Nowadays,using celebrity endorsement in developing a brand image is something essentialin order to survive in an always more competitive market. Celebrityendorsement sometimes could be a good opportunity but also a risk if you are enable to evaluate the possible implications of your choice. A clear example of a missed success in celebrity endorsement is the recent case of Michael Jordan and ADIDAS. In the past, the sport brand was really near to sign a contract with the famous NBA king, Michael Jordan at an early stage of his career. It came to light that ADIDAS refused this sponsorship because they thought that he could not become an NBA star. The wrong evaluation of this choice cost the company to lose a huge amount of money in the next 20 years in the basketball market. In fact, NIKE that has been always ADIDAS’s biggest competitor, took advantage of this situation to connect its name with that of Michael Jordan, and with the increase popularity of the basket player NIKE grew as well in its revenues, building its image on Michael Jordan’s success.
Another important aspect that has to be taken into consideration is the link between the expenses for a celebrity endorsement and the benefit obtained from that. In many cases, paying huge amount of money is not worth it. A really famous example was the one-year contract that Madonna signed with PEPSI to star in a series of Pepsi commercials. PEPSI paid the singer over $5 million to use her new song "Like a Prayer" in the spot without realizing that the music video of that song was really controversial. The video contained images of burning crosses, stigmata, romantic love with a priest or saint, and similar scenes. After that, a lot of opposition raised, trying to boycott the soft drinks brand. This case as many others in the past shows that you need to be really careful about the celebrity you are engaging, because it could make your campaign being a success or failing miserably.
When using a celebrity endorsement is also important to choose someone that can suit your brand and the audience you are targeting. Let’s think about the recent #MyCalvins campaign made by Calvin Klein. The Underwear brand used in its recent campaign the young singer Justin Bieber. After the ads came out, there has been lot polemics that accuse the brand to have airbrushed or Photoshopped Bieber's abs to make them appear more defined. Calvin Klein's iconic #MyCalvins campaign is known for sexy, male photos in its ads but this time their campaign seems to be an epic fail. Moreover, who buy that underwear dream to be like the model in the picture, and Justin Bieber is famous to be a girls’ love rather than guys’ one, because GUYS DO NOT WANT TO BE LIKE HIM, THEY WANT TO “BEAT” HIM.
However, I’ve just been through bad examples of celebrity endorsement but there are many where the brands really succeed in establishing a link between their image and a desirable lifestyle of a celebrity. One of these examples is the successful campaign of Nespresso starring George Clooney. This celebrity endorsement is not only great because the connection between the star and the brand suits perfectly, but also because George Clooney is that kind of star that reach a wider target audience. I think it is hard to find someone that does not love George because men want to be him, women want to marry him (maybe they wanted when he was still single) and young girls take him as their ideal boyfriend in a couple of years.
In conclusion, learning from these epic fails, we can say that celebrity endorsement is necessary and beneficial for brands, not only established brands but also small ones. This can be a useful tool to increase sales and visibility of your brand, however we have seen that if used without a PR logic and in a careless way it can lead to a big failure in your communication and business strategy.
Related links
Business Insider - The 13 Worst Celebrity Endorsement Fails
Daily Mail - 'They airbrushed Justin Bieber to the high heavens!': Tweeters accuse pop star of having his muscles Photoshopped in new Calvin Klein campaign
FOOD…OR DRINK FOR THOUGHT? What is the key to be creative?
Recently the fashion brand Diesel started its campaign BE STUPID where they were praisingthe fact of being stupid, because “IF WE DIDN’T HAVE STUPID THOUGHTS, WE’D HAVE NO INTERESTING THOUGHTS AT ALL”. In this semester we are asked to come up with a strategic plan for a consumer brand and what I found really difficult is being creative, when developing a campaign. Looking at some previous campaigns, I noticed that the best creative ideas are actually the most stupid ones, the ones that we would never expect.
In the life of a Public Relations practitioner “creativity” is one of the most important things along with being strategic and organized in your ideas. Creativity is not something that we have in our genes, of course some people can be more creative than others, but I strictly believe that everybody can develop this skill, by learning how to be creative.
So, how can we learn to use our creativity at our best? This is a good question… I usually find easier for me to come up with craziest creative ideas when I am having a brainstorming with my friends or colleagues. Talking and sharing my ideas with others really helps my creativity to come out, because sometimes we didn’t think about a detail that may be important or we focus too much about something that could be easily overlooked. That is why I found individual projects so much harder than group ones.
There have been many studies about the factors that help people in being creative. One of the funniest ones is alcohol. It sounds ridiculous but many researches show that the ability in solving problems is higher in drunk individuals compared to sober ones (The Wall Street Journal, 2012). Well, I am not saying to get drunk when you are planning a campaign, but it is quite interesting the connection between creative benefits and relaxation. As Lehrer explain in his article, we always force ourselves to concentrate and being focus but this approach can inhibit our imagination, because “we might be focused, but we're probably focused on the wrong answer” (The Wall Street Journal, 2012).
In conclusion, if I need to suggest you how to be creative, I would say… think the unexpected, even if you find that stupid, share your ideas with someone and grab a glass of wine. Cheers!!!
References
Lehrer, J. (March, 2012) How To Be Creative. The Wall Street Journal. Available from: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203370604577265632205015846
One week ago, LIFEHUNTERS.TV, an agencyspecialized in videos and communication, released a video in which they displayed acheap painting of IKEA, sold at 7£, in an art gallery in the Netherlands. What it is interesting are the reactions of the people who are supposed to be art critics after discovering the real value of the painting.
Here I attached the entire video in which you can see all the reactions and the history behind the video…
After watching this video, we can easily arrive at some conclusions. First of all, how a powerful communication mixed with other important factors such as location and timing can lead people to have a different perception of a product. In this case, we talk about a paint but we can apply this theory to many different products. However, often we can find campaigns in which the message is unclear, or sometimes wrong and for this reason also in front of good products the main reaction of consumers is rejection.
However, we can see in this video how sometimes a good and powerful message could influence our thoughts about something. In fact, the power of information can lead the consumer to over evaluate the real value of a product. In this case we can easily talk about manipulation of consumers’ behaviour.
In a first reflection, we look at the communication in a positive way, since communication leads people’s choices and increase companies’ performance. In a second analysis, we can consider the power of communication in a negative way, where communication is used to create false expectations. In this case, we assist to a manipulation of consumer’s perception, and an important role is played not only by the message but also by the environment that influences our behaviour.
In addition, I think that this video could easily be used in a future IKEA campaign, since the furniture brand has always built its success promoting good quality products for a competitive and relatively cheap prize.
Finally what I really appreciate about this video is the capability of the authors to surprise the audience. In fact, when developing a message the most important thing is to catch and surprise your audience, creating a connection between your company – the message – and the audience. In this case we can say without any doubt that LIFEHUNTERS have the ART OF SURPRISE.
Related Links
Daily Mail - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3002712/Pranksters-cheap-IKEA-print-art-gallery-ask-experts-value-saying-worth-nearly-2million.html
DOLCE & GABBANA VS ELTHON JOHN – WHO MIGHT LOOSE MORE?
A recent interview to the designers DOLCE & GABBANA, about their idea of family, produced an incredible reaction from the gay community, and Sir Elton John decides to be the leader of this Crusade against one of the most famous fashion houses.
The scandal was particularly referred to a sentence pronounced by Domenico Dolce in which he affirms that the only idea of family for him is the traditional one but that does not “imply that I don’t understand different ones”. In the interview, the two designers expose their personal idea without giving any type of recommendation or critic against other points of view.
Unfortunately, this type of interview is often exploited for creating a damage of image, or a boycott movement. In addition, this time we have assisted to this awful little theatre and we saw not only organizations for the gay rights leading the crusade but also one of the most famous gay icon: Sir Elton John. He was the first one to reply to the interview and the first who has launched the hashtag #boycottdolceandgabbana against the Italian fashion house.
This recent case led me to analyse, which is the space for your personal idea. Is it unacceptable have a personal, also if controversial, opinion when you are a VIP? Personally, I found ridiculous the boycott because as the designers explained in the interview, they give only their personal opinion and they have not suggested any type of recommendation to anyone. Unfortunately, the power of notoriety is also connected to this; in fact, when you are an influencer it could happen that your words could be manipulated against yourself.
Today everyone talks about democracy, everyone is Charlie but at the same time, everyone is ready to try to destroy another person for his/her personal ideas. The real question is why and for what? Personally, I think that it is only a question of audience or a will to fight battle only for celebrity. The use of social media can have huge and disruptive impact on the brand and people, and it is necessary to understand which is the power of words. Personal opinions need to be respected also if controversial, because it is too simple to be Charlie only when you are in agreement with someone.
The reaction of the two designers was clever and pondered focused on mutual respect, but also focused on safeguarding the brand against a boycott movement. In 2013, another Italian brand BARILLA suffered a boycott action after an interview about the theme of family and gay couples; the result of the boycott was a public excuse and a huge damage in terms of revenues and image. Dolce and Gabbana have anticipated the damage and they were able to reply promptly to the attack, not like the BARILLA CEO, and as I said in other posts, timing in communication is crucial.
Another important key to minimize the effect of possible boycott movement and the social spread of it, is to be social and communicative too. Personally, I think that the first alley of the polemic is silence; only an opposite and strong reaction could defeat this type of attack. Certainly everything is easier if you are DOLCE & GABBANA, but still risky.
SOCIAL FEAR – HOW ISIS USES SOCIAL MEDIA FOR PROPAGANDA
In the last six months we have seen an escalation of violence in the MENA area, a new type of war has started but the images that we now see day by day are different from the past.
ISIS is now a new reality, a nightmare for the Occidental countries, the attacks outside the MENA area are now reality, the massacre of Paris last example at the headquarter of Charlie Hebdo was a clear example.
But what is ISIS and why we are so scared about it? First of all, it was not the first time that in the MENA area people fight for religion motivations; it is also true that already in the past Europe needed to fight against the fear and threat fundamentalist Islamic terrorism. A clear example was the terrorist attack during the Olympic Game of Munich in 1972. Which are the reasons beyond our fear?
If we talk about ISIS, the first things that come to our mind are the videos of Jihadi John, the executions of occidental hostages, and the war images from Bagdad or Aleppo. The answer about our fear is principally based on the power of these terrible images. With these videos, we have assisted to public executions, as in a Hollywood film, but with a fundamental difference: after the first clapperboard, everything is real, blood, fear and we are conscious that the reality scares more than the fiction.
The strategy of ISIS is nothing new; they use as in the past for other political movements as Nazism, the propaganda in sharing their beliefs and try to extend their power and consensus. Personally, I found many similarities with the Nazi propaganda that tried to show during the world war the strength of the German Army and society with the intent to terrify their enemies. Propaganda was also used for creating a sense of community and for continuing the recruiting of new adepts. The only difference about the new propaganda is to be researched in the tools.
In the new of era of communication everyone could became a video maker, post the video and in less than a minute share it potentially with millions of people. The facility in which today we can communicate is nothing comparable with the instruments of ten years ago, imagine with the tools in the early 40’.
One of the most important keys for ISIS is its communication model; they use social media as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and YouTube to spread fear worldwide for creating consensus and sense of community. Most of them are sons of our society, they studied in our Universities they learnt our culture and they know exactly what scares us. The techniques that they use in their videos are exactly the ones that filmmakers in Hollywood use for their film. There is no control on social media no one can predict when there will be a new video or actions. The use of social media also helps them to spread their message in a really short time and become the same viral.
Finally it is clear that most of the power of this movement could be researched in their communication power, blocking it could be one possible strategy for defeating their propaganda but also very difficult to carry out. One of the best strategies against ISIS is using an inverse communication, because bombs or rifles could not defeat the incredible power of words and ideas, because both are stronger than bullets.
BBC DILEMMA- WHEN AUDIENCE COULD CONTROL YOUR DECISION
In the last weeks, here in UK everyone talks about the possible layoff of Jeremy Clarkson after his suspension after a punch to one of the producers of the famous TV programme Top Gear. With this decision BBC is in front of a huge dilemma, maintaining the status quo and accept once again the behaviour of the front man, or deciding to fire the frontman once and for all.
In fact, it is not the first time that the name of the well-known presenter is connected to a scandal, just think about the accusation of racism of last year during one episode of the series. In this situation not only the reputation and credibility of the frontman is at stake but also that of the BBC that can no longer accept this type of conduct; also because on the other hand an opposite decision could represent a moral hazard in the future also for other employees of the channel.
After a first sight, this story could be defined as a simple work circumstance: a fact that produces decisions and finally the end of a longer working relationship… but nothing is forever. Unfortunately, as I demonstrated in this blog nothing is simply black or white and sometimes the decisions could have unexpected results.
In fact first of all we need to think that Jeremy Clarkson is not a simple employee but is the co-conductor of one of the most famous TV programmes of the BBC, Top Gear is a programme with potentially more than 350 million viewers worldwide. Top Gear, one of the most long running in the history of British television, is the type of programme that we can define “cash cows” for the BBC, and part of its success is also connected to the role played by the conductors of the series.
Immediately after the decision of suspending Jeremy, and the consequent suspension of the programme, a series of tweets started to monopolise internet, everyone in UK started to talk about the issue and hashtags as #bringbackclarkson become one of the most popular in UK. The petition for having back Clarkson reached in only two weeks the incredible number of more than one million firms, and for this reason, BBC decided to postpone every kind of decision.
In this case, it appears clear that in the new era of communication, companies need to pay attention to their decision. Timing is fundamental because as we saw the reactions can be unexpected and bring companies to regret their decisions with consequences sometimes worst than the actual choice. The problem in this story is not only, Jeremy back or Jeremy fired but how nowadays the decisions of companies are deeply influenced by the customers and audience and the power that these two actors have obtained thanks to new social media platforms.
This is an important message to CEOs and at the same time an alarm, today the problems affected BBC but tomorrow this could happen in other companies. Controlling and being conscious about the risk of a possible intrusion of consumers in the decisions of a company is probably the first step for resolving and being prepared for this type of, even more frequent, issues.
#RACETOGETHER - IS COFFEE A GOOD SOLUTION AGAINST RACISM?
After only a week, last Sunday the CEO ofthe group STARBUCKS Howard Schultz decided to suspend the campaign against racism of the most important cafeteria in the world, after the pressure of social media and a substantial rejection from the consumers.
The public campaign of the American colossus was launched only one week before…so what’s going wrong? The public campaign wanted to push STARBUCKS customers and employees to start a conversation about one of the most controversial themes discussed in US in this precise moment: racism. The campaign was created in a period of particular tension in the American society especially after the tragic events of Ferguson, that re opened the debate about the still presence of racism in the American society.
As I wrote in other blog posts, the role of communication and public relations is fundamental when we decide to talk about critical topic as equality, racism, human rights and CSR because the risk of uncontrolled and opposite reaction from your audience is possible and sometimes unavoidable.
It is important how you communicate to your customers; the way of communication and the reception from your customers are strategic issues and you must be prepared to perceptions different from the ones that you would have expected. Nowadays a good evaluation for a public campaign is also based on the capability to react to critics and more generally to adapt your message.
Nowadays, brands are more interested than in the past in the two-way communication model described by Grunig (1984). In fact, they are trying to avoid a simple one-way communication, engaging the audience in more social media activities, and it is what Starbucks was trying to do.
However, going back to the story… After many attacks and pressure, STARBUCKS decided a regret movement to its campaign, because the result of the campaign was unexpected and hostile. Many people perceived the message as an opportunistic strategy to make business upon tragedy as the facts of Ferguson. In other cases, the perception was that the message was acceptable but pointless for a brand that makes coffee. “The Starbucks plan is a flawed one,” Gwen Ifill, co-anchor of the television news programme “PBS News Hour,” wrote on the PBS website on Friday. “A ‘conversation’ about race cannot be a fleeting one. It certainly cannot be an under-caffeinated one” (The Wallstreet Journal, 2015). Also customers didn’t show enthusiasm for the initiative and they perceived the campaign as a fail and an unclear one.
From this story, it appears clear that some topics even if they are important, represent a big risk for a hypothetically public campaign. First of all the reaction of customers and media about these themes are unfortunately unpredictable and ambiguous. Another important reflection is about the way to introduce controversial topics in your CSR strategy. In this case, the campaign appears not feasible, the message does not pass in the way that they expected and since it is not accepted by your audience it is not beneficial for the company.
CSR is a controversial field, where sometimes the company risks to be misunderstood. In this case, people perceived the message in a negative connotation and they saw in the message an unethical way to take advantage from tragic events, as the facts of Ferguson. Personally, I think that it is important to keep higher the alarm on these types of issues as racism, but sometimes companies need to control and create a good and strong campaign before they start to transmit a message against that because the risk of a resounding own goal is higher than the possible goals. If you have any doubts ask Mr Schultz…
References
Grunig, J.E. and Hunt, T. (1984) Managing Public Relations. Orlando: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Dean , J. (March 22, 2015) Starbucks Ends Key Phase in ‘Race Together’ Campaign. The Wallstreet Journal.
After the recent publication by CIPR of the report ‘State of Profession 2015’, I bumped into different comments of PR practitioners. Some seem to be discouraged about this profession and some think about this report as a source of encouragement to improve Public Relations. I know I am just a student and of course I have not started yet my adventure in this fabulous career, but after reading this report I feel more than happy to have chosen this career. I am also glad to live in UK where this profession is widely recognized and developed, since I come from a country, Italy, where this profession is sometimes confused with marketing communication or even not taken into consideration as a proper profession.
I was happy to read that the 63% of the PR practitioners interviewed enjoy their job, less in seeing that age has a direct effect on happiness because those over 45 are more likely to enjoy their job than those younger than them.
As a woman, reading that Public Relations has a pay inequality gap of £8,483 in favor of men, makes me think that there is still a lot that has to be done in this profession to maintain a gender balance, since I do not think men and women apply different skills in doing the same job. From the report gender is the third biggest influence on salary, more than education background, sector of practice, graduate status, and full-time/part-time status. The gender inequality is a sad picture of an industry that is mainly leaded by women, since any individual no matter if woman or man has to be equally rewarded for his/her skills and professionalism. However, I am aware this is not only a problem of the PR industry but the gender inequality is unfortunately a common issue in many other industries.
Moreover, as State of PR reported, 59% of the PR practitioners see issues influenced by technology and innovation as the biggest future challenge. As a future PR practitioner, I feel ready to face the new challenges of this profession. I strictly believe, having younger practitioners on board is the right choice to take for the improvement and development of the industry. My generation grow up along with technology and we can easily find different angles in order to exploit technological innovation to improve the PR communication.
From this report we can deduce the PR industry, as well as many other dynamic sectors, keeps developing and changing every year. For this reason, a necessary condition to be part of it and compete is to be open minded and open to changes and improvements.
AN “INNOCENT” EXAMPLE - CAN COMPANIES AND CHARITIES WORK TOGHETER?
When we talk about Corporate Social Responsibility, wethink sometimes about those collaborations that link companies and charityassociations. I always wonder if they succeed in boosting a company’s image orif they are just underrated in an always more skeptical society.
An example that comes in my mind is the one of the smoothies company Innocent Drinks. Founded in 1998 by three Cambridge University graduates, Richard Reed, Adam Balon and Jon Wright is now owned (over 90%) by The Coca-Cola Company.
Innocent gives 10% of its profits to charity, the majority of which goes to the Innocent foundation, a UK registered charity set up in 2004. The Innocent foundation’s aim is to help the world’s hungry by providing grants to charities and projects helping communities on a sustainable path to a better life where they can escape poverty and hunger. Since the foundation was set up the company has given over £2.4m to 55 projects, helping reach over 530,000 people. At least this is what it is said on their Website.
This seems to be a very successful story: a smoothie maker company providing not only healthy food to their costumers but also funding to help the world’s hunger. However, in May 2011 the company was accused to not have donated the promised money to their charity since 2008, as reported on the Daily Mail. “Analysis of its financial records has revealed £520,000 intended for the foundation was kept in the company’s bank account” it said on the article (Cohen, T. 2011). After this scandal the company the company committed to give a minimum of £250,000 to the Innocent foundation in years when there is no profit made, to allow its work to continue.
This is just one of many examples that show how collaborations between charity and companies can be double-edged sword to enhance a company’s CSR. It can be a good opportunity to show a social engagement by the company, but if it is not portrayed in the right way or there is a huge gap between results and proclaims, can seriously affect negatively the company’s image, because failing in keeping your word is even worse than not being engaged at all.
Today I had the great pleasure to attend a lecturewith the CEO of Weber Shandwick. I really enjoyed listening to what he had to say about this profession that fascinates me but at the same time scares me. As a PR student these lectures are really exciting because it is a great opportunity to have a genuine overview about the industry.
Colin Byrne has touched different interesting points that are now source of discussion. He started talking about a PR practitioner as someone who fails in Journalism and to be a politician, at least this was the general thinking in the past. This statement made me think about my personal background: I achieved my bachelor in International Relations, I worked for a magazine and now I am here trying to became a Public Relations practitioner. The links between these three professions are great communications skills. However, a good PR practitioner is not only a good communicator but he is a pragmatic person because real change nowadays is more important than just communicating.
Therefore, Mr. Byrne has listed the main trends driving change in PR. He started with the reputation risk. Social media do not only provide big opportunities, they also challenge the corporate reputation. Today more value is given to the corporate reputation that is becoming more “social reputation” because what matters are the social performances of a company, its online presence and its power of engagement. Another trend is the convergence between communication and marketing and as a consequence the rise of the Chief Communications Officer, responsible for communication and marketing. Indeed, the recent State of PR report has showed the Inter-departmental convergence as a clear and growing trend, since in-house PR professionals are now working "more closely" with every single department in their organizations, compared to two years ago.
Another trend that Mr. Byrne has recognized is the changing role of the Brand that is becoming more and more involved in the creation of its contents. The Brand as original content publisher is dispelling the role of journalists in the communication process between a brand and its audience. Brands are focusing their attention in finding a way to engage an audience that is always more bombarded by many different messages. Since our attention has fallen from 12 seconds to 8 seconds, one second less than a goldfish, it is important to create compelling and engaging messages.
Among PR academics it was discussed about the death of the two-way communication model that Grunig have described in 1989. For this reason I asked Mr. Byrne if he thinks brands are actually succeeding in establishing two-way conversations with their audience or if they just create branded contents to get people’s attention. His answer was really clear since according to him social media campaigns are engaging the audience more than before. Bypassing the traditional media and communicating directly to the public through social media, brands have succeeded in creating dialogues with their audience. However, they have to take always into consideration the possible risks that can affect the image of the brand in these kind of platforms.
The key that leads to the success of a company, he also said, is to be FAST and PROACTIVE. It is important to speak like people and not like corporate and to stand out, differentiating yourself from the others.
After having attended to this lecture I can definitely see why Mr. Byrne has been listed for many years among the most 100 influential men in UK.
PR PRACTITIONERS: The Strategists of the Communication Process
One of the definitions of Public Relations is “Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationship between organizations and their public”. (PRSA, 2012)
Theory has not answered yet to what is the role that a PR practitioner plays within an organization, if it is more about advising the decision making process or influencing and shaping it. Broom and Dozier (1986) simplified the role of PR practitioners in two main categories: the communication technicians, dealing with the technical and practical part of communication process, and the communication managers , who deal with the strategic communication perspective. This distinction seems to understate the role of the communication technicians. Producing contents and managing all the social media platforms does have a strategic perspective as well. Strategy means saying the right thing, to the right audience at the right time, and this is what a communication technician does. Strategy is not only about dealing with crisis or planning a campaign, it is also maintaining and building an organization reputation and image and it is possible to do this with different tactics and techniques.
I would like to think about a PR practitioner as a versatile figure, according to the perspective we look at it, his role change. I think everybody will remember that kind of picture that you are shown by psychologists to understand how your perception works. You are asked to say what you can see in the picture and according to our perceptual set, we can see a man playing a trump or a woman portrait. Well, this is how I consider PR practitioners because there is not an absolute answer about what they are and what is their role but this change according to the perception we have.
Starting fromthe definition of Lobbying, Moloney (1997) argues that “Lobbying is persuadingpublic policy makers to act in the interest of your organization or group”. This definition has triggered a controversial debate among the public. Does acting in the interest of a specific group mean privileging a restricted number of people over the majority? Does lobbying give power to the elites of the society, destroying in this way the democratic process?
We need to be aware that lobbying does not have to be associated with the term oligarchy. Oligarchy, from the greek words ὀλίγος (few) and ἄρχω (to rule), was used through history to indicate that kind of government where the power was in the hands of few, usually a group of privileged or rich people. For this reason, an antidemocratic form of government has also been considered. Our Literature is full of well-known examples of oligarchy, from the novels of George Orwell where the Inner Party in 1984 and the pigs in Animal Farm were ruling a blind and exploited society, to the recent novels of Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games Trilogy, where the destiny of the nation is decided by the rich Capitol City. All these examples are far away from the concept of lobbying. In our society lobbyists try to give a voice to those that otherwise, would never be heard. The work of a lobbyist is carrying on causes that the government does not take into consideration. Keeping in mind that lobbying is largely used by health associations, such as The American Cancer Society that invest millions of US dollars to pursue their goals.
Lobbying is part of our democratic system because without this professional figure it would be impossible to be heard by the government. The same Thomas Hobbes, the English political philosopher, argues that the civil society needs to be represented by someone. Here the role of lobbyists is to help us to be understood and heard.
One of the worst assumptions we can make is defining lobbying with bribery. Bribery is corrupting justice and destroying productivity, and this is not what lobbying stands for. With this article I want to wave the flag for lobbyists, they are professionals such as lawyers and doctors and as they strictly follow a code of conduct. If democracy means freedom of expressing our opinion, we cannot condemn lobbyists that are the representatives of specific group of people such as rights activists, disease research associations or trade unions.
I invite you, my faithful readers, to have a look at this TED TALK video, where Maria Laptev, Public affairs practitioner and University professor, try to dig deep into the lobbying practice. “The world is so full of noise that unless you make an effort to draw attention, as a lobbyist, you are not going to get the attention…” she said.
References
Moloney, K. (1997). ‘Government and Lobbying Activities’ in Public Relations Principles and Practice. P. Kitchen (ed.). London: Thomson Business Press.
When I start my studying inPublic Relations, I found myself in trouble to explain family and friends whystudying PR does not mean studying Marketing. Of course for those who arecompletely far away from this field itis easy to associate the two practices together. As Tench and Yeomans (2006) argues public relations is much more than getting free publicity in the media to support promotion of products or services to consumers, as many marketing practitioners may think.
The principal aim of Public Relations is building a dialogue with the numerous stakeholders of an organization, using different channels and techniques. The role of a marketing practitioner mainly addresses customers, attracting and satisfying them. Indeed, since an organization has many stakeholders, all of them and not only customers have to be taken into consideration (Balmer and Gray, 2003).
The convergence between Marketing and PR usually appears in contexts such as when we want to sell goods or services. In those cases, it is easy for people to confuse Marketing with PR, because to effectively reach the objectives set up by an organization both Marketing and PR practitioners are sitting at the same table, working together. However, in different contexts such as in public affairs or in the internal communication with the employees where we are not selling goods, marketing practitioners takes a step back.
In 10 years, I assume PR and Marketing will go through what I called a consensual divorce, in the sense that there will be a more clear distinction between the two practices but at the same time they will continue to work together to build an ongoing dialogue with the external world.
References:
Tench, R. and Yeomans, L. (2006) Exploring Public Relations. Harlow: FT Prentice Hall
Balmer, J.M.T. and E.R. Gray (2003). ‘Corporate brands: What are they? What of them?’. European Journal of Marketing. 37(7/8): 972-997
