Public relations (PR) involves managing relationships with various groups, known as publics, that have interest in or can impact a company's objectives. PR uses tools like events, written materials, and web content to promote a company's image and products. The key functions of a PR department are press relations, product publicity, corporate communications, lobbying, and advising management. While marketing focuses on customers, distributors, and competitors, PR considers a wider range of publics. Marketing public relations (MPR) specifically supports corporate promotion and image building through unpaid media coverage.

1. 1
CHAPTER SEVEN:
PUBLIC RELATION MANAGEMENT:

2. Public Relations
 Every company can not only relate itself to
customers, suppliers, and dealers, it must also relate
to a large number of interested publics.
 A public is any group that has an actual or potential
interest in or impact on a company’s ability to achieve
its objectives.
 Public relations (PR) includes a variety of programs to
promote or protect a company’s image or individual
products.

3. Definition of PR
 Simple definition of public relations is: ‘the development
off and maintenance of good relationships with different
publics’.
 The publics are the range of different groups on which an
organization is dependent.
 These include employees, investors, suppliers, customers,
distributors, legislators, regulators, governments,
pressure groups, the community, the media and even the
competition.
 Most of these groups have different (sometimes
conflicting) interests in any particular organization.

4. Cont….
 The Institute of Public Relations defines PR as:
‘‘ the planned and sustained effort to
establish and maintain goodwill and mutual
understanding between an organization and
its publics”
4

5. Cont….
 Others scholars considered PR as:
A system of building good relations with the
company’s various publics by obtaining favorable
publicity, building up a good “corporate image” and
handling or heading off unfavorable rumors, stories
and events.

6. Special
Events
Written
Materials
Corporate
Identity
Materials Speeches
News
Audiovisual
Materials
Major Public Relations Tools
Public
Service
Activities
Web Site

7. Cont…
 The wise company takes concrete steps to manage
successful relationships with its key publics.
 Most companies have a public relations department
that monitors the attitudes of the organization’s publics
and distributes information and communications to build
goodwill.

8. Cont…
PR department perform the following five functions:
1. Press relations—Presenting news and information about
the organization in the most positive light
2. Product publicity—Sponsoring efforts to publicize specific
products
3. Corporate communications—Promoting understanding of
the organization through internal and external
communications
4. Lobbying—Dealing with legislators and government
officials to promote or defeat legislation and regulation
5. Counseling—Advising management about public issues,
and company positions and image during good times and bad

9. Public relations and marketing
While marketing traditionally focuses on markets or
just three of the publics, ie customers, distributors
(the ‘trade’) and the competition, public relations is
concerned with many more publics.
Add in the emergence of globalism (eg websites can
be viewed around the world), increased media
interest in business, new investor criteria (eg ethical
policies), more effective pressure groups,
information-hungry customers and the constant
search for cost-effective communications tools, and
you can soon see why PR has grown in importance.

10. Public relations and marketing
In fact, PR proved its increasing influence with the
emergence of major global brands like Google,
Facebook and LinkedIn without any significant
advertising.

11. Marketing Public Relations
 Many companies are turning to marketing public
relations (MPR) to support corporate or product
promotion and image making.
 MPR, like financial PR and community PR, serves a
special constituency, the marketing department.
 The old name for MPR was publicity, the task of
securing editorial space—as opposed to paid
space—in print and broadcast media to promote or
“hype” a product, service, idea, place, person, or
organization. MPR goes beyond simple publicity
and plays an important role in the following tasks:

12. Cont….
 • Launching new products.
 • Repositioning a mature product.
 • Building interest in a product category.
Companies and trade associations have
used MPR to
 rebuild interest in declining commodities
 • Influencing specific target groups.

13.  Defending products that have
encountered public problems.
 • Building the corporate image in a way
that reflects favorably on its products..

14.  creative public relations can affect
public awareness at a fraction of the
cost of advertising.
 The company doesn’t pay for media
space or time but only for a staff to
develop and circulate the stories
 and manage certain events.

15. PR
 In considering when and how to use
MPR, management must establish the
marketing objectives, choose the PR
messages and vehicles, implement the
plan carefully, and evaluate the results.
The main tools of MPR are described in
Table 18.6.
 ESTABLISHING OBJECTIVES
 MPR can build awareness by placing
stories in the media to bring attention to
a product, service, person,

16.  CHOOSING MESSAGES AND
VEHICLES
 Suppose a relatively unknown college
wants more visibility. The MPR
practitioner will search for stories.
 Are any faculty members working on
unusual projects? Are any new and
unusual courses being taught? Are any
interesting events taking place on
campus? If there are no interesting
stories, the MPR practitioner should

18. IMPLEMENTING THE PLAN AND EVALUATING
RESULTS MPR’s
 Contribution to the bottom line is difficult to
measure, because it is used along with other
promotional tools.
 The easiest measure of MPR effectiveness is
the number of exposures carried by the
media. Publicists supply the client with a
clippings book showing all the media that
carried news about the product and a
summary statement such as the following:

20. Advantages and Disadvantages of PR