Download Phase Two: Strategy

Phase Two: Strategy
Step 5: Formulating Action and
Response Strategies
NINE STEPS OF STRATEGIC
PUBLIC RELATIONS
Phase One: Formative
Research
• Step 1: Analyzing the Situation
• Step 2: Analyzing the
Organization
(1) its internal environment
(mission, performance and
resources)
(2) its public perception
(reputation) and
(3) its external environment
(competitors and opponents,
as well as supporters)
• Step 3: Analyzing the Publics
Phase Two: Strategy
• Step 4: Establishing Goals and
Objectives
Awareness, acceptance or action
of each key public.
SMART
• Step 5: Formulating Action and
Response Strategies
How?
• Step 6: Using Effective
Communication
The sources who will present the
message to the key publics,
The content of the message, its
tone and style, verbal and
nonverbal cues…
NINE STEPS OF STRATEGIC
PUBLIC RELATIONS
Phase Three: Tactics
• Step 7: Choosing
Communication Tactics
(1) face to-face communication
(2) organizational media
(controlled media)
(3) news media (uncontrolled
media)
(4) advertising and promotional
media (another form of
controlled media).
• Step 8: Implementing the
Strategic Plan
Budgets and schedules…
Phase Four: Evaluative
Research
• Step 9: Evaluating the
Strategic Plan
Modify or continue the
communication activities?
Specific methods for measuring
the effectiveness of tactics
STRATEGY
• The heart of planning for PR
• Effective public relations involves deeds
as well as words.
• Proactive Strategies
• Reactive Strategies
PROACTIVE STRATEGIES
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Initiated by the organization.
Can be the most effective strategies.
Include both action and communication.
Proactive action strategies
Proactive communication strategies
PROACTIVE STRATEGIES
• Proactive Action
Strategies
• Organizational
performance
• Audience participation
• Special events
• Alliances and coalitions
• Sponsorships
• Proactive
Communication
Strategies
• Publicity
• Newsworthy information
• Transparent
communication
ORGANIZATIONAL
PERFORMANCE
• Can PR promote the good name of an
organization that doesn't give good
performance?
• Exploiting child laborers
• Cosmetics tested on animals
• Safety, pollution
• Adaptation
• Example: dental office wanting to attract
working people
AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION
• Information perceived as useful to the audience:
What's in it for me?
• Fund-raising letter for AIDS research
• Tactics that bring members of your publics into
direct contact with the products or services
• For examples: police departments, cosmetic
companies and health clubs.
• Generating feedback: tactics as toll-free phone
numbers, interactive Web sites, consumer
complaints hotline.
SPECIAL EVENTS
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Also for generating audience participation.
Consists of staged activities (pseudo-events).
Need to be legitimate?
Publicity stunt
http://www.taylorherring.com/blog/index.php/200
9/01/50-top-publicity-stunts
• How to distinguish a legitimate special event
from a publicity stunt, ask yourself:
• Even if the news media don't report this activity,
would it still be worthwhile?
SPECIAL EVENTS
• Unplanned triggering events can be more
effective.
• The death of Rock Hudson
• The student killings at Columbine High
School
ALLIANCES AND COALITIONS
• Two or more organizations join together in a common
purpose.
• Difference between the two.
• Cooperation around a single and often narrow issue.
• History theme park in Izmir by Izmir Chamber of
Commerce?
• Beneficial alliance between an organization and opinion
leaders
• A campaign to reduce AIDS and other sexually
transmitted diseases
• Targeting bartenders as opinion leaders
SPONSORSHIPS
• Gaining visibility and respect among key publics.
• Community relations
• Either providing a program directly or providing
the financial, personnel or other resources.
• Logical link between the activity being
sponsored and the purpose of organization
• An engineering faculty?
• Bookstore?
SPONSORSHIPS
• More intensive relationships between the
organization and its publics.
• Gay Games in New York City
• Miller Brewing Company as corporate
sponsor
• "The word is out there that there's a
substantial gay and lesbian market"
Harold Levine, marketing director for the
games
PROACTIVE COMMUNICATION
STRATEGIES
PUBLICITY
• A link between publicity and public support?
• Third-party endorsement
• A research: journalism is moving away from simply
reporting events to providing news analysis.
• 1960 and today.
• Lesson for PR practitioners?
• Negative publicity, Motorola stock
• Negative publicity is sometimes beneficial:Mel Gibson's
The Passion of the Christ
• Present newsworthy info with a visual dimension
NEWSWORTHY INFORMATION
• Analyze the relationship
among three things to
establish
newsworthiness:
(1) your organization's
activities and messages
(2) the media agenda
(3) the interests of a key
public
TRANSPARENT
COMMUNICATION
• Helps publics understand the organization and
support its actions.
• Publics are aware of facts but not reasons
behind those facts.
• “Just trust us" mentality is outdated.
• Confused and only partly informed publics
• A report on plane crash
• Employee and financial relations
REACTIVE PUBLIC RELATIONS
STRATEGIES
• Reactive mode when accusations or other
criticisms have been made.
• Outside forces
• Gaining public understanding, restoring
reputation, and rebuilding trust and
support.
• The field of crisis communication
management
REACTIVE PUBLIC RELATIONS
STRATEGIES
• Pre-emptive Action Strategy
• Offensive Response Strategy
• Defensive Response Strategy
PRE-EMPTIVE ACTION
STRATEGY
• Taken before the opposition launches its first
charge against the organization.
• Bad news is inevitable.
• Being the first one to tell the story.
• A report on the hospital
• Holding a news conference to announce the
forthcoming report
• Cares charity patients too poor to have regular
health care and being the only hospital in the
area treating AIDS.
OFFENSIVE RESPONSE
STRATEGY
• The premise: organization is operating from a
strong position in the face of opposition.
• Attack strategy, two examples.
• Dow Corning, handling a lawsuit over its
silicone-gel breast implants
• No reputable scientific evidence showed that
implants caused disease or illness
• Attacking the investigators
• Puts the corporation into bankruptcy
OFFENSIVE RESPONSE
STRATEGY
• Attack strategy:
• Itsy Bitsy Entertainment Company
• Criticism by Jerry Falwell that its Tinky Winky
Teletubby is a gay character
• Company spokesman Steve Rice:
• “Falwell was attacking something sweet and
innocent to further his conservative political
agenda. To out a Teletubby in a preschool show
is kind of sad on his part. I really find it absurd
and kind of offensive.”
OFFENSIVE RESPONSE
STRATEGY
• Shock:
• Deliberate agitation of the
mind or emotions,
particularly through the
use of surprise, disgust,
or some other strong and
unexpected stimulus
• PETA, "Unhappy Meal"
boxes at McDonald's
outlets in 23 countries
DEFENSIVE RESPONSE
STRATEGY
• Denial:
• The organization refuses to accept blame,
claiming that the problem doesn't exist, or
if it does, that it's not related to the
organization
• Innocence ("We didn't do it“)
DEFENSIVE RESPONSE
STRATEGY
Excuse:
• Lack of control, forced to
act in that way.
• Accident, factors beyond
anyone's control led to a
problem.
• Victimization, the
organization as the target
of criminals.
• Organization claims to
inherit a problem.
Justification:
• Admits the doing of the
act but for good reason.
• Context: the organization
asks its publics to "look at
it from our side.
• Mitigation: lessened
blame because of a factor
as illness or coercion
VOCAL COMMISERATION STRATEGIES
•
Condolence: expressing grief over
someone's loss without admitting
guilt, formal. For ex: airplane
crash.
• Apology: publicly
accepting full
responsibility and asking
forgiveness.
• Avoid pseudo-apologies.
• Often opposed by
lawyers.
• Immediate apologies may
be beneficial.
STRATEGIC INACTION
• Inaction
• Shortening the life span
of a crisis situation is
possible.
• Higher intentions as
compassion for victims,
respect for privacy or
because it is working on
the problem.
• Accepted only by publics
that already trust the
integrity of the
organization.
• Difficult to maintain if a
strong opponent is able to
insist.
• Risks allowing negative
statements to stand
unchallenged.
• Not the same as "no
comment”
• May make a public
statement giving the
reason not to address the
issue.