Week 5: The one where Terence learnt a new word - Schlep

In the world of Public Relations, Research and Practice might be two totally-different entities but it seems that they both share a connection that is more than meets the eye - a connection that intertwines them into each other's weaving.

I personally share the view of Ron Kawalilak, director of Strategic Development and Corporate Affairs of the Department of Environment and Conservation in Westrern Australia, when he shared his beliefs in PR at the start of the readings: that it's ok to have lost out if the strategy was not the best one to navigate the situation at hand BUT a cardinal sin to have lost out if the wrong strategy was employed due to a lack of understanding / appreciation of the situation.

How does the above-mentioned example of research in PR combine with the conventional PR practice? Quite simply, both involves the target audience of the organization and agency - the general public.

Research, I feel, is probably the most important element inside a PR campaign. Never mind the strategies and efficiency of tactics for if research on the objective is not carried out properly, those two factors wouldn't even matter.

A wonderful example I can think of is the Great Schlep movement initiated by Barack Obama's cabinet while he was running for presidency against Senator John McCain. The state of Florida was earmarked by many to be a crucial foothold in winning the elections and at a certain point of time, McCain was leading the polls there with 65% of votes.

The PR agency that Obama contracted, Droga5, did their research with the objective of winning the Florida polls and concluded that if Obama were to win the state, he'd have to convince the Jewish-majority population there to vote for him, considering they were against African-American candidates................

Research might be the most important tool in a PR campaign but a failure to properly execute the idea/intent through will spoil the great work the statistics team has done prior to this.

In the readings for Public Relations Practice, the role of a PR practitioner required traits such as:

• An understanding of the big picture and why an issue or a public is relevant for an organization
• The ability to uncover the real issues or problems to be resolved and the outcomes to be addressed
• An understanding of the importance of relationships and the skills to build and strengthen relationships and dialogue.
• The skill set to create and implement the communication solution.
  

Staying with the Great Schlep, Droga5 did a fantastic job in understanding Florida's voting demographics and pinpointing the Jewish community there as the scale-tipper. While knowing that the Jews in Florida won't support an African-American candidate for presidency, Droga5 was quick to establish the grandchildren of the mainly-elderly Jewish population as the key component of persuasion as they were part of the Gen Y batch who bought into Obama's 'Change' campaign.

As such, Droga5 initiated the Great Schlep movement and with the help of comedian Sarah Silverman, a pro-Obama Jew herself, got through to Jews all over the nation, who holds the same belief for Mr Obama , to fly down to Florida and convince their grandfolks that CHANGE/Obama is good for the country.

Needless to say, the rest is history as Obama took Florida from right under the shoes of Senator McCain and went on to win the presidency.

It's a Catch-22 situation of sorts in the world of PR - Research can't be as effective without the existence of PR Practices while the latter wouldn't even survive if proper research wasn't carried out. ;)


Terence....OUT!

Week 4 - The one where Terence became ethical...or wait, did he?

Ethics is defined as the 'standards of conduct that indicate how one should behave based on moral duties and virtues'. With that said, as long as a PR agency puts its staff through a "Fit and Proper Person Test", like those conducted in English football whenever a new owner takes over a football club, they will be fine and all can only be rosy when the staff come together with organizations/clients to formulate a PR plan...or will it?

Ethics has always an gray area when it comes to judgment - who is right or wrong and what are the guidelines where judgment is based upon?

Take for instance a recent PR stunt in Singapore which incurred the wrath of the general public. Singapore Post, the nation's designated Public Postal Licensee, 'vandalised' its own mailboxes across the island to promote an event centered around the theme of the Youth Olympics Game (YOG). This act of 'creative art' - where a shady-looking hooded individual went around mailboxes and spray-painting graffti on it - was derided by the publics of Singpost, a la the Singapore population.

Comments such as 'terror inducing', 'disregard for the law' were one of the many opinions felt by irate Singaporeans who felt that this PR stunt was a large dent in SingPost's moralistic image.

Eventually, SingPost's CEO, later on in a press conference to announce SingPost as a proud sponsor of the YOG, had to apologize to the Singaporean public for failing to be as clear as crystal to the authorities about this viral marketing campaign.

My personal thoughts on this saga/scandal (whichever side you've looked at it) is that SingPost were in no fault as ownership of the mailboxes were theirs and that SingPost was well within their rights to do whatever they wanted to their mailboxes.

So who's right and who's wrong in this saga? And what guidelines do we measure the Course of Action SingPost took in promoting the event through the vandalism?

The readings probably got it spot on with this quote: "There are not necessarily any single right answers to ethical questions" and that "Different ethical systems give different assessments of the ethics of an action"

A huge contrast to the SingPost was another viral marketing campaign, shown by my lecturer Tanya Wilson, that fashion label Marc Ecko executed in the States. The PR agency handling the label's project threw a video, seemingly, of Air Force One being 'tagged' with graffiti by a Marc Ecko fan. Sure it promoted widespread questioning but certainly not the negative perception like in Singapore.

SingPost, along with the PR agency in question, probably felt that this was the best way of promotion but unfortuanetly, what works in the West doesn't equate to similar success in the East.

In conclusion, while SingPost might not have been legally nor morally wrong in this sense, they probably failed to comprehensively emphatize with the Singapore citizens, their publics, and this is what ethics is about - the need to understand the publics' viewpoint and applying deontology to their actions/campaigns.

I, for one, feel that they were well within their rights and if no one attempts revolutionizingly unorthodox methods of PR and advertising, we'll all be stagnant in this quantum of time and no one will improve..

When that happens, will the public outcry the lack of creativity then?

Terence....OUT!

Week 2 + 3 - The one where Terence read up his first PR readings...

Ah, the first-ever readings of our Introduction to Public Relations module. I have to admit, I was dreading this initially but as I sank deeper into the readings of Chapters 1,2 and 3, it's turning out to be a informative and educational introduction to Public Relations for me :)

Stopping short of calling these 3 chapters an adequate summary of the course (due to the other readings such as PR Ethics and Crisis Management coming up in further postings), these chapters was really a good appetizers for the coming tutorials and assignments ahead.

To start off, let's talk about Public Relations on a whole. Public relations is a dynamic profession that has expanded to a worldwide industry. From slowly taking off in the US of A as a press agentry used to publicize propaganda and organizations' achievement to the state it is in today where PR is apparent, and practiced uniquely in different parts of the world due to the various cultures from all over.

In the readings, theories seem to take centre stage as I got exposed to them both new and old, like Agenda-Setting Theories and Communication Theory - which I have learnt in module in my previous semester, Introduction to Communications Study - while I picked up new theories like Systems Theory and the Critical Theory.

Grunig and Hunt proposed a PR model that I feel sums up what PR is essentially about:

• Press Agentry
• Public Information
• Two-way asymmetrical
• Two-way symmetrical

This particular model, I feel, allows for dissemination of information from the organization, whether propaganda or a response, to the public while allowing the public to offer feedback to the particular message.

This PR model is probably what PR practitioners need to learn by hard and use as the core of their knowledge and skill-sets. With the playing field of public relations being filled with dynamic elements such as cultural awareness and forms of media, PR practitioners must constantly adapt to the external environment while also remembering the requirements and practices of the internal environment - the organization/client they're working for. The above-mentioned model will allow practitioners to discrete how much transparency and disclosue is necessary to a certain issue plaguing the organization.

To conclude, I personally feel that theories alone do not make a perfect PR practitioner. Rather, it's important that the practitioner understands the essence of theories like mentioned above so as to be able to adapt to scenarios that will occur in future. A multiple perspective approach to a crisis, for instance, might be necessary and henceforth the importance of understanding the theories.

A sentence to end off the first blog post for readings :

"Public relations professionalism and the recognition of the profession is more about how the profession is conducted than how it is defined. Accreditation with public relations professional associations is becoming more important to practice."

See you in a week (or a few seconds if you're grading this blog :p)

Terence...OUT!

The one when Terence was late for his lecture

Sitting through the first lecture of any module (or course,as it is known in the university I'm enrolled in) can be quite the daunting task, even more so considering I walked right into the classrom after my classmates were notified of the ground rules - punctuality getting a bolder underscore.

Prior to stepping into class today, I did not know what to expect for my Public Relations lecture. Public Relations, or PR as it is more commonly known, did not seem like a module that warranted iMac-based tutorials held in the computer labs. Boy, was I to be proved wrong...

Sitting through this particular first lecture, for Public Relations, was an eye-opener rather than the expected shutout. I learnt that PR, as it is more commonly known, is more than just a 'product' of sorts that an organization sells to the public - a product that paints a perfect picture of the company and maintains the flawless connection between them and the general public.

Rather, PR can be the fine line between the attaining of a Forbes 50 status or receiving a bankruptcy order. Recently, a director of Liverpool FC, a British football club, was forced to resign and apologize to the public and fans of the club after a provocatively-explicit e-mail he sent to a concerned fan was leaked to the media. Tom Hicks Jnr sent out an abusive e-mail reply to Stephen Horner, a member of the 'Spirit of Shankly' supporters' group who sent a mail asking questions about the unfulfilled promises Hicks' father, Tom Hicks Snr, made to the club upon purchasing it.

With the fans of the club already unhappy at the running of the club and broken promises, which they believe is leading to the current slip in form on the footballing side of Liverpool, this was a PR disaster that alienated the directors even more from the supporters. As such, Tom Hicks Jnr had to resign and offer a public apology but even then so, supporters are still clamouring for the resignation of Hicks Snr and George Gillet, the co-owners of the club.


While the example above might not be the best representation of PR, I am confident that subsequent lessons, coupled with the online readings allocated to us, will help me obtain a far better understanding of this and stand me in good stead for the future. The lecturer (Tanya) has been brilliant so far, coming from the marketing industry herself, and fingers crossed, it'll be a good trimester!


Blogger....OUT!