Chapter 5: Public Relations
In 1906, a train belonging to a large American railroad company crashed near Atlantic City, and several passengers lost their lives. At the time, organisations facing an accident of this kind usually said nothing at all to journalists, and let rumour and speculation fill the silence. This time, something different happened.
A former newspaperman working for the railroad wrote out a plain statement of the facts of the crash and handed it directly to reporters, before they could piece together the story from other sources. The statement did not hide the accident or make excuses for it. It set out what was known so far, and promised further information as it came in.
Newspapers of the period noted how unusual this was: an organisation choosing to speak first, in its own words, instead of waiting to be questioned or blamed. This single decision is often pointed to as an early moment in the history of what we now call public relations — the idea that an organisation’s relationship with the public should not be left to chance, and that honesty during a crisis can protect a reputation far more than silence ever could.
Diagram
Fig. 5.0-1 – a simple two-panel illustration; left panel shows a generic organisation building with a closed door and a crowd of question marks outside representing silence and rumour; right panel shows the same building with an open door, a generic figure handing a sheet of paper to two generic reporters, representing planned, honest communication; label the panels “Silence” and “Public Relations”
5.1 Understanding Public Relations
Every organisation exists inside a web of people who form opinions about it: customers, employees, neighbours, investors, government officials, journalists, and the public at large. Together, these different groups are called an organisation’s publics — the various audiences whose trust and cooperation an organisation depends on. Stakeholders is the term used for individuals or groups who are affected by an organisation’s actions, or who can affect it in return, such as employees, customers, suppliers, and the local community.
How these publics feel about an organisation does not happen by chance. It is shaped, at least partly, by a planned activity called public relations (PR).
5.1.1 Definition and Meaning of Public Relations
You have probably noticed that some organisations seem to be trusted and liked, while others are viewed with suspicion, even when their products are similar. Much of this difference comes from how deliberately an organisation communicates with the people around it.
Public relations is the planned and continuous effort an organisation makes to build and maintain a healthy relationship with its publics. It is not the same as simply “getting noticed”. Where advertising pays to place a message, public relations works to earn understanding, trust, and cooperation over time, through honest and consistent communication.
PR is often traced back to early twentieth-century professionals who first tried to manage how organisations communicated with the press during a crisis, rather than staying silent. Some of these early professionals are popularly given titles such as “father of the profession”, but such labels are disputed among historians of the field, since public relations as a set of practices developed gradually, through many people’s work, rather than through a single founder.
Public relations involves several publics at once, not just customers. A hospital, for example, must communicate carefully with patients, doctors, government health inspectors, and the local press, all at the same time, and each of these publics expects something slightly different from the organisation.
Diagram
Fig. 5.1-1 – a simple hub-and-spoke diagram; centre circle labelled “Organisation”; six surrounding circles labelled Customers, Employees, Investors, Government Bodies, Local Community, and Media; double-headed arrows connecting the centre to each surrounding circle, to show that communication flows both ways; label the double-headed arrows “two-way communication”
Because PR reaches so many different publics through so many activities, it is useful to see it as an umbrella under which several more specific roles sit. The rest of this section looks at five such roles named by the syllabus: generating goodwill, building a brand image, aiding advertising and sales promotion, managing a crisis, and managing an organisation’s relationship with the media. It then looks at the person who usually carries out these roles inside an organisation: the Public Relations Officer.
5.1.2 Generating Goodwill
Think of two shops selling the exact same product at the exact same price. If one of them has a reputation for being honest and fair, and the other does not, most people will choose the first shop, even though nothing about the product itself has changed. That difference in preference is, in large part, goodwill.
Goodwill is the intangible value an organisation builds up through its reputation, its past conduct, and its relationships with the people around it. It cannot be seen, touched, or bought directly, the way a building or a machine can be bought. It is earned slowly, through consistent and honest behaviour, and it can be damaged quickly by a single act of dishonesty or carelessness.
Public relations generates goodwill mainly by keeping communication honest and by making sure an organisation’s actions match what it says about itself. When an organisation shares accurate information, admits its mistakes clearly instead of hiding them, and explains the reasoning behind its decisions, its publics are more likely to extend trust in return.
An organisation’s genuine social contribution also builds goodwill. When an organisation supports a cause related to education, health, or the environment, and communicates this honestly rather than as a passing publicity stunt, its publics tend to see it as more than a profit-making entity.
Goodwill built this way pays off over the long term. Customers who trust an organisation are more forgiving of an occasional mistake, employees who trust their organisation tend to speak well of it outside work, and investors who trust an organisation’s management are more willing to support it through a difficult period.
5.1.3 Building a Brand Image
Two organisations can sell an identical product, yet one might be seen as reliable and modern, while the other is seen as outdated. This difference lives entirely in the mind of the public, and it is called a brand image.
A brand image is not the same as a logo or a slogan. A logo is a symbol; a brand image is the complete impression that forms in a person’s mind when they think of an organisation — built from the quality of its products, the experience of dealing with it, how it behaves as a member of society, and, importantly, how it communicates.
Diagram
Fig. 5.1-2 – a simple funnel diagram; four labelled inputs at the wide top of the funnel: “Product quality”, “Customer experience”, “Organisational conduct”, “Public communication”; a single arrow leading down through the funnel to a label at the narrow bottom reading “Brand image in the public’s mind”; use the funnel shape to show that many separate inputs combine into one overall impression
Public relations contributes to brand image mainly through consistent and honest messaging. When an organisation communicates the same core values and the same tone across every platform — its website, its press statements, its social media accounts, and its public events — the public gradually associates it with reliability. Inconsistent or contradictory messaging, by contrast, leaves the public unsure of what an organisation actually stands for.
It is worth distinguishing brand image from the closely related idea of reputation. Brand image is the impression the public holds at any given moment, and it can be influenced fairly quickly through communication choices. Reputation is the more settled judgement built up over a longer period, based on an organisation’s accumulated actions, and it changes more slowly.
An organisation with a strong brand image but a weak underlying reputation is vulnerable: a single serious lapse can expose the gap between the image it projected and the way it actually behaved, and the public tends to react strongly to that kind of gap.
5.1.4 Aiding Advertising and Sales Promotion
Advertising and public relations are often confused with one another, since both are aimed at influencing how people think about an organisation or its products. The clearest way to tell them apart is to ask a simple question: who is paying for the message, and who controls exactly what it says?
Advertising is communication that an organisation pays for and fully controls, usually aimed at encouraging an immediate purchase. A sales promotion is a short-term incentive, such as a limited-time offer, designed to encourage buying quickly. Public relations works differently: it is largely unpaid, it is not fully controlled by the organisation, and its aim is to build belief and trust rather than to close a sale.
Public relations aids advertising and sales promotion in several concrete ways. When a public relations effort has already built trust in an organisation, an advertisement for its product is more readily believed. When journalists write about an organisation’s product on their own initiative, this coverage — sometimes called earned media, because it is earned through newsworthiness rather than paid for — often carries more credibility with audiences than a paid advertisement, since it does not appear to come directly from the organisation itself.
Public relations can also support a product launch or a sales campaign by generating public interest ahead of time, through press interactions and events, so that an advertisement lands with an audience that is already curious rather than indifferent.
5.1.5 Crisis Management
Every organisation, however careful, will eventually face an unexpected situation that threatens its reputation: a faulty product, an accident, a legal dispute, or a piece of negative media coverage. Such a situation is called a crisis.
How an organisation responds in the hours and days after a crisis begins often matters more, in the public’s eyes, than the crisis itself. Crisis management is the planned process by which public relations guides an organisation through this response: anticipating what could go wrong, communicating clearly once something does go wrong, and rebuilding trust afterwards.
Diagram
Fig. 5.1-3 – a flow diagram of five connected boxes in a single horizontal line, joined by arrows: “Anticipate possible risks” → “Prepare a response plan” → “Communicate promptly and honestly” → “Coordinate with media and public” → “Rebuild trust afterwards”; label the arrows to show that each stage leads directly into the next
The chapter opener described an organisation that chose to speak to journalists honestly and immediately after an accident, instead of staying silent. That decision illustrates the central principle of crisis management: silence tends to be filled with rumour, while a prompt, honest statement — even one that admits an organisation does not yet have every answer — reassures the public that the organisation is not hiding anything.
After the immediate crisis has passed, crisis management does not simply stop. Public relations also plays a role in reviewing what went wrong, so that future communication plans can be improved, and in communicating, honestly and without exaggeration, the corrective steps an organisation has since taken.
5.1.6 Media Management
Newspapers, television channels, radio stations, and digital news platforms shape public opinion more powerfully than almost any other channel, because audiences generally trust independent reporting more than an organisation’s own paid messages. Media management is the area of public relations concerned with planning and handling an organisation’s communication with these outlets.
Good media management rests on a straightforward idea: journalists need reliable information quickly, and an organisation that consistently provides it earns fairer, more balanced coverage in return. An organisation that is evasive or slow to respond, on the other hand, often ends up covered less favourably, simply because journalists are left to rely on other, less sympathetic sources.
One of the most common tools of media management is the press release, a short, factual, written statement issued to journalists to announce something newsworthy, such as a new appointment, a policy change, or a response to a developing story. A press release is written to be immediately usable by a journalist: it states the most important fact first, avoids exaggeration, and sticks strictly to information that can be verified.
Media management also includes preparing an organisation’s spokespersons — the individuals authorised to speak to journalists on the organisation’s behalf — so that they can answer questions clearly, stay within agreed facts, and avoid statements that later have to be withdrawn or corrected. In the age of social media, media management has widened to include monitoring what is said about an organisation online, and responding to public questions and criticism there just as carefully as an organisation would respond to a newspaper’s questions.
5.1.7 Responsibility of a Public Relations Officer
The activities described so far in this section — building goodwill, shaping a brand image, supporting advertising, managing a crisis, and managing relationships with the media — are usually the responsibility of one professional inside an organisation: the Public Relations Officer (PRO).
A PRO acts as the link between an organisation and the outside world. This means the PRO’s daily responsibilities are unusually varied. On an ordinary working day, a PRO might draft a press release, respond to a journalist’s query, brief a spokesperson ahead of an interview, monitor what is being said about the organisation online, and check that a planned social media post matches the organisation’s agreed tone.
Beyond these daily tasks, a PRO carries several ongoing responsibilities. Internally, a PRO keeps employees informed about decisions that affect them, since a well-informed employee is more likely to speak positively about the organisation outside work. Externally, a PRO maintains relationships with stakeholders such as investors, government bodies, and local communities, tailoring communication to what each of these groups actually needs to know.
A PRO is also expected to monitor how the organisation is perceived, by reading media coverage and public commentary, so that small misunderstandings can be corrected before they grow into larger problems. During a crisis, these ongoing responsibilities intensify: the PRO becomes the organisation’s central point of contact for the media, coordinating a single, consistent message rather than allowing different departments to say different things.
Because a PRO’s judgement affects how an entire organisation is perceived, the role carries a clear ethical responsibility: information passed on to the media and the public must be accurate, and a PRO who allows convenience or pressure from management to override honesty ultimately damages the very trust the role exists to protect.
5.2 Public Relations Campaigns
Much of the public relations activity described in section 5.1 happens continuously, in the ordinary course of an organisation’s life: a press query answered here, an internal memo sent there. A PR campaign is different. It is a planned, time-bound programme of communication activities, built around a specific goal, rather than an everyday routine.
An organisation might run a campaign to introduce itself to a new community, to explain a change in its policies, to rebuild trust after a crisis, or simply to keep its name associated with a cause it genuinely supports. Whatever the goal, a campaign is deliberately planned in advance, unlike the reactive, day-to-day communication a Public Relations Officer also handles.
5.2.1 Tools of a PR Campaign
A PR campaign rarely relies on a single channel of communication. It usually combines several tools, chosen to reach different publics in the ways each one prefers to receive information.
A media kit is a prepared package of background material — such as an organisation’s profile, key facts, and photographs — handed to journalists so that they can report on a story quickly and accurately, without having to gather basic information from scratch. A press conference is a formal meeting at which an organisation’s representatives answer journalists’ questions directly, usually reserved for a major announcement or a serious public concern, since it allows immediate clarification in a way a written press release cannot.
Event management covers the planning of activities such as product launches, exhibitions, or public meetings that let an organisation interact with its publics directly, rather than only through the media. Well-run events tend to attract media coverage in their own right, extending a campaign’s reach beyond the people who physically attend.
Social media and blogs let an organisation communicate directly with its publics, without a journalist as an intermediary. This directness can build a sense of closeness with an audience, but it also means an organisation is fully responsible for its own tone, since there is no independent voice softening or checking the message.
A sponsorship is support given to an event, a team, or a cause in exchange for public association and visibility. A genuine, well-matched sponsorship can strengthen an organisation’s brand image, while a corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative — an organisation’s genuine commitment to social or environmental welfare, discussed in section 5.1.2 as a way of building goodwill — does similar work over a longer time frame, provided it is real rather than symbolic.
Finally, internal communication tools — newsletters, meetings, and internal announcements — keep employees informed during a campaign, since employees who understand what an organisation is trying to achieve tend to represent it more consistently to people outside it.
No single tool works alone. A campaign built around, say, a sponsorship is usually reinforced by a press release announcing it, an event marking it, and social media posts sustaining public interest in it over time.
5.2.2 Steps of a PR Campaign
Because a PR campaign is planned rather than reactive, it is usually built through a fairly consistent sequence of steps, each one setting up the next.
A campaign begins with research, in which the organisation studies how it is currently perceived, what its publics care about, and what media channels those publics actually pay attention to. Without this step, a campaign risks addressing a problem the public does not actually have, or using a channel its intended audience rarely uses.
Once the situation is understood, the organisation defines clear objectives — what the campaign is actually meant to achieve, such as raising awareness of a new policy or rebuilding trust after a crisis. Clear objectives make it possible, later, to judge whether the campaign actually worked.
The organisation then identifies its target audience: the specific group of people the campaign is meant to reach, since a message that tries to speak to everyone often ends up speaking effectively to no one. With the audience defined, the organisation crafts its key message — the central idea it wants that audience to understand and remember, kept simple enough to survive being repeated across several different channels.
The organisation next chooses which tools from section 5.2.1 suit this particular audience and message, and puts together a timeline and a budget for using them. The campaign is then carried out: press releases are issued, events are held, and social media content is published, according to the plan.
Finally, the organisation carries out monitoring and evaluation, checking media coverage, audience response, and whether the original objectives were actually met. This last step is not simply a formality — it is what allows an organisation to learn from one campaign and plan the next one more effectively.
Diagram
Fig. 5.2-1 – a flow diagram of six connected boxes in a single horizontal line, joined by arrows: “Research” → “Define objectives” → “Identify target audience” → “Craft the key message” → “Choose tools and execute” → “Monitor and evaluate”; label the arrows to show each step leads into the next, and add a small looping arrow from “Monitor and evaluate” back to “Research”, labelled “informs the next campaign”
5.3 Summary
Public relations (PR) is the planned, ongoing effort an organisation makes to build mutual understanding and goodwill with its various publics, through honest and consistent communication, rather than paid persuasion.
An organisation’s publics include customers, employees, investors, government bodies, the local community, and the media, and PR involves communicating with all of these groups, often at the same time and in different ways.
Goodwill is the intangible trust and positive feeling an organisation earns over time through honest conduct and genuine social contribution; it cannot be bought directly, and it can be damaged quickly by a single dishonest act.
Brand image is the overall impression the public holds of an organisation, shaped by product quality, customer experience, organisational conduct, and communication; it is distinct from the more slowly formed, longer-term judgement called reputation.
Public relations differs from advertising mainly in payment and control: advertising is paid for and fully controlled by the organisation and aims at an immediate purchase, while PR is largely unpaid, shaped partly by independent voices, and aims at building longer-term trust. PR supports advertising and sales promotion by building the credibility that makes paid messages more believable.
A crisis is any sudden, unexpected event threatening an organisation’s reputation. Crisis management is the planned process of anticipating risks, preparing a response plan, and communicating promptly and honestly once a crisis occurs, since silence tends to be filled by rumour, while transparency tends to protect trust.
Media management is the planned handling of an organisation’s communication with newspapers, television, radio, and digital platforms, most commonly through tools such as the press release, so that coverage remains fair and accurate.
A Public Relations Officer (PRO) is the professional responsible for planning and coordinating an organisation’s communication with all of its publics, combining daily tasks such as drafting statements and briefing spokespersons with ongoing responsibilities such as internal communication, stakeholder relationships, and reputation monitoring.
A PR campaign is a planned, time-bound programme of communication built around a specific objective, distinct from an organisation’s everyday reactive communication.
PR campaigns draw on a range of tools, including press releases, media kits, press conferences, event management, social media, sponsorships and CSR initiatives, and internal communication, usually combining several tools rather than relying on just one.
A PR campaign is typically built through a consistent sequence of steps: research, defining objectives, identifying the target audience, crafting the key message, choosing tools and executing the plan, and finally monitoring and evaluating the results to inform future campaigns.
5.4 Key Terms
- Advertising — paid communication, fully controlled by an organisation, mainly aimed at persuading an immediate purchase.
- Brand Image — the overall impression the public holds of an organisation, shaped by its products, conduct, and communication.
- Crisis — any sudden, unexpected event that threatens an organisation’s reputation, credibility, or public trust.
- Crisis Management — the planned process of anticipating risks, preparing a response, and communicating promptly and honestly once a crisis occurs.
- CSR — corporate social responsibility — an organisation’s genuine commitment to social or environmental welfare, used responsibly to build goodwill.
- Earned Media — media coverage a journalist chooses to give an organisation on their own initiative, rather than coverage that is paid for.
- Event Management — the planning of activities, such as launches or exhibitions, that let an organisation interact directly with its publics.
- Goodwill — the intangible trust and positive feeling an organisation earns in the minds of its publics over time.
- Key Message — the central idea a PR campaign wants its target audience to understand and remember.
- Media Kit — a prepared package of background material given to journalists to support accurate reporting.
- Media Management — the planned handling of an organisation’s communication with newspapers, television, radio, and digital platforms.
- Monitoring and Evaluation — the final step of a PR campaign, in which media coverage, audience response, and the achievement of objectives are checked.
- PR — public relations — the planned, ongoing communication process through which an organisation builds mutual understanding and goodwill with its publics.
- PR Campaign — a planned, time-bound programme of communication activities built around a specific objective.
- PRO — Public Relations Officer — the professional responsible for planning, managing, and coordinating an organisation’s communication with its publics.
- Press Conference — a formal meeting at which an organisation’s representatives answer journalists’ questions directly.
- Press Release — a short, factual, written statement issued to journalists to announce a newsworthy development.
- Publics — the various audiences, such as customers, employees, and government bodies, whose trust and cooperation an organisation depends on.
- Reputation — the public’s long-term, more slowly formed judgement of an organisation, built on its accumulated conduct.
- Sales Promotion — a short-term incentive, such as a limited-time offer, designed to encourage quick buying.
- Sponsorship — support given to an event, team, or cause in exchange for public association and visibility.
- Stakeholders — individuals or groups who affect, or are affected by, an organisation’s actions.
- Target Audience — the specific group of people a PR campaign’s message is designed to reach.
5.5 Points to Ponder
If goodwill can only be earned slowly, through honest conduct, is it ever accurate to say an organisation has “bought” its way back into public trust after a serious lapse?
Advertising is paid and fully controlled, while public relations is largely unpaid and shaped partly by independent voices — does this difference alone guarantee that PR is more honest than advertising, or could an organisation still use PR dishonestly?
A brand image can shift fairly quickly, while reputation changes slowly and is built on accumulated conduct. What does it mean for an organisation when its brand image and its actual reputation drift far apart from each other?
If staying silent during a crisis tends to let rumour take over, is there ever a situation in which an organisation is right to say nothing at all, at least for a while?
Should a Public Relations Officer ever refuse to communicate something their organisation’s management has asked them to say, and if so, what would justify that refusal?
As more communication now happens through social media, where an organisation can speak to the public directly without a journalist in between, is the traditional line between “earned” media and “paid” media still as clear as it once was?
5.6 Objective Questions
Which of the following best describes goodwill? [1 mark]
- A logo or slogan associated with an organisation
- The intangible trust and positive feeling an organisation earns over time
- The amount an organisation spends on advertising
- A short-term incentive offered to increase sales
What mainly distinguishes advertising from public relations? [1 mark]
- Advertising is always longer than a PR message
- Advertising is paid for and fully controlled by the organisation, unlike PR
- Advertising is only used during a crisis
- Advertising cannot use social media
A press release is written mainly to: [1 mark]
- Entertain the reader with a detailed story
- Give journalists a factual, usable statement about a development
- Persuade the public to buy a product immediately
- Replace the need for a spokesperson during a crisis
Assertion (A): Brand image and reputation mean exactly the same thing. Reason (R): Both are formed entirely through paid advertising. [1 mark]
- Both A and R are true and R explains A
- Both A and R are true but R does not explain A
- A is true, R is false
- A is false, R is false
Assertion (A): Silence is usually the safest response during a crisis. Reason (R): An information gap left by silence tends to be filled by rumour. [1 mark]
- Both A and R are true and R explains A
- Both A and R are true but R does not explain A
- A is false, R is true
- A is true, R is false
Match the term in Column A with its meaning in Column B. [1 mark] | Column A | Column B | |—|—| | a. Media Kit | i. The specific group a campaign’s message is designed to reach | | b. Sponsorship | ii. Support given to an event or cause in exchange for public association | | c. Target Audience | iii. A prepared package of background material for journalists | | d. Crisis Management | iv. The planned process of responding to a sudden threat to reputation |
Fill in the blank: A ______ is a formal meeting at which an organisation’s representatives answer journalists’ questions directly. [1 mark]
Fill in the blank: The step that follows “choose tools and execute” in a PR campaign is ______. [1 mark]
State whether the following statement is True or False: A brand image can shift more quickly than a reputation. [1 mark]
State whether the following statement is True or False: Earned media coverage is paid for directly by the organisation it covers. [1 mark]
Write the full forms of the following abbreviations: PR, PRO, CSR. [1 mark]
5.7 Check Your Concepts
Define public relations in your own words. [2 marks]
State one difference between a brand image and a reputation. [2 marks]
Differentiate between public relations and advertising with reference to payment, control over the message, and purpose. [3 marks]
Give reasons why silence during a crisis is usually more damaging to an organisation’s reputation than a prompt, honest statement. [3 marks]
Explain, with an example of your own, how public relations can support an advertising campaign without directly selling a product. [4 marks]
Describe the steps a Public Relations Officer would take on learning that their organisation is facing a sudden crisis. [4 marks]
Describe the tools and the steps involved in planning a public relations campaign, and explain why research is considered an essential first step. [6 marks]
5.8 Analyse the Media Text
- Read the following statement, issued by a fictional regional airline after a flight was delayed for several hours without explanation to passengers: “Passengers have raised concerns about today’s delay. We regret the inconvenience and are looking into what happened.”
- Identify one respect in which this statement follows good crisis communication practice, and one respect in which it falls short. [2 marks]
- Rewrite the statement in two or three sentences so that it more clearly reassures passengers, without inventing facts that are not given here. [2 marks]
- A fictional sportswear company sponsors a regional marathon and posts the following caption on social media alongside event photographs: “Proud to help our city run further this year.”
- Name the PR tool being used in this situation. [1 mark]
- Explain whether this activity is more likely to affect the company’s brand image, its goodwill, or both, and why. [3 marks]
- Two press release openings for the same event are given below. Opening 1: “It is with great excitement and boundless pride that our wonderful organisation announces something truly special for our valued community.” Opening 2: “The city library will extend its Sunday hours from next month, following requests from local students.”
- Identify which opening is better suited to a journalist’s needs, and explain why, with reference to what a press release is meant to do. [3 marks]
- Name one specific feature missing from the weaker opening that the stronger one includes. [1 mark]
5.9 Craft Practice
Write a press release of 60–80 words for a fictional school, club, or organisation of your choice, announcing one upcoming event or achievement. Your release must include a clear opening fact, at least one relevant detail, and no exaggerated language. Submit it as a single typed paragraph. [4 marks]
Draft a short crisis statement, no longer than 60 words, for a fictional organisation of your choice responding to one plausible, non-sensitive problem (for example, a delayed delivery or a scheduling error). Your statement must acknowledge the issue, state one concrete action being taken, and promise a further update. Submit it as a single typed statement. [4 marks]