M 92M C PR and Information M anagement Session 5 M afalda Stasi - - PDF document

M 92M C PR and Information M anagement

Session 5

M afalda Stasi

mafalda.stasi@coventry.ac.uk Office hours: Thu and Fri 1-2PM ET104

Indicative Syllabus

• Basics of PR theory
• PR Tools
• Ethics of PR
• Corporate image and identity
• Corporate Social Responsibility - NGOs
• Political PR
• Final presentations
• Screening: The Corporation
• Extra screening: Glengarry Glen Ross

Recap: Last Week

• Ethics: relativism vs. essentialism

– Plato – Sophists – M achiavelli – Nietzsche

Readings

• Burkhart, R. (2007) “ On Jürgen Habermas and

public relations.”

• Kent, M . and Taylor, M . (2002) “ Toward a

dialogic theory of public relations.”

• Porter, L. (2010) “ Communicating for the good
• f the state: A post-symmetrical polemic on

persuasion in ethical public relations.”

2nd Year Press Conferences

First of all, thank you for attending and participating!

• What did you see?
• What went well?
• What needed improving?

Corporate PR

• Corporate Identity

– What you are

• Corporate Image/ Reputation

– What others see

• Corporate Communications

– What and how you present yourself

***

Corporate PR: Examples

• Corporate communications: Cisco

http:/ / www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a9b3V8UztQ

• Corporate identity: Glengarry Glen Ross (FYI:

strong language) http:/ / www.youtube.com/watch?v=TROhlThs9qY

• Corporate image/ reputation: United Breaks

Guitars http:/ / www.youtube.com/ watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo

Discuss

Organisational Communication

• According to systems theory, ‘A system is a set of interacting

units which endures through time within an established boundary by responding and adjusting to change pressures from the environment to achieve and maintain goal states.’ (Cutlip et al. 2000:229)

• ‘useful theoretical underpinning for thinking about the role of

public relations because it stipulates that an organisation’s well-being (or otherwise) is dependent on establishing and maintaining relationships both within itself and with its environment.’ (Theaker 2004: 49)

Strategic PR: Levels of Intervention

• Identity (What you are)

Static, dynamic, narrative, behavioural, constructed

• Image (What others see)

reputation, branding, history of your actions and surrounding events and situations

• Communications (What and how you present yourself)

All of these components are co-present: but what happens when there is an imbalance among them? How can it be addressed? How about the interplay with the organisation’s strategy and its management’s vision and implementation? How about conflicting demands?

10

3I Framework

Interest Company Public Initiative Reactive Proactive Image Perception Reality Interactivity (Hutton 1999)

Orientations of PR according to the 3 I’s framework

AC

2ID test

• Actual identity
• Communicated identity
• Conceived identity
• Ideal identity
• Desired identity

All of these identity are co-present: but what happens when there is an imbalance among them? How can it be addressed? How about the interplay with the organisation’s strategy and its management’s vision and implementation? How about conflicting demands?

Balner, J. and S. Greyser (2002) “Managing the Multiple Identities of the Corporation” in California Management Review (44) 3: 72-86

***

Corporate Identity

• Static/ reified/ monolythic

– Ind: “ Philosophies and beliefs do not change overnight”

(2002, 20)

• Dynamic/ narrative

– “ different aspects of identity are highlighted at different

moments depending upon who is speaking and who is listening, what speakers and listeners communicate in their exchanges, and how they react to and thus further influence the tale as it is told” (Schultz 2000, 16)

***

• Behavioural (you are what you do)

– “ it is not enough to insist on employee behavior that fits

whatever management deems a desirable image. Setting up systems to control behavior with rewards simply gets businesses superficial compliance. The behavior that supports a corporate reputation or brand needs to be more deeply rooted, it needs to rest in the organization’s

• identity. Employees must feel the message they are

sending with their behavior, not just go through the motions.” (Schultz et al. 2000, 1)

***

• Post-modern (identity has no essence; identity as a

mask) – “ the essence, coherence and continuity of identity [is an

illusion] created and maintained by processes of social construction…identity as the product of cultural and social context and of the language …around which notions of identity can be formed” (Schultz 2000, 16)

***

Creating and M aintaning a Corporate Identity: Context is All

• Organisations are not static
• Different organisations are vastly different
• Organisations are not monolythic: within the

same organisation, different sub-groups may have conflicting aims and perspectives

• Organisations belong to a larger ecosystem
• Organisations interface with a variety of people

and other organisations: both them and their interlocutors have different objectives, perspectives, outlooks

Consequently, corporate PR is a creative art: a complex and seldom predictable sequence, like the weather. “Butterfly effect” abounds

***

Shaping and Communicating the Image: Branding

Image = Logo?

Logo Rules http:/ / www.abet.org/ Linked%20Docu ments-UPDATE/ Promote/ ABET_Logos- Style_Sheet.pdf

Beyond Logo: Branding

“ If you take a lousy, low-profile company and give it a new corporate identity you will turn it into a lousy, low-profile company. There’s no reason the public should be anything but

• skeptical. What do they get out of it—just a

logo to look at.” (Wally Ollins)

Analysis: Brand Architectures

(Adapted from Ollins 2008)

• Corporate, or monolythic

– Single business identity – One name and one visual system – E.g. Yamaha, Virgin, HSBC

Bladibla Bladibla Engineering Bladibla Chemicals Bladibla Aerospace Bladibla Plastics

• Endorsed

– multiple business identity – Variety of brands, endorsed visually or through

naming by parent company

– E.g. Nestle, Banco Santander

Bladibla

Alpha Plastics: a Bladiba company Beta Aerospace: a Bladiba company Gamma Chemicals: a Bladiba company Delta Engineering: a Bladiba company

• Branded

– Brand-based identity – A number of apparently unrelated brands – E.g. Procter&Gamble, Diageo, General M otors

Bladibla Delta Engineering Gamma Chemicals Beta Aerospace Alpha Plastics

Analysis: Brand Architectures

(Adapted from Ollins 2008)

• Corporate, or monolythic
• Endorsed
• Branded

***

• M ore Analysis

– Internal and external audience – Differentiators – Innovation and change – Risk reduction (management)

• Implementation

– Name, graphics, logo – Promotion – Coherence, clarity, congruence

Strategic Analysis: The Four Vectors

• Product (what)
• Context (where/ when)
• Communication (how)
• Behaviour (who)

This analysis encompasses both identity and image

Assignment for Next Seminar

• Keeping in mind what we did so far, explore the following web sites, and be ready

to discuss for the next time:

• IBM http:/ / www.ibm.com
• AT&T http:// www.att.com/
• British Telecom http:// www.bt.com/
• Shell http:// www.shell.com/

• The Expressive Organization (check out essays 1.2, 3.6, 5.10, 5.11, 6.16)

http:/ / books.google.co.uk/ books?id=iPIoFtM bR9wC&printsec=frontcover &source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Optional (may be useful for your essay)

• Penny, D. (2006). “ In Defence of Product Placement”

http:/ / www.damianpenny.com/ archived/ 007720.html

• Paul Baines, John Egan, Frank William Jefkins, F. Et al., (2004) Public

Relations: Contemporary Issues and Techniques, London: Elsevier. Excellent overview of PR at large.

• Brown, S (1995) Postmodern Marketing. London: Routledge.
• Hind, D (2007) The Threat to Reason London: Verso. (99-112)
• M ickey, T (2003) Deconstructing Public Relations. Erlbaum: London.
• Theaker, A (2001) The Public Relations Handbook. Routledge: London.

(esp. Ch.1 and Ch.9)

Future Views of PR

• Lovemarks – future of branding

http:/ / en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Lovemark

• Naomi Klein PR:

– Same agent as M ez – PR is 90% done by her publisher

• Eg she is on Utube
• Lecture tour (shifts from PR to education/ research) this

is another sample of everything that wrong

The Art of Persuasion: Aristotle’s Rhetoric

Ethos (speaker) Logos (text) Pathos (audience)

“negotiation of the distance between an orator and an audience on a given question (ethos-pathos-logos are, on this definition, on an equal footing)” (Meyer 1997)

What model of PR to use for CSR?

– Hiebert (1966): PR promotes democratic ideals – Pimlott (1951): PR as a necessary and useful tool within

growingly complex societies

– Tedlow (1979): PR is a way for organisations to manage

change—functional not lofty as previously idealised

– Smythe (1981): PR helps organisations control people’s

minds to ensure growth and profit

– Olasky (1987): PR threatens capitalism, competition and

individual rights because it favours large organisations and market controls

– L’Etang (1996 and 2006): PR is a form of diplomacy based

• n advocacy, counselling and peacemaking