Bulletin No. 14 | March – April 2003
PUBLIC RELATIONS
Public relations office will only be as useful to management as management wants it to be (Cutlip et al, 1985)
What public relations?
In most western cultures, it flacks and worse, it is to be disliked, distrusted as it sometimes shows manipulation of reality. In China, it is still regarded to some extent, as a dirty business, power of money or propaganda. In Northern America, UK and Western Europe – the trend is toward corporate communications – not public relations.
In Indonesia? It is HUMAS, it sounds very technical and pragmatic. it is considered as spin doctor, camouflage, propaganda, promotion and publicity tools. there is a great role ambiguity between marketing and public relations, it shows a great role conflict between organizations and public interests.
The actual problem is – how PR is empowered in organization
What is the value of public relations to organization? It all depends!
- Strategic Positioning Reputation, Brand Equity, Relationship, Leadership
- Managerial Program Change people’s attitude
- Technical Product Distribution, Media coverage, Attention
- Power means productive, rather than oppressive or manipulative
- Empowerment means logical outgrowth to participate in TQM
If powerless, how can PR influence events – Share in decision making process – Contribute the maximum to organizational effectiveness?
- Although accreditation is encouraged, code of ethics and standards of practice our held as evidence to professional status. Public relations practice needs moral commitment, knowledge, skills. A practitioners reputation for integrity and competence is the real license to practice.
- Judgement, wisdom, understanding and integrity
Develop and rely on them.
Warning signs that a reputation is in danger
- Does management claim that the good reputation is primarily the result of their support in PR activities?
- Does management blame editors or analyst other for their biases in dealing with the organization’s issues or news?
- Do Executives refuse to believe than your competitors are a challenge to the company’s value proposition?
- Are the vast majority of reputation resources in the company put into advertising to ‘raise public awareness’?
- Is the company losing market share?
LEADERSHIP
Effective Team Working
Our potential for success in achieving the program objectives depends on the effective working of our team. Since the team is often made up of the group of people, there is a high probability that they have not worked together before. This put an additional burden on you initially to start the process of team building to steer the group towards your objective of effective teamwork.
It is believed that the team can accomplish more than the total output of the individual people, yet in practice this is often not the reality. the success of the team highly depends on the skills each individual has and the way you utilize the skills to produce a united effort.
To achieve this you can identify some characteristics to create in your team
- Clear responsibilities and authority
- Clear understanding and acceptance of project objectives
- Interesting and challenging work
- High concern for standards and quality
- Clean procedures for interfunctional communication and working
- Positive use of criticism and confrontation as developmental
- Good team spirit – encouraging self-help and working relationships
- Open and regular performance review – team and individual
Barriers to performance in most cases are caused by :
- Unclear objectives for the project
- Lack of strategic direction
- Inadequate resources, both quantity and quality
- Senior management apathy, loss of interest or opposition
- Power games and unclear channels of authority
- Conflicts left unresolved
- Lack of job security
- Uncertain and changing priorities
- Be concerned about the potential barriers to good performance and take steps to minimize their effect on your team
MARKETING
Principles of New Marketing (Continuation)
- Similarities cannot sell. The value of your product/service depends on its differences with that of your competitor’s and your services to your customers
- Make your product according to the elements of image: brand image, product image, customer’s image, associate’s image
- Apply proper strategy: focus on profit, not volume ; on real consumption, not on market share ; and on future demand, and not on brand awareness
- You always need to give whatever reasons for customers to buy
- Market your product/service locally. Global brand is created from local brand
- Concentrate to consumers who are able to buy your product/service. speak to them to assist your identify further market
- Don’t believe the preferences. They don’t stay long. Stick to the sold-well product
- Make sure that each person in your organization is the best marketer. You need the best people, not the best organization structure
- Give reward for the best ones and penalties to those who deserve them
- The strategy is yours. The exercising agency is to communicate your strategy effectively. They are hired not to hear the risk
- You need a high sense of urgency and a great enthusiasm in your work. If not, why should you wake up early?
(Source : The End of Marketing as we know it, Sergio Zyman)
Responses