Public Relations

PR is about reputation, the result of what you do, what you say & what others say about you.
Public Relations is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning
understanding and support and influencing opinion and behavior. It is the planned and sustained
effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organization and
its publics.
PR is the practice of understanding the purpose of an organization and its relationship within
society.
OBJECTIVE OF PR
The main objective of public relations is to maintain a positive reputation of the brand and
maintain a strategic relationship with the public, prospective customers, partners, investors,
employees and other stakeholders which leads to a positive image of the brand and makes it
seem honest, successful, important, and relevant.
Types of public relations
According to the functions of the public relations department/agencies, public relations can be
divided into 7 types. These are:
1) Media Relations: Establishing a good relationship with the media organizations and
acting as their content source.
2) Investor Relations: Handling investors events, releasing financial reports and regulatory
filings, and handling investors, analysts and media queries and complaints regarding
investigation analyst & media.
3) Government Relations: Representing the brand to the government with regard to
fulfilment of policies like corporate social responsibility, fair competition, consumer
protection, employee protection, etc.
4) Community Relations: Handling the social aspect of the brand and establishing a
positive reputation in the social niche like environment protection, education, etc
5) Internal Relations: Counselling the employees of the organization with regard to
policies, course of action, organization’s responsibility and their responsibility.
Cooperating with them during special product launches and events, providing incentives/
bonus or other facilities to maintain relations.
6) 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.
7) Marketing Communications: Supporting marketing efforts relating to product launch,
special campaigns, brand awareness, image, and positioning.

3 Key points of PR

1) Awareness: Public relations efforts can help to build business and product awareness
among target buyers and end users, often at a fraction of the cost of advertising. Many
 small and large businesses consciously utilize PR as a way to obtain free advertising
about their products and services.
2) Understanding: The main point of PR is that it produces understanding between an
organization & its public, investors, govt officers, stockholders, employees etc.
3) Image Building: a certain image of the organization has to be built & maintained. This is
done by PR.
Responsibilities Of PR
1) Writing Press release: The duty of writing press release. What kind of wordings have to
be used? It has to be done by PR.
2) Writing Speeches/ Features/ Contents: the speeches given by the person of
organization are written, reviewed, revised before being spoken. It has to be done by PR.
3) Media Management/ Media Coverage: Those media channels which will write
positively about the organization are called at events by PR management. This is included
in responsibilities of PR that what kind of media is to be called.
4) Maintaining press list: to have list of reporters in order to give a news to be broadcasted
is one of its responsibilities.
5) Developing communication Campaigns & Public Strategies: to influence people or to
make them aware of something cautious is one of the ways of developing communication
between organization & public. For e.g. Generation brand gave awareness of breast
cancer.
6) Designing and making brochures/ memos/ catalogues: For e.g. the brands of lawn suits
in Pakistan have all these catalogues and the universities have their prospectus. It is the
responsibility of PR to do that.
7) Crisis Management: there is a crisis management department which deals with all the
emergency conditions that an organization might face. For e.g. airlift and SWL were
accused of being unsafe but it was resolved by their crisis management department.
8) Arranging events/ picnics/ conferences/ meetups/ press conference meetings: to
develop goodwill with others, different events are organized. These events are organized
by PR management. Different pharmaceutical companies invite doctors on different
events to maintain goodwill with them.
9) Undertaking relevant market research: to know what is the standings of product in
market, researches and surveys are done. What pricing and levels does a product has is to
be researched by PR management.
10) Providing workshops and training: before coming in front of media one is trained
regarding body language and wordings.
11) Speaking publicly in interviews/ press conferences: PRO is the one who is answerable
about all the questions and critics about a company or product.
 4 P’s Of PR
Without these no company can survive. Before launching a product, all of this must be
considered.
1) PRICE: Price is the cost consumers pay for a product. The decisions regarding price are
influenced by a number of factors such as production cost, demand and supply, nature
and type of competition, government rules and regulations, product, promotion, channels,
of distribution etc.
2) PLACE: Place decisions outline where a company sells a product and how it delivers the
product to the market. The goal is to get their products in front of the consumers most
likely to buy them.
3) PACKAGING: Packaging refers to the activities of providing a wrappers or container
for a product. It protects the products, so that it can travel safely through the channels of
distribution from producers to the consumers and can also be stored easily. It also helps
in preserving the freshness and quality of the product. Attractive package design, colors,
shapes, materials, etc. cast a distinct image about the product in the minds of the
consumers.
4) PROMOTION: Promotion includes advertising, public relations, and promotional
strategy/sales. This shows consumers why they need it and should pay a certain price for
it.
Key Differences Between Advertising and Public Relations

The difference between advertising and public relations are as following:

1. Advertising is a technique of drawing public attention to products or services, mainly

through paid announcements. Public Relations is a practice of strategic communication
that aims at building a mutually beneficial relationship between the company and the
public.
2. Advertising is a purchased or paid media, whereas public relations is an earned media.
3. Advertising is a monologue activity. Conversely, public relation is a two-way
communication process, wherein the company listens and responds to the public.
4. Advertising is done to promote product or services, with an aim to induce the intended
audience to buy. On the other hand, public relations aim at maintaining a positive image
of the company in the media.
5. In advertising, the placement of the ad is guaranteed, but there is no such guarantee of
placement in case of public relations.
6. In advertising, the ad is published or aired as long as you are willing to pay for. On the
contrary, in the case of public relation, the story is published only once.