Public Relations, Branding and Authenticity

Brand Communications in the Digital Age

Sian Rees

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780429663406
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Business
• Categoría: Public Relations

Public Relations, Branding and Authenticity: Brand Communications in the Digital Age explores the role of PR and branding in society by considering the notion of authentic communications within the context of an emerging digital media environment.

This qualitative analysis explores the challenge of developing authentic brand narratives in the digital age, whilst questioning the problematic nature of authenticity itself. Case studies of public relations activity of successful brands, and those in crisis, are supplemented by interviews with senior public relations and branding practitioners. The book lays out three specific arguments. Firstly, a repositioning of the relationship between public relations and brand practice is explored. It is argued that public relations practitioners are well placed to facilitate brands in the digital age, because of the inherent acceptance of the value of relationship building, adaptation and boundary spanning embedded in PR practice and best practice theory. Secondly, the book introduces a new concept of riparian brands. Such brands are based on solid core values, but have an ability to atune, adjust and naturalise to the prevailing social, cultural and economic environment. Thirdly, the book presents an ontology of the riparian brand in the form of an authentic brand wheel and 15 real-time interaction success factors.

Aimed at both academics and practitioners interested in the theoretical development of PR and its emerging relationship with branding, it will also be of interest to scholars of corporate communications, corporate reputation and branding.

1 Introduction

Public relations, branding and authenticity

Successful branding in the digital age

According to the latest Forbes ranking, Apple is the world’s most valuable brand, with a brand valuation of $182.8 billion. The top 100 Forbes-rated brands for 2018 spanned 16 countries, crossed 20 broad industry categories, and had a cumulative brand value of $2.15 trillion (Forbes 2018). How do successful brands such as these gain trust and legitimisation from their brand users? Is brand loyalty and trust based on emotional or rational criteria, and why is it that some brands are perceived as authentic and others not? The nature of brands, the products they represent, communications policies, and overall reputation seem to be important components, but how do these all fit together? The following chapters aim to explore these questions. In particular the book considers how public relations practitioners have taken on a pivotal role in corporate brand reputation management because of their stakeholder focus, dialogical communications skills, and their understanding of how 21st century brands have to dynamically respond to their social environments. The theoretical argument developed as the book unfolds aims to challenge existing ideas about corporate identity and corporate brand personality management arguing that a digital turn in public relations has realigned public relations as an important discipline in determining and focusing corporate brand personalities and narratives. Branding is not traditionally mainstream to public relations activity, but as the behaviour of umbrella and group organisations which own brands becomes more important to consumers (Portal et al 2018), so the link between corporate branding and reputation becomes closer and more aligned. In addition to this, the need for organisations to be able to present and deliver a consistent narrative, and a believable corporate character (Arthur W. Page Society 2007, Watson 2010), has become more important in an age where global communications has been empowered and democratised by digital media (Gilpin et al 2010), and where corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental concerns have come to the forefront of branding and corporate reputation issues.

Public relations and branding research approaches

Public relations is often conceptualised as a servant of marketing and sales-led branding practice but with the paradigmatic changes to communications practice brought by digital media, and considerable citizen activism around social and environmental concerns, it might be argued that public relations is evolving as a dominant branding discipline. With this increased responsibility comes an urgent debate about the role of public relations-led branding in society. Experience of public relations in practice suggests that there has been a cross-over of marketing and communication disciplines in industry for many years, but this does not seem to translate into the academic literature, which tends to divide marketing, branding, and public relations into distinct disciplinary areas. Sitting within business schools, much academic marketing research focuses on either best practice research for industry or the identification of long-term marketing trends (Baines, Brennan, Gill and Mortimore 2009). Public relations academic research is more difficult to place as a discipline as it resides in both media arts or business and management subject areas (Oliver 2010), and much contemporary popular public relations research has tended to focus on public relations as part of an effective integrated marketing strategy. The reason for this over reliance on business-led public relations research is a dearth of empirical research into public relations in the latter half of the 20th century which has led academics to use business or corporate strategy models as a structure for research into communication management (Oliver 2010). Meadows and Meadows (2014) analysed the themes and characteristics of four decades of public relations research published in two leading academic journals, Public Relations Review and the Journal of Public Relations Research. They found that public relations research still has work to do in terms of paradigm development and agreement on a shared theoretical and methodological approach. The most researched topics were international PR; crisis response/communications; professional standards, ethics, and social responsibility; and image/reputation management and the most used models to support investigation were agenda-setting, the situational theory of publics, critical theory and framing. It is interesting to note that image/reputation management is identified as a key public relations area, suggesting a universal recognition that this aspect of communication management falls within accepted understandings of public relations (Meadows and Meadows 2014).

Initial UK-based research has focused on the development of the UK public relations industry as a profession (L’Etang 2004), or best practice development with some critical approaches from authors such as Moloney (2006) and L’Etang (2008b). Twenty years ago Kitchen (1997) argued that public relations academic research had the hallmarks of Kuhn’s pre-paradigm period and called for exploratory approaches that could develop hypotheses and establish priorities. Kitchen identified four common themes for public relations research: 1) PR as a communications function; 2) PR as establishing mutual understanding between parties; 3) PR as an intelligence function identifying issues; and 4) the social context in which public relations is concerned with assisting organisations to both formulate and achieve socially acceptable goals, thus achieving a balance between commercial imperatives and socially responsible behaviour. Edwards (2012) has addressed this critique with the formulation of a continuum of underlying public relations research assumptions which usefully categorises research into an ontological continua of foci, encompassing broad themes of functional (best practice, crisis communications, media relations, etc.) and non-functional research areas (e.g., postmodernism/post colonialism, critical political economic approaches/cultural approaches). Edwards calls for greater cross-fertilisation of research across the functional/non-functional divide, as well as a de-coupling of PR away from the normative view of it as managed communications in an organisational context. To draw the connection between functional and non-functional research, Edwards conceptualises public relations as a flow of communication. She later highlights the fact that early public relations scholars rarely published beyond core public relations and communications journals and as a result did not connect with some of the grand theoretical work which was being undertaken in other disciplines (Edwards 2016). In the 21st century the scale and reach of public relations means there is a need for comprehensive analysis of public relations as a social and cultural practice to interrogate the influence organisations have on our lives (Edwards 2018).

One of the key challenges here is the functional approach of much public relations research work, which supports a managerial and corporate perspective of public relations. Bentele and Wehmeier (2007) highlight the need to confront the empiricist and positivist tradition outlined above and suggest that the use of social theory might lead to more macro level understandings of public relations and its function in society. Holtzhausen (2002) also argues for a stronger emphasis on postmodern perspectives and critiques in public relations, proposing that this could include the deconstruction of management language and the development of public relations techniques which take a more postmodern stance. In the 21st century a range of public relations critique has been developed from rhetorical, postmodern, cultural, subaltern, globalisation, and diversity perspectives to highlight the consequences for individuals, organisations, and society of the way in which persuasive organisational discourses are used to exercise power and underpin hegemonic structures and views (Pieczka 2017). The next stage, according to Pieczka, is for public relations academics to use research to play a formative role in producing transformative knowledge to help improve social relations and power balances, rather than simply exemplifying and revealing structures and processes.

Like marketing, normative branding research also tends to reside in business school best practice projects, whilst occasionally being considered as part of cultural studies. Keller and Lehmann (2006) identified 17 different functional foci emerging from academic brand studies and argue that there has been too much of a preoccupation with brand extensions and brand equity. There is still room for a general unifying theory of brand equity (Davcik and da Silva 2015), and the nascent concept of brand authenticity has not been thoroughly examined in academic research (Schallehn et al 2014). Likewise, legitimacy, particularly in relation to the use of legitimisation strategies within public relations activity, is under-theorised (Merkelssen 2011). The study of brands has lagged behind the industry in looking at the bigger picture as traditional boundaries between brand management and other management areas are dissolving (Abimbola 2009). There have been specific studies relating to brand authenticity, particularly consumer perceptions of authenticity, but much work is embryonic and there is a lack of empirical evidence providing insight into how brands have successfully developed and maintained authentic images over a long period of time (Beverland 2005). The concept of brand authenticity is still not well defined or understood (Napoli et al 2014), and questions regarding measurement, consequences, and underlying processes still remain to be answered (Morhart et al 2015).

As well as exploring the underlying processes of brand authenticity the case studies, interviews, and theoretical discussion in this book consider the intersection of public relations and branding, and the role of public relations practitioners in articulating and protecting brands in such a way as to ensure they are perceived as authentic in a digital age. It is important that this inter-disciplinary gap is addressed as well as Edwards’ recommendation that public relations research can transcend the organisational context if we consider public relations as fluid and in flow (Edwards 2012). Ultimately recommendations in the final two chapters will add to a practical body of thought which considers the delivery of branding and reputation management programmes, but this unveiling of phenomena also aims to provide a structure for taking a critical postmodern stance towards the branding and public relations industries, and thus add to social critique and academic debate in this area.

Defining public relations

The link between branding and reputation management over time is an important topic for this book and this is an activity, it will be argued, that tends to sit within the remit of public relations practitioners. The UK Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) explicitly states on its website that all organisations depend on their reputations for survival and success and that, in today’s competitive market, reputation can be an organisation’s biggest asset. It claims that effective public relations activities can help manage reputations by communicating effectively and building excellent relationships with an organisation’s stakeholders. The Institute defines public relations in the following way (CIPR 2018):

Public Relations is about reputation – the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you. Public Relations is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour. It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics.

There has been much academic and practitioner agreement that public relations should aim to listen, as well as speak, in order to achieve consensus between an organisation and its publics (Baines et al 2004). Public relations activity also involves the process of developing useful communications-based relationships between an organisation and those outside it (Gordon 2011). Such activities have historically situated public relations practice in an advisory capacity, counselling organisational leaders on how to develop and maintain a good reputation. Views of the industry in the second half of the 20th century were particularly positive about this function of public relations. In 1978, the World Assembly of Public Relations Associations in Mexico defined PR as ‘the art and social science of analysing trends, predicting their consequences, counselling organisation leaders and implementing planned programmes of action which will serve both the organisation’s and the public interest’ (Theaker 2004:4). The idea that public relations will simultaneously serve both an organisation’s and the publics’ interest is problematic and highlights a fundamental dichotomy at the heart of public relations which seeks to build a bridge between an organisation and those outside it, whilst being employed or commissioned for the organisation itself, or perhaps actively choosing to volunteer services for it. The Public Relations Society of America recognises that public relations is a discipline which develops and changes over time and has made an attempt to tackle this issue of fundamental purpose for public relations. During 2011 and 2012, it undertook an engagement process with its members to develop a modern definition, finding that: ‘public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics. At its core, public relations is about influencing, engaging and building a relationship with key stakeholders across a myriad of platforms in order to shape and frame the public perception of an organization’ (PRSA 2018).

Like the CIPR definition, the PRSA explanation of public relations focuses on excellent management of organisational communications in order to gain mutual understanding with stakeholders, but it nevertheless does concede that public relations aims to influence and frame perceptions. This was accepted in early definitions of public relations with Edward Bernays proposing in 1952 that public relations has three meanings (1952:3):

• 1) information given to the public,
• 2) persuasion directed at the public to modify attitudes and actions, and
• 3) efforts to integrate attitudes and actions of an institution with its publics and of publics with that institution.

Watson also divides public relations into a number of facets, one of which acknowledges the persuasive nature of public relations whilst incorporating this notion of public good: ‘The interest of the publics should result in a mutually beneficial relationship or response, possibly as dialogue. Thus, it is different from publicity, which only seeks to disseminate messages’ (2017:4). Many modern definitions ignore the reality that the majority of public relations activity in practice is undertaken with organisational objectives in mind rather than consensus, leading Morris and Goldsworthy to redefine public relations in 2012 as ‘the planned persuasion of people to behave in ways which further its sponsor’s objectives. It works primarily through the use of media relations and other forms of third-party endorsement’ (Morris and Goldsworthy 2012:6). Solis and Breakenridge (2009) also unashamedly see public relations working in this way as possibly the most powerful marketing discipline which, enabled by web communications, can use new media technologies and emerging influencers to create meaningful persuasive communications material. Despite acknowledging the paymasters behind much modern day public relations practice, Solis and Breakenridge, and Morris and Goldsworthy, are still creating definitions and explanations of practice based on a positivist approach which aims to define a normative essence of public relations practice which helps substantiate its professional credentials (Galloway 2013). Instead Galloway has suggested that it may be better to take an apophatic approach, accepting that public relations is indefinable and focus instead on a new vocabulary for public relations, based around behaviours, which questions the various roles that public relations is assigned to or adopts, conceptualising public relations as dynamic and adaptive.

Branding and corporate reputation

An important aspect of brand reputation in the 21st century is the notion of responsibility brands, and the way in which brand managers present and defend reputations in the light of environmental, societal, and global concerns. By way of example, consider how on 24 March 1989 the 987-foot Exxon Valdez oil t...