Fundamentals of Public Relations

Question: Discuss about the Fundamentals of Public Relations. Answer: 1. Public relation is a practice of handling and managing the spread of news and information between individuals, organization and the community at large. In the recent times, many corporation and companies have engaged in public relation campaigns for various objectives like increasing sales by creative advertisement, for improving spoilt reputation or maintaining reputation or for having close connection with customers and clients (Pike et al., 2010). Thus, in the said case, Pizza Rush was a pizza company which had recently witnessed poor reputation as a video of its employees messing with food and pizza preparations went viral. Thus, a Public relation campaign was recommended to be launched with the objective to win back the trust of the customers and the shareholders, to increase the sale of the pizza rush by double as compared to before the date of scandal, boast moral of the employees and make Pizza Rush as one of the leading pizza brands in Australia by end of 2016. Thus, the pizza rush public relation campaign started with the tag line that stated Come to Pizza Rush outlets for pizza you can see is prepared with love and care As the reputation of the Pizza Rush was affected, a campaign which promoted undercover bosses, camera and CC TVs installation and facility visit were the primary features of the campaign to win back the trust of customers and shareholders. Thus, the implementation of the public relation campaign started with installation a camera which showed the customers exactly how their pizza was being prepared. Thus, the public relation campaign highlighted the new implementation of cameras in the Pizza Rush outlet which allowed a customer to watch his ordered pizza being made. Thus, the public relation campaign used many press releases to pass the information to the community via email, printed ads, radio and other promotional offers (Macnamara, 2010). 2. The public relation campaigns usually have press released where different media are used to spread information and news to the public and community at large. Thus, the effectiveness of the different media for public release campaign is as follows:- Direct Mail Public relation campaign through direct mail can be very effective and inexpensive if well planned and executed and well refined. The key objective in direct mail public relation campaign is to focus the message on benefits and advantages one is offering rather than the features of a product. For example, a restaurant should advertise happy hours, free parking and other promotional offers in direct mail public relation campaign (Hoek Jones, 2011). External Promotional Material Public relation campaign using External Promotional material can include hiring advertisement and public relation agencies to initiate a campaign which usually is for an specifies objective like increasing sales, improving reputation, encouraging employees, etc. Thus, the external promotional material supplied by these expert agencies in public relation an advertisement can be very effective and beneficial for a company (Theaker, 2013). Press Press is defined to mean the communication media taken collectively which includes organization and agencies that collect, print, publish and broadcast news to public. Thus, many a times, public relation campaign use press release where information is announced in front of communication media. As the communication media is popular and news is heard in every house, the message of the public release campaign is easily spread. Promotional Material Using special offers with the intention to increase consumer interest which eventually influences their purchase is referred as using promotional material in a public relation campaign. When a campaign advertise special offers like discounts, happy hours, free gifts and surprise gifts on purchase of goods costing more than a specific amount, the promotional materials surely attract customers and prove very beneficial for the company as customers get attracted to special offers very quickly. Radio It is a general trend to listen to radio while travelling in car or public transport, thus radio is a good source to spread news, information and messages which the public relation campaign can use to get in touch with the community at large spreading message via radio. Messages heard in radio are mostly during the free time of an individual, thus, they are usually heard properly making the company benefit (Smith, 2012). Television Every individual irrespective of his financial background and education watches television. Thus, when a certain message has to be spread quickly and to larger number of people, the use of television as a media in public relation campaign can be very beneficial as individuals often get attracted to television commercials or messages which are delivered through television especially if the message is delivered by a celebrity (Demetrious, 2013). 3. The success of any public relation campaign depends on its implementation and ensuring that the whole campaign is executed and completed in time and without crossing the budget allotted for the same. Thus, a pre-planned public relation campaign always has a greater chance of being successful. The duration of the activity will always depend on the how far in the future the campaign should go and how well one can predict the cost and expense of the public relation campaign. Thus, the most suitable concept is to pre-plan and set a budget for campaigning activities for a span of 12 months and put in place an overall strategy that could plan campaign activities for the next 2-3 years. Thus, this strategy can be presented in excel sheets and similar specialize software like Microsoft Project which can help to create charts including Gantt charts to have a visual representation of the campaign activity which will be helpful in monitoring and explaining the plan to employees engaged in it . Monitoring a public relation campaign is very essential as it ensures clear management and control of top management of all the activities whether current or future. In case, a critical situation arises, regular monitoring can help in providing quicker solution as evaluation is easier due to regular checks and lastly monitoring can help in providing valuable services to public relation clients. Thus, monitoring success of public relation campaign can be achieved by pre-planned activities which are implemented on time and in budget and additionally monitoring activities which are significant in impacting the objective or the outcome of a public relation campaign mark its successful (Lee McGovern, 2013). 4. Public Relation campaigns being very popular these days, many companies including Public Relation and Marketing companies in the present times conduct campaign for individuals and company who wish to avail their services, for example, the PPR company in Australia. Many a times, public relation campaigns do not run as planned and can take more time to either complete its objective or overshoot its budget or face certain crisis, which will require to amend, change or re-schedule the public relation activities and campaign (Carroll Van Veen, 2012). Thus, when such a situation arises, the employees or the individuals who conduct public relation campaign for a company do not have the authority to change the schedule, budget or extend the duration of the public relation campaign, the said approval is to be taken from the top management of the company who have drafted a public relation campaign plan which the employees of the company implement. Thus, it is clear that the overall control of all public relation activities in a campaign is under the top management of the public relation company which reviews, monitor and when required changes or amends the public relation campaign to serve the best interest of the company which hires it (Hoek Jones, 2011). 5. Email campaign is used to execute a targeted and pre-decided plan that is created by sending promotional messages and information via email to the customers in order to built trust and confidence around the services and product promoted. It is evident that almost 70% messages in an individuals inbox are non-personal message which either specify offers, discounts and promotions, making the email a great marketing tool. However, monitoring an email campaign can be complex, as the competition in very high and great efforts are required to stand out in an email promotional or a campaign. Thus, new methods are to be developed to monitor email campaigns along with monitoring the competitors (Hoek Jones, 2011). The first method which helps a public relation company to monitor an email campaign is to check the number of times an email is forwarded. The term forwards here should mean when an individual opens his email and clicks on the forwards button to send the email to his friends and family. Thus, when a company reviews the number of times a promotional email is forwarded; it is easier to track the interest of the customers. Another method to monitor an email campaign is to send emails on a customers spam folder and then review the number of emails when are converted into this is not spam. It is evident that every individual have spam emails, which are rarely opened. However, if a spam email is sent to a customers email inbox, it clearly shows that the customer has read the spam message and is interested in it. Although, this is a very rare phenomena, where a spam email is marked as not spam, it is a great tool to monitor email campaigns (Macnamara, 2010). The last method to monitor an email campaign, a public relation company can review which of the emails are deleted before opening and which are deleted after opening and being read. Thus, reviewing the number of people who delete an email without opening it can help the public company to amend their subject line or make the email campaign more attractive. 6. The internal stakeholders of Pizza Rush include its directors, CEO, employees and management whereas the external stakeholders of the Pizza Rush include its shareholders, creditors and customers. As certain employees had uploaded a video messing up with the food in Pizza Rush, the company had to engage in a public relation campaign to overcome the loss of reputation it suffered. Thus, the public relation campaign initially identified the issues which lead to the event which was no supervision, lack of job satisfaction, authorization, hygienic and poor knowledge and skills (Lamme Russell, 2010). Thus, the campaign suggested ruling out the flaws in staff training programs, launching new pizzas and new discounts, promoting the brand with positivity, creating good working environment for employees and re-developing the trust amongst customers about the quality of pizza. Thus, the campaign re-defined the goals of every employee in the Pizza Rush outlet to have a good base of authoriza tion and supervision. Therefore, the public relation campaign for Pizza Rush made press release through Medias like television, radio newspaper and social networking sites like Face book and Twitter which helped the campaign to spread the new promotional offers to large number of individuals (Smith, 2012). Thus, the result and the consequences of the said campaign was that it improved the turnaround of Pizza Rush Company, increased sales; the reputation of the company was re-established creating positive feedback and improvement in overall training programmes for employees. Thus, the public relation campaign helped and proved beneficial for the internal and external shareholders, making the external shareholders happy due to increase sale and developing trust and confidence in customers for food products the Pizza Rush concerning its hygiene and quality. Additionally, the internal stakeholders were more satisfied and happy as employees after they received regular training, meetings and define roles of all the employees in the Pizza Rush Company (Hendrix, Hayes Kumar, 2012). 7. The Pizza Rush public relation campaign was initiated to re-build the reputation of the Pizza Rush Company which was adversely affected by a YouTube video clip posted by two employees messing with Pizza Rush food. The public relation campaign of Pizza Rush which a one of the largest pizza selling companies in Australia was started with the objective to eliminate flaws from staff training programme, promote an increase the sales of the company, promote the brand with positively and re-build the trust and confidence in customers about the quality and hygiene of the Pizza Rush Company. However, reputation is a great asset to a company especially in the food industry, as customers will refrain from purchasing products and pizzas if health and hygienic is a concern (Theaker Yaxley, 2012). Thus, the public relation campaign initiated to re-build the reputation of the Pizza Rush required to be more powerful which including a press release of the details of the incident which created a b ad name for the Pizza Rush Company. The campaign required to work on a stronger message than just guaranteeing best quality. The Pizza Rush Company in its press released should have announced severe punishment and termination of the two employees who indulged in the video clip events spoiling the name of the brand. The public relation campaign should have used television commercials as they promoted their discounted large pizza during FiFa matches. Additionally, a customer feedback would prove to be very helpful in monitoring the success of the public relation campaign which could be taken via feedback survey, email survey or delivering a leaflet with delivery of pizza to be filled for attractive discounts. Thus, the employees required motivational and ethical training session which would re-build the trust of internal and external stakeholders including employees, customers, directors and shareholders (Bernstein Rakowitz, 2012). Reference List Bernstein, A. B., Rakowitz, C. (2012).Emergency Public Relations: Crisis Management in a 3.0 World. Xlibris Corporation. Carroll, T. E., Van Veen, L. (2012). 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