PRO623: PUBLIC RELATIONS CAMPAIGNS AND ISSUES

TOPIC 1: 1. WHAT IS PUBLIC RELATIONS CAMPAIGNS AND ISSUES 2. TYPES OF CAMPAIGN

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WHAT IS CAMPAIGNS?

Campaigns are coordinated, purposeful, extended efforts designed to achieve a specific goal or a set of interrelated goals that will move the organization toward a longer-range objective expressed as its mission statement.

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WHAT IS CAMPAIGNS?
Campaigns are designed and developed to address an issue, to solve a problem or to correct or improve a situation. A campaign may be constructed around a positioning statement -an objective operating statement for the organization.

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WHAT IS CAMPAIGNS?
The term positioning is often used in marketing to refer to a competitive strategy-a way to identify a niche in the market for a product or service. Positioning in public relations program is to build a communications effort around a statement that describes the organizations positioning of itself.

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What is issue(s)?
Issues are problems that arises in a company or organization which the public relations practitioner need to deal with it and monitor it. Monitoring helps management foresee when opinion is likely to build around incidents or trends. The emergence of an issue creates an opportunity.

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5 steps in handling issues

1.

2.
3. 4. 5.

Sensing the problem (research); Defining the problem (through judgment and priority setting); Deriving solutions (through policy and strategy selection); Implementing them; Evaluating outcomes.

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Role of public relations practitioner

PR practitioner must act as an intervenor and relationship-builder who tries to prevent a potential problem from getting out of hand. Sometimes the PR practitioner must play devils advocate - raising all the salient arguments against a proposed course of action and explaining which decision will have adverse effect on certain groups.

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public relations research

Public relations research is done to find out about issues, publics, media contents, media audiences and to evaluate public relations results. Involves extensive research, including documented evidence of a particular issue or situationsymptoms, reactions, affects of certain stimuli, and the conclusion reached following the study. Research is also a case study may show a correlation between two factors, whether or not a causal relationship can be proven.
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public relations research

PR research or case study must be based on the physical evidence, interviews, and observations. What is feasibility studies?
Feasibility studies are preliminary investigations into the potential benefits associated with undertaking a specific activity or project. The main purpose of feasibility study is to consider all factors associated with the project, and determine if the investment of time and other resources will yield a desirable result

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TYPES OF PUBLIC RELATIONS CAMPAIGNS

Public awareness campaign 2. Public information campaign which provides information together with awareness and is totally different from a simple awareness campaign; 3. Public education campaign in which members of a public are emotionally and attitudinally comfortable enough that they can apply what they learn to daily behavior
1.
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TYPES OF PUBLIC RELATIONS CAMPAIGNS

4. Reinforcement of attitudes and behavior of those who are in agreement with your organizations position; 5. Changing or attempting to change attitudes of those who do not agree; 6. Behavior modification campaign, for example, to wear seat belt.

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CHARACTERISTICS OF SUCCESFULL CAMPAIGNS

5 Principles of successful campaigns: 1. Assessment of the needs, goals and capabilities of priority publics; 2. Systematic campaign planning and production; 3. Continuous monitoring and evaluation to see what is working and where extra effort needs to be made; 4. Consideration of the complementary roles of mass media and interpersonal communication; 5. Selection of the appropriate media for each priority public, with due consideration of that mediums ability to deliver the message.
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Successful campaigns indicate Five elements

1.

2.

Educational aspect of a campaign - telling them something they didnt know or giving them a different perspective or way of looking at something they already knew, or thought they knew. Engineering which is the objective of almost all campaigns. Engineering involves ensuring that means are there (and convenient) for publics to do what you want them to do. Example, if you want them to throw trash in containers instead of on the ground, the containers must be conveniently located.
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Successful campaigns indicate Five elements

3. Enforcement - any campaigns there must be something beyond incentive to underscore the significance of the campaign. Education and engineering failed to elicit behavior change until laws approved fines for noncompliance. 4. Entitlement (reinforcement)- means that publics are convinced of the value of the appeals of the campaign and in a sense buy into the message. 5. Evaluation is a campaigns report card. It identifies what kind of desired behavior change occurred, when and in which.

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What is hearsay?

Hearsay is used to refer to rumors and unsubstantiated information. It also refers to evidence obtained through a second-hand source.

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