Introduction
In the previous chapter public relations was defined quite simply as creating understanding through knowledge, and while this concerns the total communications of the whole organisation with all its publics, it stops at understanding. Beyond this point other more persuasive forms of communication proceed into the realms of marketing, salesmanship, advertising and sales promotion. In other non-commercial organisations such as government, political parties, trade unions and religious denominations, persuasive communications become progaganda.
Public relations, far-embracing although it is, stops at understanding for a very practical reason. It has to be credible. Public relations fails if it exceeds this limit and indulges in bias which is acceptable in persuasive, promotional or propagandist communication.
This need to be impartial often baffles people engaged in management, marketing and advertising. But the simple fact is that PRâs strength lies in its acceptance by all the recipients of PR information, including the media.
At the same time, the persuasive activities do have their PR element in that PR is about goodwill and reputation stemming from good behaviour. A business will be judged by its behaviour, and if it adopts malpractices such as over-charging, dubious selling methods, poor products, late delivery or offensive or misleading advertising, this will detract from its good name. Thus, PR will seek to create understanding that a business is deserving of its good name.
Bernard Levin once accused PR of pretending that things were what they were not. Such falsifications may be the aim of some misguided management, but that is as much a malpractice, and an abuse of PR, as selling medicines which cannot possibly alleviate let alone cure. Credible PR is a powerful stimulant of good business; its abuse is silly.
Unfortunately, management is not encouraged to understand the proper and valuable use of PR when it is so often misrepresented by the media. Two examples of this are when the media refer to public relations practitioners as âhidden persuadersâ, borrowing that misleading expression from Vance Packardâs1 excellent book of that name which was about an entirely different subject, namely motivational research. Again, whenever a government conducts a policy which is regarded with suspicion by the media (such as an arms reduction proposal) the media calls it âmerely a PR exerciseâ when it has nothing remotely to do with PR. Management, frequently faced by sceptical references to PR, is therefore inclined to either shy away from PR - or mis-use it as they believe they are expected to do.
There are also distinct differences between North American and European attitudes towards public relations, some of which have been imported into Britain by the big American PR consultancies which dominate British consultancy practice. In North America, marketing, salesmanship and advertising are more acceptable ways of life than they are in Britain. Consequently, American PR tends to be more promotional than its British counterpart. In Britain, the media dislike anything smacking of advertising. To be credible, to be acceptable, and to make PR work in Britain it is essential that it be confined to the creation of mutual understanding and leaves partial, promotional, persuasive communication to the worlds of advertising and propaganda. This is a sensible division because PR has quite sufficient to do in seeking to create understanding. It is not pious but practical policy to keep persuasion out of the PR business. Public relations aims to inform and educate while advertising aims to persuade and sell. Both may be necessary but PR will not work if it persuades, and advertising will not work if it fails to persuade.
All this perversion of public relations is not helped by the weevil in managementâs very midst. Marketing has become a vital part of many businesses. But marketing people are often very misinformed about PR, and this weakness is often transmitted to higher management. We must also include marketers as part of the management structure. Immediately, we have an important part of the management structure which is poisoned by its ignorance of or abuse of PR. Why is this?
One reason, put to the author by marketing lecturers, was that marketing itself was having to struggle for acceptance, and this led them to be sceptical of public relations which they felt was even less acceptable than marketing! Public relations people are not so professionally inhibited, and they take their profession seriously. The problem with those marketing lecturers was that they were teaching the wrong kind of marketing, largely because they relied on out-dated American texts. In the 80s employers were finding that marketing graduates were out-of-touch with modern marketing.
Marketing Attitudes to Public Relations
Marketing, as distinct from selling, was imported from the USA. It became so important in Britain that the former Institute of Sales Management was renamed the Institute of Marketing. Publishing houses which used to employ âspace salesmanâ now employ âmarketing executivesâ. In recent years, building societies have set up marketing departments to sell investments. Put simply, instead of selling what has been produced, a business now produces what it can sell. Market research is used to find out what the market will buy.
Students of marketing are very largely taught from American texts, the most famous being those of Philip Kotler. Not surprisingly notions about PR adopted by marketing students and marketing management are those expressed (if at all) by American writers on marketing. These notions are so distorted that marketing students, teachers, other writers on the subject and those who practice marketing, all over the world, are sceptical about PR. They tend to regard it as a black art which they may well use if it suits their purpose.
In Britain, one has only to attend the annual conference of the Marketing Education Group (representing marketing teachers) to appreciate how poorly they regard PR. It is possible at such a conference for no-one to even mention PR, as if it was a forbidden topic.
Again, this is understandable if we look at the works of Philip Kotler, and his peculiar definition of âpublicityâ2 (Kotlerâs misinterpretation of public relations) proves the point. He defines publicity (that is, public relations) as:
ânon-personal stimulation of demand for a product, service or business unit by planting commercially significant news about it in a published medium or obtaining favourable presentation of it upon radio, television, or stage that is not paid for by the sponsor.â
It will be explained in later chapters that the business news story is not âplantedâ, favourable presentation may be impossible and accurate or factual presentation may be more to the point, and even press relations cost money to conduct.
