the term "public relations," yet its meaning is self-evident; it is the management of relationships between an organization and the constituencies upon which it depends.
Quite literally, public relations is managing relations with various publics, a role that grows in importance as reputation becomes ever more critical to business success. Companies can restore trust in a number of ways, many involving traditional PR strategies, such as:
- Using integrity and fairness as criteria for all business decisions
- Maintaining an emphasis on quality of products or services
- Openly sharing truthful information with all publics
- Actively seeking input from publics and being responsive to concerns
- Renewing a commitment to local communities
- Creating forums to encourage dialogue with constituencies
The bottom line is that companies must make it a priority to value the needs of all publics, and to forge good relationships with them. The cornerstone of a good relationship is trust, and trust is based on open and honest communication. Effective public relations tells a company’s story in a way that is accurate, honest, and easy to understand, helping to establish a reputation for credibility.
A good relationship also requires a willingness to listen, and true public relations is a two-way process. PR professionals recognize that to manage relationships, they must understand and respect public concerns and viewpoints. They must also go a step further, to serve as the public’s advocate within an organization.
In effect, corporate public relations professionals frequently play the role of an outsider. By questioning decisions and their impact on customers, the community, employees, and others, public relation professionals bring the public perspective to an organization, fostering its ability to be responsive to public concerns.
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Careers in Advertising Top choice for Todays Students
A major survey commissioned by Euro RSCG Worldwide shows that the advertising and marketing industry retains plenty of appeal for both industry insiders and students to embark on their careers.
When asked in which three of a group of 19 industries they’d most like to work, respondents put "advertising agency/marketing firm" head and shoulders above the other venues, with 38% of students and 79% of ad industry professionals including it among their three choices. No other industry came even close to advertising in the professionals’ responses.
What makes advertising so appealing as a career that it beats out investment banking, retail, tech companies and law (among many others)? Nearly all the students who wish to pursue a career in advertising said their interest stems from its reputation as a fun business to be in (97%). And strong majorities cited the opportunity to do creative work (88%), the high earnings potential (87%), and the collaborative environment (83%).
Despite a glittering reputation, much of advertising is sheer hard work and long hours. Salaries can be quite modest at the start and work practices are often anti-social. Advertising is not for those who are looking for a "9 to 5" job. It is a business of people and ideas; so an interest in people, working with others and in pulling together in an enthusiastic team are basic requirements for anyone who wants to succeed in advertising.
There are thousands of jobs involved in advertising from designers and artists to illustrators and TV and radio producers. The main jobs with advertising agencies are:
- Account Managers
- Copywriters
- Agency Producers
- Market Research and Planning
- Media Planners
The four main strands to the advertising game are:
- The Creative Department
- The Account Executives
- The Strategic Planners
- The Media Staff
The creative department is where the advertising is invented by writers (Copywriters) and artists (Art Directors), often working in teams. Art Directors usually enter through Art College or some technical artistic training. It is more difficult to identify the source for Copywriters, they may have an English degree or one in behavioural sciences; often it is just the ability to write short, memorable texts that will identify their talent.
Many people still start "at the bottom" in advertising, perhaps in despatch or as a junior typist. The qualities an employer would be looking for would include an ability to work hard, a good personality, plenty of common sense, enthusiasm, an ability to mix with people and proof of some academic or other relevant skills. Good literacy, numerical skills and computer know-how are distinct advantages. Any relevant experience in selling or promotion is also an advantage.
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Today’s PA is a highly-qualified and career-minded professional
Modern admin professionals are just as likely to be dealing with PR and the payroll as they are to be juggling dates for the boss’s diary and taking dictation. So says a new OfficeTeam survey of 1,200 professionals throughout the UK and Ireland.
Rising Responsibilities…
The top areas where admin professionals felt that their level of responsibility had grown over the last two years are:
Office/facilities management (73%)
Human resources (54%)
PR and marketing (53%)
Finance (42%)
The key areas where respondents felt that their level of responsibility would continue to grow are:
Office/facilities management (76%)
Human resources (47%)
PR and marketing (37%)
…And Stress Levels
Respondents are more stretched than ever before, and stress levels appear to be at an all-time high. One third of respondents stated that they are more stressed now than they were one year ago. The most frequently cited reason for this was the increased volume of work. Almost half, 48%, also said that there were fewer people to share the workload with compared to last year, and 40% said they are working longer hours than a year ago.
But secretaries are still happy
The biggest factors influencing their satisfaction levels, in order of importance, were:
1. Getting on with their colleagues (92%)
2. Receiving personal recognition for their work (88%)
3. Financial compensation (85%)
And they are better qualified than ever
The more career-savvy professional is also well-qualified: one-quarter of the survey’s respondents had a degree, and seven percent hold a masters or post-graduate qualification.
When asked their reasons for choosing a career as an administrative professional, almost half (47%) of secretaries said being a secretary with definite career steps appealed to them. Only a quarter of respondents working in administration (24%) saw the same appeal, and even fewer working in reception (10%) cited the same reason.
Just 21% of the Pas and secretaries were aged under 30, compared to 57% of those in a clerical role, suggesting that career secretaries are more experienced and set on fulfilling their ambitions.
Career-minded admin professionals know that training is key to progression, with 83% commenting that learning new skills was important. However, two-thirds were dissatisfied with the training they received, and over a quarter (27%) had not been offered any kind of training at all.
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PR - ’Vanity’ being unfair with my photo, says Pitt
A picture speaks a thousand words they say. And those thousand angry words are coming from Hollywood hunk Brad Pitt, who is irked with his near nude photo gracing the cover of ’Vanity Fair’ magazine’s December edition.
In the photo, the 42-year-old Troy actor is sporting boxer shorts with a pair of white socks and nothing else, with water dripping down his body. The picture is part of an art project by Robert Wilson, who also shot Isabella Rossellini, Robert Downey Jr, Sean Penn, Winona Ryder and Willem Dafoe in the project.
The December edition of the magazine features Wilson, and hence, his artworks. But the explanation did not sit well with Pitt, who called the usage of the photograph ’unauthorized’. “We are very disappointed that Vanity Fair has chosen to put an unauthorized cover on their magazine. It seriously makes me question their integrity and motives,” the actor’s publicist said. Pitt’s managers are mulling legal action against the magazine, a strange move considering the actor has appeared topless on the covers of the magazine twice.
The photograph is a still taken from a video clipping that shows Pitt being soaked with water and he firing water from a pistol into the camera. The video clipping has also been put up on the magazine’s Web site.
Defending its decision to put Pitt on the cover, Vanity Fair said there is nothing unauthorized about the picture. “Brad Pitt posed for a Robert Wilson video portrait, and in the photo release agreed to allow Wilson to use the portrait or any images from that sitting in connection with any publicity. Vanity Fair decided to do a story on Wilson’s video portraits and obtained rights to the entire collection of photographs from those sittings, which included Pitt’s,” the magazine said in a statement.
It added that Pitt was informed earlier of its intention to use the topless photo on its cover. “In a letter dated October 5, 2006, and sent to Pitt, care of Brillstein-Grey, Wilson informed Pitt that a still image from his portrait was going to be featured in the December art issue of Vanity Fair,” the magazine said.
But Pitt’s publicist said that news of the photograph being used on the cover reached the actor, who is now in India shooting for A Mighty Heart, only when the edition’s snapshots started circulating on the Web. The pictures and the video footage were originally meant for an exhibition to be held in New York in 2007.
Meanwhile, the Vanity Fair’s December issue will hit the stands on November 7.
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Yahoo on Its Way to Pioneer Mobile Advertisement
Yahoo has recently announced that it is likely to begin experiment with an advertising platform, which will be serving ads especially customized for smaller screens. The company is also working on sorting out problem of bandwidth constraints of mobile phones. However, cell phone users are at present able to use their phones for internet and for search operations but without banner ads.
Though many companies have customized their websites specifically for the mobile phones but the technology is not robust enough to include banner ads or other forms of interactive advertisements. Now Yahoo has started to experiment to enable these ads to appear on cell phones. Pepsi is likely to be among the first advertisers to try this platform of Yahoo.
If the present experiment turns out to be successful, Yahoo, which is trailing Google in search ads, will surely be able to receive a significant boost to its advertisement revenue. Moreover, this is a pre-mature stage to speculate whether revenue from this platform will be able to offset the difference created by search ads.
