The CDC’s promotion for Autism awareness has been increasingly successful over the years, as the disease has become more present. Autism is a disease that seems to have increased in numbers over the years, and the Learn the Signs. Act Early. campaign aims to increase awareness of autism, inform parents of early warning signs, and encourage developmental screening. The ultimate success of this campaign, however, is most likely a result of its partnerships with other Autism awareness organizations, including Autism Speaks, Autism Society of America, and First Signs.
This ability to team up reinforces the message and makes it more available to society—ultimately a great PR move! In addition, the media frequently publicizes autism. For example, Jenny McCarthy’s book, Louder Than Words: A Mother’s Journey in Healing Autism, about her autistic sonwas heavily publicized when it was released. This publicity can prepare audiences in advance to be more receptive to the CDC’s campaign, ultimately making the Learn the Signs. Act Early. campaign more effective. Overall, I think this campaign was successful in publicizing autism, but it was not very difficult spread the message because there is already a large focus on autism in American society.
Remember the VERB campaign? It encouraged young children (ages nine to thirteen) to be physically active every day, and its goal was “to increase and maintain physical activity among tweens.” According to research, one third of children and teenagers are either overweight or at risk of being overweight. From 2002 to 2006, the VERB campaign tried to engage the community, and create a change in unhealthy eating behaviors and laziness. The messages and goals of this campaign were sound, but their poor execution led to its ultimate ineffectiveness.
Furthermore, I think the dependency “tweens” place on television and/or video games for entertainment can lead to unhealthy snacking behaviors. In addition some studies have found associations between the sheer amount of time a child watches television and the child’s weight.So, the importance of the media in our daily lives makes it difficult for the VERB campaign to be successful.
The campaign would have to change TV viewing patterns and dependency first, and then promote an active life in order to more effectively evoke change. Some may have benefited from this campaign, but ultimately this campaign failed because it was unable to collapse and rebuild our society’s rigid social structure into a pro-activity life. I also think it’s message was simply not loud enough and consequently fell to the wayside of the many other messages we receive every day.
As I mentioned in my previous post, good internal communications is key for optimal execution of business tasks. Ultimately the quality of an organizations communications can make or break it. An important part of internal communications is recruiting. The most successful organizations have excellent recruitment and retention strategies, which allow them to pick employees from the best of the best.
According to eHow’s article, “Reccomendations for Recruiting and Selecting Employees,” recruitment efforts must be planned out in advance in order to reach a wide range of potential employees and to ensure the potential employees will be qualified and interested in the job. In addition, a public relations practitioner should make sure to publicize the criteria for the position(s) and the fact that the business offers and expects new employees to grow. Also, those who hire the employees should gauge how motivated the potential employees are.
Closely related and intertwined with an organization’s recruitment efforts are its retention strategies. According to a ManagerWise.com article, replacing a typical employee can cost anywhere between $7,000 and $14,000. For more high-paying and high-demand jobs, like a critical care nurse, it can cost $185,000. This is a great reason why it is so important to have effective retention strategies–it saves money! ManagerWise.com has a 5-step strategy for high retention rates, PRIDE:
P - Provide a Positive Working Environment
R - Recognize, Reward and Reinforce the Right Behavior
I - Involve and Engage
D - Develop Skills and Potential
E - Evaluate and Measure
Overall, I think this is a good plan that can be applied to many businesses. However, I think these steps should be personalized for each organization. In general, it’s important for all businesses to consider creating a sound retention and recruitment plan. After all, if a business’s recruits effectively and hires employees that are a good match, then it will have a good chance that its employees will stay with the business.
For all businesses, no matter how big or small, faith and trust in your work force is necessary for collaboration and overall successful achievements. But, how do you earn and create faith and trust in employees? Well, management of internal (aka employee) communications, allows for any business to be more efficient and for executives to get more respect. It is the pr practitioner’s job to provide consistent roles and processes for all communicators in the business, which urges cooperation within the business and makes it easier.
A great example of internal communications at work is General Motors (GM), a company that realized it needed to revamp its employee communications after a big strike in 1998. According to an article, GM created a new position to help do this–Business Communication Integrators, whose job it was to consult head quarter executives on local performance and instill consistent roles and processes for all employees. Ultimately the goal became for GM to create relationships between their managers and employees with more trust, understanding, and communicating. So, GM created the Internal Communication Improvement Process (ICIP) to help make relationships stronger on all levels of the communication hierarchy.
I think GM’s efforts seem great, but it’s hard to know if they are really doing a good job and creating stronger relationships via better communication. This slide show from the Institute for Public Relations (IPR) shows how GM measures the effectiveness of its employee communications. After looking at their plan, it seems to me GM’s employees really do have great internal communication. Their overall internal communication plan seems very thorough and effective. I’m impressed with its internal public relations!
As mentioned in my previous post, a common way for corporations to be socially responsible is to “go green” and provide more environmentally friendly products. As our society becomes more conscious and concerned for our environment, “going green” has become increasingly popular among corporations.
A great example of this type of CSR, is Sprint’s recent announcement that they will soon include greener products and accessories, including a phone made with corn and a solar-powered phone charger. Offering these new eco-friendly accessories, is a great way to show customers that they, like many, are concerned for the environment and doing something about it.
The Sprint community also announced, “As part of the Sprint Go Green initiative, consumer customers will be automatically switched to summary billing.” So, it seems some of Sprints changes will help them use less supplies and save money, while also being socially responsible–it’s a win, win situation! In addition, Sprint is encouraging people to recycle their used phone’s this holiday season via it’s wireless recycling program. Visiting Sprint’s website shows you their videos, inside looks, and the other interactive information they have. You can see how dedicated they are to being environmentally-friendly and how great of a job they are doing in publicizing their “Go Green” initiative.
Another great move, Sprint made was their CSR partnerships with organizations like EPA Climate Leaders, EPA Green Power Partners, the Carbon Disclosure Project, and eight other socially responsible corporations. They even tap into Twitter with their Sprint Green News twitter feed. Overall, I am so impressed with Sprint’s ability to be socially responsible and also publicize it. Their PR practitioners are doing a great job and being very innovative!
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is an aspect of public relations that involves a business’s consideration of its public’s’ interests (environmental, economic, and social). A PR practitioner involved with CSR would need to make sure that its tasks are mindful of the publics s/he is working with. According to CSRwire, practitioners can show social responsibility by showing they value the community. This could be via volunteering, being environmentally conscious, and community development. Today, the new trend of “going green” has become a way for corporations to show they are socially responsible. For example, Harris Teeter recently began selling bags made from recycled fibers that offer a reusable replacement for plastic bags.
Socially responsible organizations consider the interests of society by taking responsibility for the impact of their activities on customers, employees, shareholders, communities and the environment in all aspects of their operations. This obligation is seen to extend beyond the statutory obligation to comply with legislation and sees organizations voluntarily taking further steps to improve the quality of life for employees and their families as well as for the local community and society at large.
It seems to me CSR is an especially crucial part of non-profit organizations, environmental-based businesses, government business, and other organizations focused on the community. While researching business programs for graduate school, I stumbled upon a CSR quiz. After taking the quiz, I realized that the values of CSR can be applied to almost all major organizations because they all deal with society in some way. For example, Forbes ranked Wal-Mart America’s number one most generous corporation. Also, Ethisphere magazine ranked BMW the world’s most ethical corporation. I would really encourage taking the quiz because it made me realize the importance of CSR and how prominent it is in major companies that many of us know about.
The recent campaign for Gardasil ®, One Less, advertises the world’s first cervical cancer vaccine. It has been quite successful in raising awareness that the Human Papillomavirus (HPV)causes cervical cancer. And, this informative campaign has resulted in numerous young women and girls around the nation getting vaccinated. Many have seen advertisements and commercials for this vaccine, and reaching such a large crowd resulted in such a successful campaign. Also, the commercials and advertisements are very effective in the message that YOU can be one less effected by HPV if you take the vaccine.
In addition to the campaign’s message that the vaccination is necessary to insure better sexual health, the campaign also sends an underlying message of female empowerment. The One Less campaign “focuses on a strong and positive message that is designed to empower [women and girls] to want to become ‘one less’ person who will battle cervical cancer.” I think the success of the Gardasil ® One Less campaign is attributed to its multiple positive messages and its ability to create change in society while empowering women.What mother or young woman could view a Gardasil commercial or advertisement and not value/appreciate its overall message? None that I know, and I think that alone speaks for the successful PR behind the One Less campaign.
My recent reading of Guth and Marsh’s (2007) chapter on cross-cultural communication, prompted me to think about the differences between local, national, and global public relations work. Despite the size of the company you are working with, the values for global public relations work should remain the same. And as the internet continues to connect us around the world, I think the demand for global PR will only continue to grow.
So many companies and brand names we see everyday are in need of global publicity–the Coca-Cola Company, Disney, car companies (Toyota, Volkswagen, etc.), General Electric, numerous clothing companies and SO much more. Coca-Cola, for example has an extensive public relations team, and some of their recent work can be seen on the press center section of their web site. In addition, there is an interesting video that explains just how global their work is. For example, the video mentions how Coca-Cola is sold in 206 countries. And, Coca-Cola has recently sent three “happiness ambassadors” to visit all 206 countries and observe the differences of what makes people happy around the world.
As a result of the need to reach people on a global level, I would imagine the demand for global PR is very high. Most of the large companies I named have their own PR heads/sections, but there are still some businesses that need help. A New York based business, Strauss Global Public Relations, works with clients in need of global publicity that do not have the resources and extensive team that bigger companies like Coca-Cola have. Strauss has worked with NASDAQ, National Coupon Month, and many other companies to create campaigns and promote global awareness of its client’s initiatives. Unsurprisingly, many of Strauss’ tactics involve web site development, and implementations of other internet resources. All in all, I think the public relations values for each should remain the same, but the scope in which you view each area of emphasis should become broader as the communities you cater to become broader.
Today marks the last day of the PRSA International Conference in San Diego, CA, and because I do not know much about PRSA I decided to monitor some of the online “hooplah” surrounding the conference. In case you do not know, PRSA stands for Public Relations Society of America, and it is not to be confused with PRSSA (Public Relations Student Society of America). However, with a little research I discovered the two organizations do work together. In fact, they pair together for a conference each year.
This year, the PRSA conference centered on hot and relevant topics, including social media, crisis communications, branding and sustainability. And on top of that the big name speakers were there to discuss these topics, all of which I have recently blogged about. If only I could afford a ticket to California! But on a more serious note, the reason I decided to look into this was because I was not informed about the conference until my teacher mentioned it, even though I am a member of PRSSA.
So, why does a conference centered on PR topics and hosted by PR organizations not have good PR? From researching online, it seems as like the conference was publicized on prsa/prssa web sites for different chapters. However, social media, like twitter and facebook, lacked communication/information about the conference. Personally, I think a good tactic for informing PRSA and PRSSA members of the conference would be personal emails. In addition, using online media and/or partnering with another PR organization may help spread the word. Contacting PR practitioners of national companies may be another wise move. All in all It seems to me that the PRSA Conference was a success, but in my opinion, could use more PR for a better turn out.
The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty kicked off in September 2004 with advertisements of women whose appearances challenged the standard and stereotypical norms of women in the media in an effort to “widen the narrow definition of beauty.” Probably the most popular video, Evolution, is on YouTube, and it features the face of a young woman in her twenties being transformed into the face of a model on a billboard. At first, you see how make-up, hair products, and the valuable knowledge of make-up artists and photography produce a glossy, beautiful, and unrealistic picture of the woman. Then, photo-shop technology transforms her into something even more unrealistic and beautiful by elongating her neck, making her eyes and lips bigger, and changing her cheek bones.
In my opinion, The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty is a great example of PR for beauty companies. We all know, especially girls, that American society has high expectations for women as far as what it means to be beautiful. Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty says a lot about the different issues surrounding women—their view of their bodies, how the media illustrates women, how the media says women should be perceived, and the cultural expectations of a woman’s looks. So many women feel that pressure to fit in to the mold the media says is “beautiful” and “hot,” but putting that pressure on ourselves creates unrealistic expectations. The Campaign for Real Beauty prompts us to question these expectations and feel proud for the unique characteristics that make us who we are. What woman or girl would not appreciate that? I think all do, and as a result people are more likely to support/buy Dove products. What a great PR idea!
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