Part of the challenge in defining PR, it seems, is that most companies, agencies and their practitioners consider PR the art of getting ink. Ink slingers, if you will. With such a huge misperception, we should be curious as to what other misunderstandings might be out there.
For this post, the working definition of PR will be:
Public relations is a management function that establishes and maintains two-way, mutual relationships and communications between an organization and the publics and stakeholders that often determine their success or failure. PR management includes on-going research, analysis, planning, and evaluation in order to understand, develop, and nurture strategic relationships.
Stakeholders are Publics, But Not All Publics Are Stakeholders
When PR is looked at as media (or blogger) relations only, a funny thing happens… Every reader begins to look like a potential customer (or donor, etc.). More ink equals more impressions equals more potential customers! (That philosophy usually adds up to a big ‘ol nothing if the only goal is revenue generation.)
It’s key in PR efforts to understand that not all publics are stakeholders. Stakeholders are the groups that have an actual stake in the organization: customers, donors, employees, students, shareholders, investors, etc. Publics are any group that might have a common interest or values in a given situation, but they do not have a stake in an organization. That certainly does not mean that other publics are not powerful groups.
With this in mind, the question is:
Who wields more power to determine the success or failure of your organization… stakeholders or publics?
Getting Closer To Publics
Let’s take a look at typical groupings of publics.
Latent, Aware, Active
Latent publics are the trickiest. They might be aware of an organization’s values (i.e. implicit brand), but they are not aware of the relationship they might have with the organization. Aware publics understand their own values and how they intersect with an organization’s values. Active publics recognize the relationship between themselves and the organization and they manage that relationship on their own terms.
Intervening Publics
This public will work with an organization to send a message to another public. For example, the media or a non-profit group that might work closely with your organization’s industry.
Primary and Secondary
Any public that directly affects an organization’s goals and holds the resources the organization requires, it’s a primary public. Secondary publics don’t really affect an organizations goals, but they shouldn’t be ignored.
Internal and External
This one hopefully doesn’t require explanation. The trick here is to understand that some external publics feel closer to the organization (or a right to be involved) and therefore the line between internal and external gets a little thin. Just take a look at college alumni sports fans, private investors or donors/benefactors and you get the picture.
Domestic and International
Again, this should make sense. However, keep in mind that just because the organization might be domestic, it doesn’t mean that international publics might not have a hand in the success or failure of the organization.
Stakeholders Already Have a Stake
If stakeholders already have a stake or interest in an organization, does that put them in a position of more or less power? Is it conceivable that some stakeholders, like employees, actually have less power? Do we assume customers and investors (or donors) have more power than other publics because they hold the purse strings? Would we ever consider that groups of stakeholders would ban together in an action? We see it with labor unions.
Getting Blindsided by Chasing Ink
If PR practitioners are out chasing ink, they might focus on the publics that can do the most damage to impeding your organization’s ability to achieve its goal. It happens all the time. How many times have we watched a situation build to the point of explosion? Yet the organization seemed relatively unaware that there was even an issue.
Timberland vs. Greenpeace
What does a CEO do when a public becomes a very active one? Active in setting out to tarnish other publics’ views of your brand, that is. That’s exactly what happen to Timberland’s CEO, Jeff Swartz.
Unbeknownst to Mr. Swartz, Greenpeace had produced a report that stated Timberland (among other companies) as being “of supporting slave labor, destroying Amazon rain forests, and exacerbating global warming.”
As Timberland was bombarded with e-mails from concerned publics, they were trying to figure out what had happened and how to best respond to the grassroots effort. In doing so, Timberland and its supplier weren’t even sure that the Greenpeace report wasn’t valid. They needed to review their entire supply chain to determine specifically where their leather source, which was going to take time.
Lesson learned? If an organization does not have an understanding of their all publics or have only focused on a few, they may be caught off guard by not only how the public taps into every tool available to spread its message across the Internet, but how they will control your business as well. Timberland did what they should have done from a PR management perspective and in working with Timberland, they were able to meet in middle ground.
So back to the question…
Who wields more power to determine the success or failure of your organization… stakeholders or publics?
Is this something you’re even thinking about?
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