Public Relation and Integrated Communication

Chapter 1

Public Relation and Integrated Communication

 

Public Relations Society of America PRSA define “Public relations as a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.”

In the simple definition, Public relations is the way organizations, companies and individuals communicate, in a targeted and strategic manner, with identified stakeholders (Friedman, 2012). The objective of Public Relation is about establishing and maintaining effective lines of communication (for example internet, journal, events, radio+tv, and social media) to encourage understanding, acceptance and cooperation between an organization and its stakeholders. 

Currently the Public Relation concept develop to the integrated communication where this approach is more relevant in this situation. The integrated communication is the umbrella for the integrated marketing communication, the integrated communication is broader than IMC in term of emphasizing. The main activity of Integrated communication not only related to selling as the marketing goal. The concept of the integrated communication is how the organization unify the voice, an integrated one, rather than being split among functions. 

In integrated communication, PESO (Paid, Earned, Share, Owned) model can be used to explain how integrated communication should perform to achieve the goal. The PESO model reflects the reality that marketing, PR and communications have changed dramatically over the past twenty years (OBI, 2019). The model is developed by Gini Dietrich, the founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich, an integrated marketing communications firm (OBI, 2019).

The PESO marketing model could be a great way to organize the thoughts and efforts to include all aspects of marketing. This model is initially developed from the world of public relations but then being formulated to response current condition into integrated communication. Below are the Pros and Cons for each channel

Understanding the Stakeholder of PR-Integrated Communication is important

Public relation- Integrated communication object is the stakeholder. Stakeholder is all those whose have relation and have a stake/interest in the for the company or organization. In implementing PR-Integrated communication, first is very important to identify the stakeholder.

 I summarize the stakeholder into the below figure, source (Lichtenwalner, 2012)

Stakeholder position (based on what they do)	Who they are
Invested	Investor Employee Partner (suppliers)
impacted	Community Social cause Employee Families

 While in the characteristic profile (Lichtenwalner, 2012) defines as:

Stakeholder Characteristic	Who they are
Business   stakeholder	Investors, government, customers, community, employees, employee families and partners.
Non-profit stakeholder	Donors, government, clients, community, employees, employee families, volunteers, volunteer families and partners
Political Stakeholder	donors, government, constituents, community, employees, employee families, businesses and non-profits.
Church /religion wise Stakeholder	Church/religion stakeholders include: the broader church/religion group, congregation, congregant families, community, staff, staff families, volunteers, volunteer families, ministries and outreach recipients

Based on the stakeholder position (invested/impacted) and characteristic then we can categorize the Public relation – Integrated communication focus as below, aligned with  (Pahwa, 2021) categorize:

• Media Relations: Establishing a good relationship with the media organisations and acting as their content source.
• Investor Relations: Handling investors events, releasing financial reports and regulatory filings, and handling investors, analysts and media queries and complaints.
• Government Relations: Representing the brand to the government with regard to the fulfilment of policies like corporate social responsibility, fair competition, consumer protection, employee protection, etc.
• Community Relations: Handling the social aspect of the brand and establishing a positive reputation in the social niche like environment protection, education, etc.
• Internal Relations: Counselling the employees of the organisation with regard to policies, course of action, organisation’s responsibility and their responsibility. Cooperating with them during special product launches and events.
• Customer Relations: Handling relationships with the target market and lead consumers. Conducting market research to know more about interests, attitudes, and priorities of the customers and crafting strategies to influence the same using earned media.
• Marketing Communications: Supporting marketing efforts relating to product launch, special campaigns, brand awareness, image, and positioning

The Role of Public Relation -Integrated Communication in the organization

Public relations – integrated Communications in basically is about sending the right messages to the right place and the right people, creating a stronger brand with integrated communication channel. The existence of PR-IC is very important to the organization as long as the organization does not live alone and has the stakeholders who influence the organization either directly or indirectly related to the organization, impacting the organization, life or death.

Duties of public relations are now classified into three main categories: 1- informing 2- advertising and encourage 3- seeking cooperation, integration and optimizing affairs (Gilaninia, Taleghani, & Mohammadi, 2013). Scholars have enumerated two sub duties for public relations that include advertisements and formalities that these are public relations tool, not duty, and its purpose and nature. Formalities include: delivery, reverence, acceptance, cooperation, and settle and hospitality guest of organization (Lerner, 1964). Advertisement include: one-sided informing about a particular topic or purpose and include three types 1 - advertisement such as electrical and gas safety advertising on TV 2- deceptive or maneuver 3- face to face. Emphasizing this point is important that advertisement is public relations tool, neither the nature nor purpose (Gilaninia, Taleghani, & Mohammadi, 2013).

With the duties above, PR with integrated Communication can help business to improve :

1.     Increase Brand Credibility

Wherever we are, Whatever the industry, credibility is very important and determine the success of a business. Without credibility, a business leaves potential sales on the table. PR-IC is the bridge to connect the credibility-gap between a business and customers.

PR-IC will boost the credibility and increasing business reputation. This effort is often done through thought leadership, influencer connections and networking strategies.

2.     Increase Profit, Sales, and Leadership

High trust and credibility helping organizations to craft the right messages to resonate with their target customers in impactful ways. In the end, that means bigger profits.

3.     Increase Brand Equity

PR-Integrated Communication will give impact to brand awareness, brand associations, perceived quality and it will impact to Brand Equity.

4.     Enhance On-line and off -line Presence

PR-Integrated Communication when effectively can use the integrated channel can develop and enhance the presence of the business on-line/off line media. Its very crucial now when people connected with no border and no limit,

Chapter 2. Is the integrated Communication and relevance with the organization

Based on the explanation above, PR-Integrated Communication is relevant to all the organization as long as they have the stakeholder which is have the interest and impact to the organization. PR-IC will help the organization to achieve objective. (gain the credibility, increase the presence of the business, and ultimately help the organization achieve the goal either on profit wise or social goals). According to media relations define by (Pahwa, 2021) :

Organization	Relation	Objective
Medium-sized companies / SMEs or large companies	Media relations	Establishing good relationship with media, Manage publicity, building corporate image
	Investor relations	Handling investor event, releasing financial reports and regulatory filings, handling investor, analyst and media queries and complain
	Government relations	Representing the company to the government with regards to fulfilment of policies
	Community relations	Handling the social aspect of the company and its product/service and establishing a positive reputation in the social niche like environment protection, education etc.
	Internal relations	Counselling the employee of the organization with regards to the policies, course of action, organization responsibility and their responsibility cooperating with them during companies’ business activities.
	Customer relations	Handling relationship with the target market and lead consumer. Conducting market research to know more about interests, attitude and priorities of the customers and crafting strategies to influence the same using earned media
	Marketing Communications	Supporting marketing efforts induced by the company

 

 

Organization	Relation	Objective
industries that produce products or services / hospitality industry?	Media relations	Establishing good relationship with media, Manage publicity to build awareness of product/service
	Investor relations	Handling investor event, releasing financial reports and regulatory filings, handling investor, analyst and media queries and complain
	Government relations	Representing the brand to the government with regards to fulfilment of policies
	Community relations	Handling the social aspect of the brand and establishing a positive reputation in the social niche like environment protection, education etc.
	Internal relations	Counselling the employee of the organization with regards to the policies, course of action, organization responsibility and their responsibility cooperating with them during special product launches and events
	Customer relations	Handling relationship with the target market and lead consumer. Conducting market research to know more about interests, attitude and priorities of the customers and crafting strategies to influence the same using earned media
	Marketing Communications	Supporting marketing efforts relating to product launch, special campaign, brand awareness, image and positioning.

 

Organization	Relation	Objective
companies that already have social media or who have not?	Media relations	Establishing good relationship with media, Manage publicity, building image thru media for the company For the companies don’t have social media can optimize the earned media, owned media, paid media.
	Investor relations	Handling investor event, releasing financial reports and regulatory filings, handling investor, analyst and media queries and complain
	Government relations	Representing the company to the government with regards to fulfilment of policies
	Community relations	Handling the social aspect of the brand and establishing a positive reputation in the social niche like environment protection, education etc.
	Internal relations	Counselling the employee of the organization with regards to the policies, course of action, organization responsibility and their responsibility cooperating with them during special product launches and events
	Customer relations	Handling relationship with the target market and lead consumer. Conducting market research to know more about interests, attitude and priorities of the customers and crafting strategies to influence the same using earned media
	Marketing Communications	Supporting marketing efforts relating to product launch, special campaign, brand awareness, image and positioning.

  

Organization	Relation	Objective
Public Relation/marketing communication	Customer relations	Managing relation with internal customer to gain trust and to support the PR/MC program.   In this case, customer is internal customer such as management, others department/cross functional dept.
	Media Relation	Managing relationship with other media player to strengthen relationship. Increasing engagement with media.
	Community relations	Handling the community relations, to engage with customer, knowing customer deeper thru the community to get insight, survey of the product etc.
	Government Relations	Manage relation with regulator (government) to make sure the company fulfil with the regulation. In this relations, PR/Communication is the entity that in charge to manage the relations with government.

                                                                Chapter 3. Conclusion

PR- Integrated Communication is relevant to all organization as long as they have stakeholder which have stake and interest with the organization and give impact to the organization. PR-Integrated communication is how to deliver message effectively to encourage understanding, acceptance and cooperation between an organization and its stakeholders.

Integrated Communication is how to optimize the role of PR function through optimizing integrated communication channel in order to deliver message to support the objective of the company.

 

References

Friedman, M. ( 2012). Public Relations, Integrated Marketing Communications, and Professional Development in PR. Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) National Conference (p. 3). San Fransciso: Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) National Conference .

Gilaninia, S., Taleghani, M., & Mohammadi, M. E. (2013). THE ROLE OF PUBLIC RELATIONS IN ORGANIZATION. Arabian Journal of Business and Management Review (Nigerian Chapter) Vol.1 No.10, 48.

Lerner, D. (1964). Passing Traditional Society: Modernization of MiddleEast. Free Press.

Lichtenwalner, B. (2012, November 6). Modern Servant leader. Retrieved from www.modernservantleader.com: https://www.modernservantleader.com/servant-leadership/do-you-really-know-your-stakeholders/

OBI. (2019, 4 09). OBI Creative. Retrieved from OBICreative.com: https://www.obicreative.com/gini-dietrich-peso/

Pahwa, A. (2021, September 15). Feedough.com. Retrieved from www.feedough.com: https://www.feedough.com/what-is-public-relations-pr-functions-types-examples/