Public relations is a management tool used by organizations to establish beneficial relationships with other groups through research, policy development, and implementation. It allows the public to communicate interests to organizations and helps achieve adjustments between groups. PR originated from corporate leaders addressing public issues and expanded during wars to influence public opinion. It developed as a management function at companies like AT&T and involves media relations, crisis communication, and integrated marketing. PR professionals work to shape perceptions through publicity and advising on policy while maintaining ethical standards in their field.

1. Public Relations

2. What is public relations?
• “Public relations is a
management tool for
leaders in business,
government and
other institutions to
establish beneficial
relationships with
other institutions
and groups”

3. Four steps necessary for PR
• First, identify your
publics--your
existing
relationships
• Second, evaluate
the relationships
using research

4. • Design policies to
improve the relationships
• Implement the
policies
– “enlightened selfinterest”

5. Role of public relations in a
democracy
• A way for public to
speak its desires &
interests to
organizations
• A way to achieve
mutual adjustments
between institutions
and groups
• A safety valve for
freedom
• An essential
element to keep us
informed
• Can help activate
social conscience of
organizations where
we work

6. Origins of public relations
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Moguls in trouble
Vanderbilt
social Darwinism
Ivy Lee
Rockefeller
Ludlow Massacre
Philanthropy

7. Public relations on a new
scale
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World War I
George Creel--Creel Committee
World War II
Elmer Davis--Office of War Information
Corporate giving
– Minneapolis--5% club
– United Way campaigns

8. Edward Bernays
• Freud’s nephew
• WWI Creel Comm.
• 1923 Crystallizing
Public Opinion
• 1955 “Engineering
of Consent”
• Social responsibility

9. Structure of public relations
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Arthur Page at AT&T
PR as a management function
External relations
Internal relations
Media relations
PR agencies

10. PR services
• Publicity &
promotion
• Lobbying
• Political
communication
• Image consulting
• Financial PR
• Fundraising
• Contingency
planning
• Polling
• Events coordination

11. PR and advertising
• Both persuade
through mass media
• PR shapes org
policy
• Sells points of view
and images
• PR tries to influence
media to tell its story
a certain way

12. Integrated marketing
communications
• Hot new buzz word.
• IMC--attempts to coordinate advertising
as a marketing tool with promotion and
publicity of the sort that PR experts can
provide.
• Ad agencies move into PR
• Overlap in institutional advertising

13. Media relations: crisis
management
• Open media
relations
– Tylenol case history
• Proactive media
relations
– Persian Gulf

14. Steps in Tylenol case
• Halt Tylenol
manufacture &
distribution
• Remove Tylenol
from stores
• Launch massive ad
campaign to
exchange Tylenol
for safe product
• Staff press center
-50 PR experts for
media & consumers
• Ordered internal co.
investigation
• Full cooperation with
gov’t investigators
• Tamper proof pkg.

15. Proactive media relations
• Crisis management
– seize leadership on a
story
• Persian Gulf war
– Pentagon
spokesman with
Defense Sec’y &
Chiefs of Staff
– Lots of news
briefings

16. Adversarial media relations
• General Motors 1954 severed media
relations with information boycott
• Mobil oil’s Herb Schmertz attacked
media critics
– Use of paid advertising, ‘advertorials’
– Use corporate reps to tell Mobil’s side
– Respond to any media criticism of oil
industry

17. Professionalization of PR
• Tarnished image
– PT Barnum “Huckster”
– “whitewashing”
– “Flaks”
– “public information,” “public affairs,”
“corporate communication” departments
• Standards,certification, accreditation
• Professional associations