Category: PR

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PR

My Semester with Public Relations

As I continue with my major in Advertisement and Public Relations I still do not have a defined image the differences between advertisement, public relations, and marketing. However, with this semester coming to an end I can now more clearly see what public relations is and how it helps business or any type of organization. My fundamentals of public relations class demonstrated the importance of public relations that I had never seen before. It helps keeps business in a good public eye, but even more important is how hard they work behind the sense. They are there maintaining the brand’s image, keeping the public relation healthy, but also always preparing for anything that may go wrong. At the beginning of this class I described public relations as, “the way a business interacts with the public, allowing them to create the brand image they desire.”

Now I can see that this idea is correct but is missing a lot. Public relations handle much more than the brand image. They manage events, press conferences, and anything that involves communication with the public. I also can see that their goal is not to sell product or serves they are trying to sell the brand. Even if public relations is not trying to sell the product, other parts of the company are. It is important to remember that public relations runs along side advertisement and marketing. It takes all three of these departments to have a successful company. Sometimes through out this semester I was so amazed by how much the public relation department was in charge of I would forget about the other ones. I am an ad focused and I would always think of the ad way of going about things, so it was important for me to remember that I am not in the department for this class. I enjoyed learning about public relations through this class, however it reinforced my belief that I want to follow my career in ad. Even if I do not pursue a career in public relations I do think it was good I was able to learn the basics of it.

Knowing the basics of public relations will help me collaborate easier with public relations workers in the future. It will allow me to know what they are capital of and understand their point of view. I enjoy the selling of products and not brands, and therefore, want to continue my degree with an ad focus.

Through out this semester I have worked very hard on my first ever planned book. This plan book came with a real client and their current problems. It showed me that in public relations you can work for business and organizations no matter how big or small. This plan book took me step by step in how you would create one in a real public relations situation. Now that it is finished, it feels great to have the weight off my shoulders, but it also left me something to be proud of. Most college classes end and you get a grade and move on, but this class left me with a 45 page plan book that has all my hard work and ideas in.

Cover to Ryan Baldwin’s plan Book.

Not everything in the plan book went smoothly. It took a lot of research and preparation to complete. But now I can see all my hard work together and see that it was all worth it! Everything tought me something. From the cover teaching me how to do simple designs on Canvans, to the time line teaching me new skills at excel, I learned something new from everything I did.

Now becoming a senior, I look forward to applying this knowledge into my classes next year. I am excited to be one step closer to start my career in ad, and I know I will be using the knowledge I learned in this class for the rest of my life.

Categories
PR

PR in Sports

It is important for sports teams to have good light in the public’s eyes. They make money off fans supporting them whether they are doing good or bad. If the public does not support the team or does not have access to information about the team, is it impossible for the organization to make money. This is where public relations comes in. The public relations department will ensure positive interaction between the team and its fans, allowing the team to have a profit every season. According to Jacquie L’Etang, the author of Sports Public Relations, “Public Relations is impacted at all levels whether handling major sponsorship and media rights deals, events, promoting stars or increasing participation” (p. 2). This quote shows all the different things that a teams public relation department is in charge of, and how important it is to the financial success of that team.

Top Agency reports that three of the most important things to do in sports PR are to utilize social media, connect with fans, and become familiar with reporters form all publications. It is important for sports teams to use many different social media plat forms. This allows for them to reach the largest amount of fans. If there were to be an emergency with the team, a PR crisis, or any need to contact a large amount of the fans social media would be able to provide the team to ability to do that. Next, it is important to connect with fans because that will increase your brand loyalty even if the team is not doing well. Some way to interact with fans are volunteer work, social media, meet and greats, or give sways. Lastly it is important to be familiar with reports because these are the people you will be working with everyday. News stations, both local and national, will create reports on your team, therefore, it is important to have healthy relationships with them in order to influence what is and what is not shared about your team.

Public relations in sports does not solely focus on the teams. They also have to worry about the players. It is important for the public to feel close and attached to the individual players. This is what drives the sales of jerseys and support even if it is a down season. Players also ad a big risk to the teams public eye. When a player is caught cheating or suspended for breaking the law or any other reason, it reflects poorly on the team. This problem then must be solved by the public relations staff for that team. On the other hand, there is also very good people on each team who the PR staff will share more information with the public about. This will bring light to the team as a whole, as it will make them look like a bunch of nice friendly players instead of cheating mean ones.

Sports Public Relations
Zoe Bernstein
Public Relations in Sports Industry. Word Press.

Joe Favorito, the author of Sports Publicity: A Partial Approach, brings up a third way PR is used in sports, which is working for the league. The things that a PR person for a league would do is, inform fans on any changes in the league such as rules, release stats and records, over see national or international media coverage, run championships or special events, and handle league wide crisis. These are things that individual teams are not in charge of or cannot control, so the league does it as a whole. Working for the league means you must communicate with the whole nation or world depending where teams or located. This is very large audience which must be reached, but it is important to make sure all fans are informed about what ever is happening. Not keeping fans update could cause them to lose interest in that sport, and possibly move on to a new one.

PR plays a big role in the sport business. It is important from each individual player, to the team, all the way up to the league. This keeps fans engaged with the sport and prevents any backlash that teams, leagues, or players may have throughout a season. PR is important in the finical success of any sports league.

Categories
PR social media

Social Media, Developing New Types of Communication for Businesses

Companies use to have a harder time communicating with the public The best way was to get the attention of a news station or a journalist. However, with the invention of the internet and social media, companies are now able to communicate dirtily and faster with their consumers. Today 81% of public relations professionals say they could not do their job effectively with out social media. Social media provides unique ways for companies to both advertise to customers, but also communicate with them.

When social media was first develop, it changed the way companies where able to communicate with consumers. This was the first time that there was two way communication between the two. For the first time the public could interact with a company at any time and any where. The public could complain to the company or they could praise them. Either way, it was important for companies to learn how to respond to these posts, or if they should respond at all. As of today, it is kind of expected for a company to respond to a consumer posting to them on any social media plat form. If not it appears that the company does not care about their consumers views, or worse that if there is something wrong the company does not want to fix it. On the other hand, companies who are very interactive with their consumers on social plat forms, or normally praised. People like to see a company respond or interact with their posts, it shows they care and are thankful for their consumers. By making the customers happy through social media it will make them enjoy your company and products more.

Two Way Communication
Alvi, M.
Retrieved on 2/23/2020. Pinerest.

One thing social media allows companies to do is give off a stronger brand imagine or voice. This is mostly do to the increase amount of communication between the company and business. With constant posting and communication it is important to have public relations professionals running this accounts. They are trained in sticking to the brand image and not drifting off. The public will feel notice and questions why a companies page is different than how it was the week before. It doesn’t matter if the image the brand is trying to achieve is funny, witty, or mean, it just matters that they stick to it. Social media allows brands to increase their personality and really show off their brand image.

Social media also speeds up the world of business. However, this is most prominent in the section of public relations. They must solve crisis, communicate with the public, and stay loyal to their brand image. Another part of public relations effect by this speed up realm of social media is the life span of news. Sense social media moves so quickly, the life span of a news story is much short than it use to be. This does not mean it reaches less people. In fact it reaches even more people due to social media, even with its decrease life span. To summarize, news has a short life span, but reaches more people than ever before. This is all thanks to how fast past social media is.

With the invention of social media. Public relations and business were changed for every. They had to adjust to this fast pace world. They also needed to learn how to deal with the two way communication they were not exposed too. Companies are now able to express their brands way more than ever before, which allows customers to know their company on a more personal level. When working for a business or a public relations firm it is important to understand the important of social media because its importance is only going to grow.

Categories
PR social media

Crisis in a Pod

In early 2018 Tide had a public relations crisis it never saw coming. A new internet trend was becoming popular with teens, where they would record themselves eating a Tide Pod and post the video online. As these videos got more popular they gained the name, “The Tide Pod challenge.” The goal of the challenge was to consume a whole Tide Pod. Obviously there are major health concern when eating a Tide Pod. They are full of chemicals which should not enter your body. One element that made this public relations crisis so unique, was that nothing Tide did started the problem. They did not post anything which resulted in backlash, one day teens just started to eat their product for attention. Tide had to stop this challenge for the health of their customers and to maintain a good public image.

According to Brooke Fisher Liu, Lucinda Austin, and Yan Jin, who are all professors in communication working for colleges across the United States, during a crisis you need to find the medium that the information is being spreed on, this includes traditional media, social media, or word of mouth. Once finding out which media the crisis is spreading on, the company should use that same medium to address or fix the crisis. In terms of the Tide Pod eating crisis, everything was happening on social media. Therefore, Tide used the same social media plat forms to communicate with it’s customers and address the situation.

How to Communicate in a Crisis
Dennis L. Wilcox, Glen T. Cameron, and Bryan H. Reber
2015. Public Relations Strategies and Tactics, Updated 11th edition

Above is a graphic from the book, “Public Relations Strageigies and Tactics, Updated 11th Edition” by Dennis L. Wilcox, Glen T Cameron, and Bryan H. Reber. In this digram it shows many things a company in a PR crisis should do.

Tide did many of the things they recommended to start, they put the public first. They cared the most about their customers health which was at risk from eating the Tide Pods. They quickly went public about knowing the situation and wanted to inform the public about the dangers of consuming their product.

The next thing on the graphic is to have a spokesperson. Tide went out and got Rob Gronkowski, at the time the Patriots tight end, to represent the brand in this crisis. Gronkowski appeared in twitter videos urging people not to eat Tide Pods no matter what. According to William Comcowich, who works in media measurement and analytics in both tradition and social media, explains that Gronkowski was the perfect for this situation. Gronkowski is popular among teens both online and on the field. By picking Gronkowskui they were able to gain more attention by the desired market.

Throughout this crisis Tide was involved in the media to inform about the dangers and also trying to get ride of the challenge. They worked together with social plat forms such as you tube to remove videos of teens eating the pods to stop the spread of the challenged. They did not want to allow the kids to gain attention from eating them and encourage others to do the same. However, the graph states the cover up story can become the story, Tide did not cover anything up. They just acknowledged what was happening. They let the public know that teens were eating them, and that Tide was trying to help.

Tide did not want to be at fault of this situation because they believed they did nothing wrong. They were not marketing Tide Pods to be tasty or that they should be ate, so in their mind, Tide was not responsible for the issue happening. The Wharton University of Pennsylvania explained how Tide made sure they would not be at fault for the social media trend. Tide reminded them off all the safety features they have to discourage people from eating the pods. To start they have a bitter film that coasts each pod. This film taste awful, it is there to make people spit it out if they were to put the pod in their mouth. The other safety feature Tide Pods have is their lid requires an adult hand to open it. These safety features of cores apply more to preventing young kids from eating the pods. Tide believes it is common knowledge that all teens and adults know to not eat soap or other dangerous chemicals, but they still shared their safety features with the public to show they do not encourage the consumption of their product.

Throughout this crisis Tide handled them selves very well and avoided any back lash these teens could have caused. The public did not think it was Tides fault and that it was the dumb teens fault for eating something they obviously should not. The fad of Tide Pod eating also ended shortly after Tides involvement on social media. If Tide would not have done anything about this situation then they probably would have received backlash for not caring about the health of their customers. Tide handled this crisis very well and prevented any negative views to form about their company.

References

Wilcox D.L, Cameron G.T, and Reber B.H. (2015). Public Relations: Strategies and Tactics: 11 Edition. Pearson.

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