2. Group of people who:
• are affected by or have an effect on
the organization
• are important to the org.
• share common concerns
• share common goals
What’s a
Public
3. • can be defined geographically
• can be defined by roles & positions:
editor, home owner, student, community
leader, manager, parent, alumni, arts patron
• can be defined by their use of media:
subscribers, viewers or exposed to messages
• can be identified by their reactions to
certain issues of concern to the organization
What’s a
Public
8. Identify key publics
(may need more than one public for each obj.)
• Demographic & psychographic profile
• Motivating self-interests
• Current relationship with issue & org.
• Influentials & opinion leaders
• Objectives each public will help accomplish
What we need to
find out
From
Step
1
9. 1. How much can the public influence our
organization’s ability to achieve its goals?
2. What’s the public’s stake in its relationship with
our org?
3. Who are the opinion leaders/influentials?
4. What’s their demographic profile?
5. What’s their psychographic profile?
6. What’s their opinion of our organization?
7. What’s their opinion of the issue in question?
Getting to know
your publics
10. Who should your publics be?
Goal:
• To attain recognition as one of the best small
universities in the country
11. Objectives:
•Get ranked among the top 25 master's-granting
institutions in the Western region by the U.S. News &
World Report
• Increase number of applications from high school
seniors who graduated in the top 25% of their class
• Increase number of job applications from faculty who
graduated from top 10 schools in their respective fields
Goal:
• To attain recognition as one of the best small
universities in the country
Publics?
12. The Right
combination of publics
• Best overall solution
• Best for long-term relationship
• Most cost-effective
➡ Cost shouldn’t be the first criterion
14. Reversing Order
is a prescription for failure
In that case, objectives would be determined by:
• who you want to reach rather than
• what you need to accomplish
15. Objective:
• Increase number of applications from high school
seniors who graduated in the top 25% of their class
Publics:
• High school counselors
• High school Superintendents
• Parents of high school students
• Honors class teachers
• High school students (juniors)
16. WWYD
Core Problem: rising rate (44 percent) of
“binge” drinking among the 708,820 junior
enlisted military personnel (males, 18-24)
18. Self-interest: to avoid social
embarrassment
Find out more:
• Alcohol facts & traditional health messages are inconsequential
• Short-term social consequences (i.e. loss of control,
embarrassment among peers) are more likely to resonate
• Participants had negative feelings toward people who drink to
excess and lose control
• Participants don’t respond well to messages delivered from their
chain of command
Focus group research: What types of messages, activities, &
creative concepts would resonate with the target?
Research
19. The Influentials
Who does the military personnel respect?
The Answer (from research): Peers
Who could best persuade them to quit?
20. Don’t be that guy campaign
Appeal based on peer social disapproval
22. Grunig’s
Situational Theory
• Publics emerge from situations
• Publics share similarities in
comm. behavior
• These behaviors are not
related to demographics
Why are some publics active & some passive?
24. Problem Recognition: do you think it’s a problem?
Constraint Recognition: can you do something about it?
Involvement: How personally/emotionally involved are you in the problem?
25. Publics
• All-issue publics: active on all issues
• Apathetic publics: inattentive to all issues
• Single-issue publics: active on a small subset of
the issue that only concerns them
• Hot-issue publics: active on a single issue that
involves nearly everyone and that has
received a lot of media attention
Types of
4
