The Global PR Industry is one among the few that witnessed an upward trend in terms of growth in this pandemic period. As per PRovoke Media’s 2020 annual ranking of the top 250 PR agencies across the world, the “Global 250”, as they call it, the PR firms they researched reported a net growth of 6.3% in 2019 as compared to 5.3% in 2018.
Public relations and marketing are two often misinterpreted terms. It is important to realize that if you own a business, PR work need not directly impact your sales. Increasing sales alone come under the realm of marketing. Your PR team, on the other hand, will be concentrating more on increasing your brand’s popularity, reputation and in the end, give people an impression that the product/service you offer is what they ever wanted.
A pertinent question is – who wants a dedicated team for image building? A business enterprise is of course a partial answer, but not an exhaustive one. The PR industry, which was once exclusively dependent on the business sector, has begun gaining weight in other domains as well. Politics, education, and health are three such verticals.
Public Relations in Politics
At least in the Indian context, many people would get the image of a political leader who goes around houses with folded hands, as part of his/her election campaign. Picketing, boycotting, and other demonstrations are used by most politicians with just one goal – increase popularity! While an incumbent is trying to say that he/she is simply the best and irreplaceable, the rival candidate is trying to convince people of what they have been denied and how he/she can bring about a positive difference upon coming to power. These can be considered as an earlier form of PR in politics where you engage in acts of social and political importance in order to stay in the limelight. This is different from the tall promises a politician makes during the release of the election manifesto as they’re more result-oriented at a much faster pace and hence, inclined towards marketing.
This traditional form of PR campaign of a politician, generally self-strategized, is over now. Earlier, it used to be the media waiting in queues for grabbing a bite of a politician, however less significant he/she is within the political hierarchy. But now the tables have turned. The explosion in the number of mainstream media groups, the advent of new-age ‘independent’ media houses, freelancers, and the social media boom — together have made the politician run behind the media. Here comes the need for a dedicated PR team to explore new possibilities in this dynamic age and strategize accordingly.
Every major politician has a dedicated PR team. Though in India it is relatively a new concept, the world over, politicians have been actively engaging with their PR team for over three decades. The legacy of Tim Bell, who guided Margaret Thatcher through three successful general elections, is still etched in the annals of UK political history. The last decade in Indian politics is also marked by a power play of PR teams.
Effective Media Communication
As mentioned before, a PR job is different from a marketing job even though there exist some verticals where an intersection definitely happens. PR is majorly concerned with how effectively the name of your brand is being communicated to the target consumers, the responses to your brand among target consumers, and responses you get from the consumers as a producer of this brand.
There are three broad ways of effective media communication — Owned, Paid, and Earned.
Owned media communication is nothing but communicating via a medium that you own. It may be a website or your company’s brochure or an annual magazine or anything such. A well-maintained website with the necessary information will undoubtedly attract a customer who specifically came to your website. But the catch here is that the potential customer should’ve heard about your company and should be confident that the product he/she is searching for, is available with you. Hardly anyone who values time would gaze through your website if he/she doesn’t need your service/product or if he/she is not aware that you’re selling this product.
Paid media: As the name suggests, communicating via paid media is nothing but an advertorial, though, at times, the cleverly manipulated way of presentation may not visibly say so. Here, we’re not considering the targeted ads that appear on different websites as they’ve already been discussed. Now, advertorials are of two broad categories – those that are mentioned as an advertorial and those not. Here comes the question of the ethics of media. When a politician or a political party is being given a positive hype on a news channel/paper, highlighting his achievements and playing down his failures, it is clear that the PR is at play there. In some other cases, a package mentioning the feats of someone or an institution will be played in the media mentioning it as “sponsored content” or “in paid partnership” or some other similar terms.
Earned public relations, as the name suggests, is an achievement a product or an institution or a politician earns over the years building trust and brand value. Let’s take two examples to differentiate the earned PR via trust and brand value. A product that has delivered excellent results over time or perhaps a stock that has delivered amazing returns are all quoted by common people and media as good examples. A very visible example of earned PR via brand value is an iPhone mirror selfie. Some surveys have suggested that as many as 70% of iPhone users have posted at least one mirror selfie on their social media accounts flaunting their phone.
Public relations is still an emerging and largely untapped market in most parts of the globe that experiences a large digital or internet divide among the people living there. Every PR agency makes use of available resources to penetrate the market. Like all businesses, when the demand and competition increases, the market also evolves, and hence, bridging whatever divides the society at large faces.