Maggie Scruggs in Comm 355

Jim Rettew’s presentation on crisis communication was very interesting. I thought that he did a good job of explaining what crisis communication is and how important it is to have a crisis communication plan. He said that in a crisis communication plan you have to have situational awareness, a leader and plan in operations, a plan on how to develop a message, a victim management plan, and it must include how the organization can rebuild trust and credibility. The 11 things that he listed for a crisis plan were helpful and important to know. He also says that social media needs to be monitored because it can start a crisis, fuel a crisis, and inform people of a crisis. I agree with this because people put so many things on youtube and Facebook that could potentially cause a problem for an organization. He also gives a long list of the things that could happen to an organization. A lot of the things made sense as to why they would cause a problem but I was surprised by some of the things that I never thought of as being a problem. For example, the problem of a rape on your property. I understand that rape is a terrible thing that happens but I don’t really see how it would be a problem for a company unless someone from the company was the person who acted in the rape.

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One example of corporate social responsibility was the problem that AMCOR had with its employees and energy consumption. AMCOR wanted to save more energy by turning off the machines at the end of a shift. The problem was that the employees weren’t participating in the program. AMCOR wanted a way to get the employees involved in the plan without seeming too overbearing or ordering. So, AMCOR PR professionals came up with a play to get the employees involved. They made up training videos that dealt with environmental issues and how these issues affected the employees. They also told the employees the importance of turning off the machines and when and how to do it. This PR plan worked and AMCOR conserved a lot more energy through this “go green” plan. (http://www.ogilvypr.com/en/case-study/amcor)

     This example is corporate social responsibility because the organization was concerned with the environment and with its employees. It wanted to take some of the pressure off the environment by turning off the machines but they also wanted to make their employees feel like they were part of the decision to do so. This impacted the lives of the employees by showing them environmental problems that affected them and making them feel like they were a part of the solution. It also showed the the organization was concerened with hows its activities affected the environment and that they took responsibility for those effects.

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Corporate social responsibility is defined by the Sustainability Blog as a concept where organizations consider the interests of society by taking responsibility for the impact of their activities on customers, employees, shareholder, communities, and the environment in their operations. (http://www.sustainabilityblog.org/2007/11/13/what-is-corporate-social-responsibility/)     From this definition, the PR practitioner has to think further in to how the organizations affects these important aspects of life. They have to concentrate on making sure the people have a better life and do not hurt the environment or community through their activities. The PR practitioner must be able to know what is at stake in every position the organization could be in, know what the society expects, and know how to show the company how to do business responsibly and ethically.

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The book defines tactics as “the actions that we divise and undertake to influence relationships with particular publics.” This the follow up to research and planning. Tatics are relation building actions that are usually done through communication. They are mostly though of as channels. So TMZ’s tactic for putting out celebrity gossip is through following celebrities around, taking their picture, and then blogging about it on this website,  http://www.tmz.com/. They try to influence readers using pictures and gossip. One tactic the book talks about is a special event which is something a that can be used to put the message and the channel together. It also talked about controlled media and uncontrolled media which I thought was interesting. The book says that controlled media is like a brochure, where the organization is controlling the message. Uncontrolled media would be like news media or radio and television. I thought this was interesting because I would’ve thought of the news and radio to be controlled media as well. What goes on the news, how it is presented, and who it is targeted towards are all controlled by someone in the media. I would classify this is controlled media as well.

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Chapter 8 was all about differen types of planning in PR. In starting out planning you have to do problem-opportunity research, client research, and stakeholder research. The book also said that in order for PR people to reach their goals they have to come up with a plan for doing so. There are three types of plans. There are Ad Hoc plans which are plans that are for a specific purpose only. The plans are temporary.  Standing plans are long term plans that seek to keep a positive relationship with the public. An example of this would be something like a celebrity’s blog page. Tila Tequila, the reality star, has her own blog page where she blogs about things going on in her career and her life in order to keep up a relationship with her fans. (http://www.tilashotspot.buzznet.com/).  Another plan is a Contingency plan. This plan is for a “what if” situation. PR professionals keep these plans on the back burner for any situation that may arise and need special attention. The book also talks about why planning is important. I think that planning is important for PR so you won’t be caught off guard in any situation. I think this concept could be applied to all areas of life as well. The book also talks about planning in terms of brainstorming, strategies, etc, and also about what makes a good plan.

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Chapter 7 in the Public Relations book was all about research and evaluation in PR. Research is a huge part of PR and should be done before anything else. Out of the four steps of the PR process, research and evaluation are the most important two. An important step in research is first figuring out a research strategy. There are also four categories in which almost all PR research go into. Theses four are: client research, stakeholder research, problem opportunity research, and evaluation research. When developing a research strategy the researcher has to ask the question, “How will I gather information?” There are also different types of research like secondary and feedback research. The book also talked about different types of surveys and sampling.

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Chapter 4 was about the public in PR. The book defined public as, “Any group whose members have a common interest or common values in a particular situation.” I thought this was interesting because I have always thought of the public as everybody whether they have a common interest or not. I think it makes sense that they say that it is a group who has a common interest since anything that a lot of people listen to or watch has some common appeal to that group of people. I also think that the public are the people outside of that group. I think anyone who could be reached by the message being given is the public. The chapter also puts the public into different categories. It also talks about the relationships that organizations have with their public. It also goes through the questions that a PR practitioner must ask in order to know how the public can influence the relationship with an organization and vice versa.  

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Chapter 3 in the book talked about the history of PR. The history of PR taught me a lot about PR and how it has gotten the reputation that it has today. Over the years a lot has happened to give the PR industry a bad name and a good name. PR was started and then went away for a while. When it came back it got a bad name because of people who were publicizing different things than they were actually doing. Now PR is thought of as more of a good thing. PR is used to make a relationship with the public instead of just persuade them to do one thing or another. One example that was given in the book was the Red Cross and9/11 attacks. PR was used to spread word about the donation program for survivors but was actually used as something else. This was a misuse. The good that came out of it was that PR was used to gain a good reputation with the public again when they started informing the public of exactly what their donations were being used for.

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Chapter 2 in the PR text was all about jobs in public relations. Skills needed in PR jobs would be things like an outgoing personality, knowledge about new social media, knowledge about how to maintain healthy relationships with customers, extensive computer skills, knowledge of how to do news releases, and much more. Another skill I saw was that of speech writing skills, interview preparation, and other media related skills.

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Chapter 13 in the PR text was about public relations and marketing.

One focus in the chapter was on the changes in the marketing world. It said that marketing used to be about just buying an ad and showing it through the media which was like mass marketing. Now companies have to specialize their ads because of all of the new technology. Since there are so many new ways for people to be reached through advertisements, consumer focused marketing is more popular. Consumer focused marketing puts more emphasis on appealing to the individual and the needs of the individual. The book also focused on the three pillars of integrated marketing communication, which are advertising, marketing, and public relations. The book said that public relations has a big influence on consumer focused marketing and vice versa. Public relations has a big role in consumer focused marketing because in order to successfully market to a public you have to try to have a relationship with them first.

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