Strategic PR vs. Marketing PR: Clearing the grey areas
This has to be my most academic article since I started publishing on Medium. But it was necessary to approach it from a theoretical standpoint because of the topic.
Unlike medicine, accountancy and law, several terms have been used to describe the public relations (PR) profession causing confusion as to what public relations really is.
Public relations or Communications?
Besides the term public relations, you hear of corporate affairs, corporate communications, or public relations and communications. Even practitioners struggle to define public relations and cannot explain why they go by a certain title — for instance Communications Manager — as opposed to Public Relations Manager.
In 1998, Julie K. Henderson, an associate professor of journalism at the time, conducted a study titled, ‘Negative connotations in the use of the term “public relations” in the print media.’ In that study, Henderson notes that the Public Relations Society of America’s Special Committee on Terminology wrote in its 1987 report:
“The babel of terms applied to what is generally referred to as ‘public relations’ is a threat to “the advancement of the field and to the stature of the people in it — whatever title they may use… the diversity of titles and terminology splinter the image of the field… Practitioners in this field are looked upon as masters in the effective use of language. As a minimum, they should be able to use the terms in their own profession accurately.”
Davis (2007) also quotes a 2001 PR Week interview of Harold Burson, an American business doyen who said, “The term communications has become synonymous with PR but this does a disservice to our profession by making it tactical. … The best term for what we do is public relations.”
He also references Van Riel (1995) who suggested the corporate communication maybe categories as management communication — communication by managers within the organisation, as well as the symbolic role which the chief executive officer or spokesperson plays in representing the company in public, marketing communication and organisational communication which refers to all non-marketing related communication such as internal communication.
Marketing public relations
Marketing public relations (MPR) has its origin in the classical marketing mix, that is, the 4Ps namely; product, price, place and promotion.
Promotion is widely referred to as the marketing communication mix which consists of advertising, public relations, direct marketing, sales promotions and direct sales.
Marketing author Kotler (1991) suggests how MPR supports marketing beginning with the launch of a new product/ service and throughout the product lifecycle. In the growth stage, public relations is used to build interest and persuades trial. For mature products, MPR is used to remind consumers about its continuous existence. And in decline, it is used to re-energise an old product using activities such as repositioning campaigns, events and sponsorship.
MPR is also used to defend a product in crisis and to build the corporate image in a way that can rub-off positively on the product. For instance, because Guinness has built a strong corporate image over time, any new product it introduces into the market is received with a certain level of trust.
The manager vs. the technician
To aid understanding of the meaning of strategic PR, it important to consider the roles of communication technicians and managers identified by Broom and Dozier (1986).
They explain that the technician is skilled at writing and crafting messages. The technician’s job involves writing press releases, speeches and employee newsletters. Furthermore, the technician does not have a seat at the management table. As such, technicians are only brought in to execute plan once the strategy has been decided. The manager on the other hand is involved in defining problems using research and environment scanning and developing solutions to the identified problems.
Strategic public relations
Public relations scholar, J.E Grunig in his research into the excellence of public relations practice (1992) found that the position of the highest ranking public relations executive — that is whether manager or technician — was a determinant of excellence. Grunig concluded that for public relations to be strategic, the executive in charge of the function must have a place at the decision-making table.
Consequently, public relations becomes strategic when it is treated as a management function, and accorded the same level of authority as marketing, finance, human resources, IT which work together to contribute to the overall achievement of corporate goals.
The lack of knowledge about the distinction between MPR and strategic PR is the reason why several organisations place public relations under marketing in the organisational chart. But as Burson said, it is a disservice to the profession.
In Nigeria, the majority of PR practice tends to be MPR and most practitioners are confined to the role of technicians. But to limit the definition of public relations to the complementary role it plays in the marketing communications mix, is to negate the profession’s duty of catering to other stakeholder groups including; employees, shareholders and the community, as well as to ignore the role of PR in not-for-profit organisations or institutions such as government.
