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!
After looking at Jim Rettew’s presentation on crisis communications, I began to think more about how easily social media can influence the reputation of a company and the role social media can play in crisis communication scenarios. As easily as social media can hinder a reputation, I think it can just as easily repair a reputation. Creating fan pages or blogs for your company, especially on websites like twitter and facebook, is an easy way to influence, monitor, and create a sense of community with the consumer/audience. With just the click of a button a company’s core values, messages, news, and goals can be available to many more people than other types of media.
However, I think one of the hardest tasks for public relations practitioners today is monitoring the the business/product’s online reputation and making sure the negative comments are heard and addressed immediately. This has resulted in technology such as BuzzDing! which manages and monitors online reputation with certain software. According to its web site, “BuzzDing! will show you news, blogs, images, video, and social network activity about you, your brand, your competition, or your product. And BuzzDing! can alert you when new buzz pops up so that you can keep current with your community, hear your customers, find new ones, and manage your online reputation.”
As social media becomes increasingly important, I think public relations practitioners and companies in general will need to rely more on technology such as BuzzDing! A certain blog looks more in-depth at the different types of social media monitoring technology available. The options and abilities of all of them amaze me. The world wide web is only growing, and types of social media will multiply as a result. Monitoring information on such a large scale is impossible, even for a small group of people. So, I think technology can help us oversee it and either prevent crisis communications problems or help practitioners address problems more quickly, preventing them from growing out of control and protecting the reputation.
While reading and researching about crisis communication, I began to brainstorm different national crises and how our government has handled them. Big crises like 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and our most recent one, the Swine Flu popped in my head first, but it is important to remember that smaller crises happen everyday. And as Guth and Marsh (2007) mention, it is important to have a plan, especially in our unpredictable world. A crisis communication plan entails
When Katrina hit in August 2004, it was clear no one was prepared for such a crisis and there was no planned communication plan to help pull the victims through it. I feel neither the Red Cross nor our government assessed the hurricane risk properly, particularly for the New Orleans area (most of which is below sea level). This contributed to the poor communication that took place during the crisis and in its aftermath. According to two public relations practitioners, Fujita and Koerte, a crisis communication plan should include – 1) an emergency staff structure, 2) a spokesperson, 3) employee guidelines, 4) media policy, 5) sample emergency documents, 6) a contact list, and 7) alternative communications tools. More about Fujita and Koerte’s crisis communication plan can be found at http://www.fmpr.net/crisis/katrina.htm.
It seems to me that our government and the Red Cross fell short, first and foremost, in foreseeing the potential damage Katrina could cause, and that the strength of the hurricane was underestimated overall. As a result, I think many smaller businesses were under-prepared. An interesting blog I found, argues that a lack of crisis communications plans is becoming a national problem, http://blog.crisiscommunicationsplans.com/. The author states, “One PR person recently told me her boss said he no longer needed Media Training because if there was a disaster, the FBI would be their spokesperson. Another executive stopped a PR department from working on their Crisis Communications Plan because they were part of the new Federal Emergency Communications System.” And he goes on to argue that businesses should not rely so heavily on the government to support them in a crisis. And this leads me to wonder if the aftermath of Katrina was much worse because of this heavy dependence on the government to handle our smaller crises. Was too much expected of our government?
Building off of my last post, I decided to search for companies concerned primarily with using the internet and other digital technology for public relations. Guth and Marsh (2007) call companies that do this virtual public relations agencies. For example, companies such as Kansas City’s INK Inc. use the new technologies of the Digital Age to create strategies and tactics for its clients, but also to promote itself through online distribution of informative materials (http://www.inkincpr.com/). INK Inc. is a credible company that is cutting edge because of its reliance and effective use of digital technology for public relations.
Bisbee and Comapny is another credible virtual public relations agency, however, it focuses more specifically on the use of social media for its clients’ public relations strategies and tactics (http://www.bisbeeandco.com/index.html). On Bisbee and Company’s web site and under their services tab is more specific information on what the company does with social media. In addition, there is a nice play on words on their home page where it says the company is “providing PR services virtually anywhere.” While this is a nice play on words, there is also a lot of truth to that statement. Virtual public relations agencies have the ability to connect with anyone in a way that I personally think gives them a “leg up” from other more traditional public relations firms.
A great example of Bisbee and Company’s work as a virtual public relations agency is it’s relationship with .Com Marketing, which hired Bisbee and Company to promote the budding company in 1997. Today Bisbee and Company’s public relations strategies and tactics have paid off, .Com Marketing is considered one of the top 100 interactive marketing and online advertising agencies according to AdvertisingAge (http://www.commarketing.com/). This relationship with Bisbee and Company and .Com Marketing is also an example of how public relations, advertising, and marketing are similar, can work effortlessly together, but are still different realms of business and communication.
From downloadable brochures to online newsletters to online interactive media, the options seem limitless for the Digital Age. The public relations agencies that will last the longest are the ones who will cease the opportunities the digital technology offers. In my opinion the bigguest opportunity is to be able to reach people on a global level, which not long ago was not a possibility.
Chapter Eleven discusses the effect of the Digital Age on Public Relations, a topic I was interested to read seeing as my previous blogs have touched on this. There is no doubt the Digital Age offers many changes and advantages for the public relations industry, but I was particularly interested with what I read about hypermedia. According to Guth and Marsh (2007) hypermedia is “integrated multimedia incorporating digital audio, visual, and text information,” and it can be seen on web sites today (p.355).
I decided to check out CNN’s web site that Guth and Marsh referred to and I found a great example of interactive hypermedia at http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2008/black.in.america/index.html. This web page of CNN shows how they used the internet to publicize a news special they were doing in 2008 entitled Black in America. The whole page is very interactive and features tabs three tabs at the top, several links to related news stories (many with video footage, too!), a poll, and now footage from the show. All the different features allows CNN to reach many different types of consumers/viewers, while also publicizing their special to the vast number of internet users.
After finding CNN’s interactive web page, I decided to search the web for an example of hypermedia based more on the entertainment realm of the media and less on news media. With a little searching, I found out that Disney has a large division, the Disney Interactive Media Group, that focuses on creating and promoting its interactive, informative, and entertaining media (http://corporate.disney.go.com/wdig/). The division’s web page features information about what they do, links to press releases, Disney online, advertising information, and so much more.I can only imagine how many people must be involved in this division of Disney because Disney is a huge conglomeration, meaning it must oversee so many companies.However, after viewing the web site, it seems the Disney Interactive Media Group is well organized and quite tactful, which I am sure relates to why Disney is such a strong and powerful conglomeration.
The Disney Interactive Media Group and CNN’s web page on Black in America are great examples of how hypermedia and PR are implemented with the internet. I am sure Walt Disney himself had no idea the possibilities and opportunities his company would face in the Digital Age. It is amazing to see how companies shift with technology, and specifically how they use hypermedia to attract audiences and promote their work.
With a growing interest in public relations, I recently decided to go to a PRSSA meeting on Clemson’s campus where we had the chance to hear one of our professors, Bobby Rettew, speak about the power of public relations in our own lives. However, Bobby Rettew is not just a professor; he is helps run a small business that specializes in using the internet to deliver video messages by e-mail and social networking. He has many other note-worthy accomplishments and a more about him can be found at www.bobbyrettew.com.
His main message was that one of the first ways we, as students, could set ourselves up for an industry in public relations is by making our name into a brand. First, this enables us to market ourselves to potential future employers. Specifically, Rettew mentioned sites like www.linkedin.com to do this, and he encouraged us to put our name in the URL. For example, to access my Linked In account you go to http://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahcamille. This he argued makes it easy for potential employers to find you and your information. Secondly, Rettew told us that creating a brand for ourselves gives us a way to practice making good PR. Overall, I found his argument very convincing and think he made some valid points that I completely agree with.
Many social networking web sites are making brand names more possible. For example, this blog–http://101publicrelations.com/blog/protecting_your_brand_name_online_001843.html goes into detail about how facebook now offers us the ability to make our name part of our facebook URL in a way similar to my Linked In URL. The blog, like Bobby Rettew, supports making this change and also encourages us to make the change as quick as possible in order to “protect it.” However, at the same time, I think it is important for us to protect our online identities. In my opinion, the best way to do that is by keeping our social/private life separate from our academic/work life on the internet, and by refraining from disclosing any information that would allow someone to steal your identity or cause you harm. If you protect your identity and are smart about what you share, then you have the ability to successfully create a brand and positive image for your name that can take you far.
Chapter Nine discusses the numerous tactics public relations practitioners can implement in campaigns and for smaller goals/objectives. In today’s technologically-driven society, public relations practitioners have the ability to take advantage of the new advances in technology. In particular, the internet offers so many ways to contact different publics. If necessary, we could use Skype to set up an informal meeting among international employees or create a twitter blog for the organization that allows multiple publics to be updated with its improvements. New ads for a campaign or even commercials can be posted to YouTube.com to increase awareness of the cause. From twitter.com to Skype and business web sites, the options for social and online media have skyrocketed in the past decade. As a result, I think public relations practitioners need to keep up with online technology and use it as an advantage for their tactics.
The Institute for PR (IPR) has acknowledged society’s emphasis on social media and recently published an article entitled “An Analysis of the Increasing Impact of Social and Other New Media on Public Relations Practice” (http://www.instituteforpr.org/research_single/wright_hinson_social_media_miami/). I found the results of the analysis very interesting. The researchers found that traditional news media are more truthful, accurate, and credible. However, they also found that most feel social media influences news media and that social media has made communications instantaneous. The results suggest that public relations practitioners be careful when implementing social media in order to ensure its company’s credibility. Furthermore, I think public relations tactics should not be limited to online technology and social media; they should continue to use traditional tactics in addition to more modern tactics.
Another IPR article, “Mapping the Consequences of Technology on Public Relations,” (http://www.instituteforpr.org/research_single/mapping_the_consequences_of_technology_on_public_relations/) goes in more in depth to how public relations has changed as a result of the changes of technology. The article looks at how relationships with public relations practitioners and their publics has changed, how the content/quality of messages has changed, how technology impacts a public relations practitioner’s work, and how organizational structure and management are effected by technological changes. Overall, I think it is important for practitioners and companies in general to maintain current knowledge of what technology can do for communication with the business’s publics to help build/improve relationships.
As chapter eight suggests, in order to plan, the public relations practitioner must have a strong hold on its companies message, values, publics. I think today strategic public relations planning has become more important as society and our technology becomes more fast-paced and we are increasingly linked to one another. Because I grew up in an urban, fast-paced environment–Washington, D.C. I have seen the need for and utilization of planning.
A company based in D.C., M+R Strategic Services, is completely dedicated to planning strategic campaigns for companies, specifically nonprofit organizations (www.mrss.com). This company seems to utilize the power of the internet and keep up with technology, which is a very smart move, especially for a company based in such a fast-paced environment. For example the company uses internet campaigns that include facebook, twitter, and other available networking sites, in addition to implementing online marketing and fundraising.
One organization M+R Strategic Services planned a campaign for is Habitat for Humanity nternational, an organization I am sure many are familiar with (www.habitat.org/). In addition, the company is aiding the Save Darfur Coalition to increase supporters around the world, and ultimately help end the genocide (http://www.savedarfur.org/). M+R was actually responsible for several major media events that brought well known people like President Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and George Clooney to speak out on the genocide and garner support from American citizens. In a way to implement the power of the internet, M+R used its planning knowledge to get online postcards sent to President Bush that urged support to end the genocide.
M+R seems to use its public relations planning strategies in very effective ways. It seems the main goal of many of M+R’s clients would be to fundraise and raise awareness of the initiative. I would love to get an up-close look at how the company’s planners work with its clients to set goals, objectives, and tasks. I find it really refreshing and exciting that public relations planning can be put to such good use, the betterment of society. Overall, M+R Strategic Services is a very impressive, innovative, and cutting edge company.
Not only did chapter seven open my eyes to the ins and outs of public relations research, footage of focus groups I found on YouTube gave me an insider’s look into what focus groups entail and look like. I found footage of a focus group that reveals how a small group of people were utilized to research which type of salad dressing bottle was better – one with a screw cap or one with a flip cap (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuiI7BFhQl4).
It was interesting to see how the group interacted with each other by supporting each others decisions, and how they responded to the questions. I am curious, too, how the company came up with their questions, and what the purpose was of doing this focus group on salad dressing bottles. My guess is the company was trying to gain a consensus on whether or not to go with the flip cap and/or whether or not to increase the price of flip cap bottles.
The company that posted this focus group is Weatherchem, a company which works for food and pharmaceutical companies to manufacture plastic “dispensing solutions” (www.weatherchem.com). After a little research on their website, the focus group makes complete sense for the business’s goal to “Design, Develop, and Deliver Convenient, Controlled Dispensing Closures ” (www.weatherchem.com). Judging with what I learned from chapter seven, I think Weatherchem put on a successful focus group; they followed most of the ten steps to conducting a focus group. The moderator who asked the questions was concerned with the needs, values, and concerns of the group. I do think, however, that some of the questions were asked in a way that suggested the group find the flip caps more valuable and popular.
Overall, I think the research Weatherchem did for the salad dressing bottles was necessary to establish a plan of action for the promotion of their product. It probably reaffirmed the company’s hope that the majority of the public will probably value the simple, clean, and modern feel of a flip top as much as the company does. In addition to the focus group, I would suggest Weatherchem do a large survey (cluster sampling would probably be most effective) to gather more necessary information. Research is an important part of the planning process, and hopefully the company’s research, including their focus group, enabled them to increase their success of their product and reach their goal.
Seeing as the VMAs (Video Music Awards) are on tonight, I feel obligated to blog about the role public relations plays for entertainers and for major events such as tonight’s show. I really have no idea what working for an entertainer would entail, much less what handling his/her public relations would be like. I decided to do some research on this topic because I think it would be a fast-paced, overwhelming, but also fun job to be in charge of. I find it fascinating how MTV’s web site ( http://www.mtv.com/) has Facebook and Twitter so people watching can comment on the performances they are watching. It shows how technologically-driven our society has become. In a way it also makes the job of knowing what consumers think and what much easier for big corporations, like MTV. There is nothing like being able to give feedback so easily to organizations and for organizations to receive feedback so easily.
As chapter four mentions, public relations practitioners should be focused on building the necessary relationships with the various publics that are involved in the task at hand. For example, I would imagine a public relations practitioner working for a musician who just signed a record deal would be focused on publicizing the record deal. So, the practitioner would need to consider its relationship with consumers, the record company, the musician, other news media producers, and most importantly how the value at hand, the musician’s music, is incorporated or can be incorporated into each public.
There are several public relations agencies who are dedicated to serving entertainers, and I found one based out of San Francisco, CA (http://www.prthatrocks.com/) that deals with a wide range of entertainers. From little-known newbies to big name stars, the agency focuses on publicizing its clients and maintaining good relations with the necessary publics, such as consumers and producers/editors of news media. I think their web site does a pretty good job of “bragging” about the agencies accomplishments and relationships. It is important for agencies such as PR that Rocks to promote themselves by showing off the work they do. They want/need entertainers to come to them for help, so they have to make sure and communicate to prospective clients that they can give him/her what s/he wants and needs. This bit of research that I have done has really intrigued me and I would love to see a day in the life of a public relations practitioner who works for an entertainer.
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