Public relations

The concept

This is the organizational philosophy that is translated into a series of communication actions, generally of an informative nature, whose general objective is to create or modify attitudes, beliefs or behaviors of the target audience. A target audience that can be physical (a person) or legal (a company)

According to the public relations institute, it is about the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between the organization and its public.

What is the scope of public relations?

Public relations operations have their scope in any sphere of the life of business and social institutions (see attached graph)

Basic model of Public Relations

1. Government, Business and industries in general: small, medium, large locally and internationally, Social and community affairs, Educational institutions, universities, institutes, Etc., Hospitals, Charitable worksInternational issues affecting companies or the states.

Main objectives of public relations:

• Consolidation and projection of the image of the organization, Generating public opinion, Two-way communication with the sectors involved, Institutional advertising of the company, Strengthening of the human factor, Serving as support for the marketing area, Carrying out campaigns aimed at promoting and doing Know certain aspects of the company, Dissemination at the press level, Ceremonial and protocol. Attract good staff and reduce the risk of workers. Prevent conflicts and misinterpretations. Promote mutual respect and social responsibility.

Dimensions of Public Relations

Public Relations encompasses a series of activities that can be classified into:

• Analysis of the organizational image in the media.Corporate image campaigns.Communication and promotion.Strategies and programs for managing communication in crisis situations.Training in relations with the media.Opinion and market researchOrganization of events: congresses, press conferences, etc. Comprehensive internal communication programs. Comprehensive public relations, corporate and organizational communication programs. Production of internal and external communication pieces, employee magazines, annual reports, corporate brochures, etc. Community relations Media relations Information services (synthesis and analysis)

Communication channels for Public Relations:

To ensure that the public relations message reaches its recipients, an organization basically has three communication channels:

The first channel:

Press releases or reports about the company. These elements are used when it is required to send a mass communication message to the audience in question.

The public relations manager of the Service Station prepares these documents so that the television channels or other mass media make the information known.

The second channel:

Communications to a group audience can take the form of press conferences, tours of reporters at the Service Station facilities, printed company brochures or talks to civil and professional associations.

The third channel:

Personal communications, in this case, company managers carry out lobbying activities with government officials or staff from the public relations area get mentions of the Service Station on radio or television, forging close relationships with announcers and managers of the mass media.

Public Relations Characteristic

High credibility:

Informational articles or notes are more credible to consumers than advertisements.

Out of guard:

Public relations can reach many prospects who may have evaded sellers and ads. The message is received by consumers as news, not as a sales communication.

Dramatization:

Public relations has, like advertising, the potential to dramatize a product or company.

Well managed, public relations activities can serve as excellent support and complement the Service Station's publicity and personal selling efforts. Normally, unpaid advertising costs much less than advertising or personal selling, because you get a lot of free space and time in the media. As an additional advantage, its level of credibility is much higher than that of advertising, this is because the medium is the one that gives the announcement in the form of news or report and the public that reads it perceives that the mentioned company did not buy an advertisement advertising.

A message that appears in the form of an article or editorial in the print media is more likely to be read than if it appears as a paid advertisement for a company. The reading public doesn't always read the ads, but they do care about news and editorials. Additionally, transmitting messages in the form of news has the advantage that more information can be transmitted than in an advertisement.

Public Relations Limitations

• The company has little or no control over what is said in a newspaper article or on a television story. There is no guarantee that the message will appear on radio, television or in the print media. The media may find that the message is not of sufficient interest to make it known. A company cannot control when the message will be broadcast and there is also no possibility of repeat advertising. "Unpaid" advertising is not on Absolutely free, despite the fact that there are no costs for the time and space achieved, having staff dedicated to this function or hiring a specialized agency can be expensive.

Historical Model in Public Relations.

Corporate communication is the set of activities (including advertising) that are combined with each other with the sole purpose of projecting the company's image in and out, so there will be internal and external communication. The institution itself will be in charge of transmitting the messages.

Corporatism arose in the Middle Ages and its form of communication was the "heraldic brand", whose objective was to protect the productive and mercantile territories in order to prevent other groups from invading it.

It was a way to avoid competition and defend yourself. The heraldic mark would be assimilated by the artisan group and would be the first guarantee of origin that the products would have, since the consumer, from the moment he could identify the product with the manufacturer, could claim.

State control would also be added to the heraldic brand. Although it is not yet possible to speak of a brand as such, because it is not registered.

In the seventeenth century, freedom of trade was proclaimed and industry was at the dawn of the First Revolution. Corporations and guilds disappear causing the distinctive and obligatory marks to disappear.

Freedom of trade brings with it the individual brand, which, while not yet registered, produces abuse and imitation and makes merchants demand industrial property and exploitation patents.

The purpose of these demands was to protect the entrepreneur and his product. The brand becomes a strategic element that will become increasingly important as competition increases. This brand will bring with it a new concept: the brand image.

In the 19th century, the commercial and industrial brand will be made up of images and texts, illustrations and rhetorical elements or also representative scenes of a certain action. This will be the identifying element or brand.

At the turn of the century, American street vendors will make their fortune off patent medicine. As their formula was not registered, sellers would register the brand of the remedy, making them the first corporate announcements that would later become the most important source of income for the press.

During the last two decades of the century, the sums invested in advertising are extraordinary thanks to the money that the manufacturer begins to receive. The first American companies are formed, which will also be the first to recognize the power of the persuasive message and the logo as identifying elements of their product.

For the first time in history, and thanks to advertising, its products become a social attraction and the sale of image exceeds the sale of the product, which continues today. The brand identifies the product and the consumer identifies himself with the attributes that are given to the product.

Graphic elements are added to the traditional labels that accompany the product that will assume the new concept of identity and persuasive information. To this will be added the emotionality of the image.

The moment that label or poster is successful, that brand becomes an identifier of the company. It is the antecedent of the current brand.

It will be in the middle of the 20th century when the brand achieves graphic autonomy and remains as the current brand. In this, the Second Industrial Revolution and the development of serial production followed by mass production also take part.

Thanks to the transport revolution, distribution is increasing rapidly in Europe and America.

All these factors together will lead to what we know today as a brand. The current brand has sold and sells products in the buy / sell market, but also praises and praises them in the communication market.

In the product market, the company was characterized by turnover, market share and by the variety of products it offered. On the other hand, in the communication market, the company appears as a name and the product or brand will be the intermediary to reach the target audience. For this reason, in the communication market, in addition to competition between products, there will be competition between companies.

From the first half of the 20th century, the brand became the sign of identity and from that moment on, relationships will revolve around the company (not the product) and more than around the company, around the brand.

The corporate identity is made up of the visual identity (the brand), the verbal identity (the logo) and the company philosophy.

Corporate identity.

Corporate identity transmits identity symbols that differentiate the company from the competition. It is expressed through any form of communication: graphic, verbal, cultural, environmental… the company, in addition to products marketed under the brand concept, markets itself. When the brand is successful, the company absorbs it.

If the brand does not match the company name, the image of one will not match that of another.

The corporate identity of a company is the result of the synthesis of all communication actions at different levels (in advertising and public relations)

Image.

The image is the set of mental representations that arise in the target audience when receiving any message from an institution / company. The image of a company in a relative value that will differ according to the public.

The image is created by the public in your mind and is therefore a relative value, not an absolute one. It is not only what we perceive as a target audience, but the image that direct competition perceives, so the brand image is the set of perceptions, associations, memories and prejudices that the public is going to process.

The brand image and the company image coincide to the extent that both participate in the general concept of image and differ in the area of ​​projection, which is greater in that of the company than in that of the brand or product..

The image of the company is a strategic element that is at the service of the product and the brand. The company projects personality or identity with the aim of achieving a controlled image without deviations.

It has to be a structured identity with clearly defined characteristics. Corporate identity reaches the public through communication, so it will be a logo, brand, actions…

If the brand image and the company image work together, popularity will be gained, since the image is the same and is more profitable than separately, but flexibility will be lost because there will only be one image for the public.

On the contrary, when the company has several brands, each communication should reinforce the image of the company, but cohesion will be more difficult and flexibility will be gained, since the products will be aimed at a greater number of different audiences.

Advertising and public relations.

The objective of PR is social with economic consequence, and that of Advertising is commercial. There are authors who claim that Advertising is a PR technique and that PR can be used as an Advertising technique.

If the activity is communication of a product, advertising will prevail and PR will support it. However, a strategic communication is proposed, advertising will be a PR technique.

In PR, the target audience is broader, since it involves the media, employees, society as a whole… and in advertising it is only the consumer.

Advertising is direct and PR is indirect when it comes to pursuing an action and the approach it is given. Advertising (commercial approach) is directed to the consumer and PR (humanistic approach) to the whole man.

Public Relations is a management philosophy that translates into a series of communication actions, usually of an informative nature. For PR to emerge, democracy and capitalism are needed. Advertising must be understood as an instrument of PR, since it is used to disseminate certain products or services from the total planning of a company.

It should be remembered that Advertising is a persuasive communication fundamentally of the masses and of a commercial nature, promoted by an advertiser (the company) to spread their goods or services, achieving their subsequent sale or contracting.

PR is persuasion. If it were not, it would enter journalism. Like all strategic objective planning, it is persuasion.

Today, advertising itself (commercial) has the support of the corporate, that is, the PR.

Public Relations and Propaganda.

The first thing will be to define both terms.

PR is a managerial philosophy that is translated into a series of communication actions, generally of an informative nature, whose main objective is to create or modify the attitudes, beliefs or behaviors of the target audience. In public relations, most of the actions are persuasive communication of a collective and non-massive interpersonal type, and presented, in general, predominantly informative.

Propaganda, on the other hand, is all that persuasive information of an ideological nature made or promoted directly or indirectly by an individual, and whose real or apparent purpose is to spread such ideology and attract followers to it.

For the most part, the concept of Propaganda always appears associated with politics, but in reality, it will be the PR that is most related to that political world. Propaganda is a communication process that spreads ideas that will not only have to do with politics, since they can also be religious, etc. The characteristics of Propaganda are that it always occurs in a unidirectional sense and in undemocratic countries. In Democratic countries there are no political ideas. Candidates no longer represent ideas and the one who best meets specific needs will be voted on.

Birth of PR.

In 1837 the Age of the Entrepreneur begins, a key moment for PR.

The first New York-San Francisco railway line was inaugurated in 1870. With this inauguration, the company will take a step forward by replacing product and brand advertising with a new form of communication: they invite 150 North American personalities (leaders of opinion) to the trip and in one of the train cars a newspaper will be published addressed to those other opinion leaders who are not present. With this, one of the first known PR actions arises, although it is done intuitively and not empirically.

Later, in 1889, the Westing House will start a campaign that has nothing to do with the product and the brand, with the aim of imposing the alternating current system against Edison's direct current system. Westing's communication plan conveys its own identity as a company.

The crises of the years 1883, 1884 and 1907 provoke strong social tensions from which journalists take advantage by taking another step in public relations: journalists begin the twentieth century by publishing information on the appalling conditions in which workers work. As a result of them a controversy would break out between Pulitzer, who defended that the worker should be informed of what was happening in his company, and the businessman Vaderbilt, who says that they should not know anything.

In 1906, in the midst of all this fuss, a mining company hires what will be one of the pioneers of the PR: Ivy Lee. The reason for his hiring is a strike by miners who express strong criticism of the company. At this moment, the business area opens the door for the first time to freedom of expression. Ivy Lee would be responsible for answering all questions from the media, which are the publics of the PR.

In 1914, it would be Rockefeller who would request Lee's services. Two of his companies resumed strikes. Lee, again puts communicative transparency (real data) before advertising and publishes the economy of each of the companies so that they justify the wages of their workers. After giving these data, he would create the Rockefeller Foundation, an economic business investment which translates to the public as a positive image.

Another example of the growing fashion for information transparency is in Asa Candler, co-owner of the Coca-Cola brand. An Atlanta newspaper claims that the drink creates a habit of cocaine and that this is one of its components. Candler, through an advertisement (publicity service to the PR) invites them to demonstrate it and gives the data on the amount of coca leaf they need to make 4 liters of syrup, thus demonstrating that a liter of the drink has no more than a hundredth of a gram of coca.

From this moment, communication becomes part of the organization chart of a company.

In summary, at the end of the XIX and beginning of the XX, the entrepreneurs will understand, thanks to the social conflicts of the time, the fundamental of having a positive image, and for this reason they will incorporate techniques and new forms of communication in crisis situations and within their own strategies.

It is necessary that the public perceives the objectives and culture of the institution since if it does not, there will be no exchange.

The new motto will be "Do it right and make it known."

Between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, American companies and institutions open the door to the public and provide information about them that interests society.

The information distributed must be direct and reflect an image of the company that is honest, sincere, accessible and frank. With this information, responses to the needs of the recipients will be given, but not individually, but as a group, which will make communication a tool of the company.

From all this the awareness of a corporate identity arises and with it the corporate advertising, in charge of transmitting the identity of the company with the intention of having an impact on the business image that the public forms.

Before, what companies wanted was to emphasize production tasks, but today it is about getting more sales, since it has gone from a supply market to a demand market where it is more difficult to sell. For this, the price of the product is essential, but also its quality and the image that the public makes of the company and its organization.

In the supply market, the company image was not an objective, but in the demand market, the fundamental thing is to boost sales and for this, a good image is necessary, essential.

Thus, in the first half of the twentieth century, actions aimed at acting on public opinion and the media acquired an increasingly growing importance.

From the second half of the century, a new way of life was imposed and the civilization of the image emerged. Society goes from being a consumer of goods and services to being a consumer of images and information.

Basic needs for the exercise of public relations.

• Political freedom understood as the absence of obstacles or impediments that limit the freedom of expression of the will of the citizens. Party plurality: regime of freedom and the real possibility of exercising the right to propose alternatives in accordance with democratic rules. Economic-social situation: it must be adequate (capitalism and democracy.

Without all these requirements, one cannot speak of PR as a management philosophy.

If the current concept of democracy resides in the coincidence between freedom and justice by the maximum possible number of adhesions, the key concept of PR resides in that the public interest (citizen-consumer) finds the optimal satisfaction in a certain type of behavior on the part of the organisms that make up society.

The political model is linked to the concept of mass, and then it is necessary to look for the sources of public relations in the phenomena of massification, which at the beginning of the century were very weak.

Until the 1940s, the characteristics that determine today's society did not emerge and the process of massification was identified with the increasingly rapid transition from the agricultural artisan society to a distributive industrial society. In those systems where dialogue is neither allowed nor tolerated, PR does not exist, and that is one reason why the PR model is a model in the field of communication.

PUBLIC RELATIONS IN THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

The development of the profession in the country:

The development of this profession in the Dominican Republic has been in accordance with the needs of companies and has occurred in accordance with the maturity of our market. However, in the future the professional demand will be much greater and the tendency to specialization, as Miguel Guerrero and José Mármol point out very well, to demand other conditions, as has happened in other more developed countries, such as the United States or the United States. Great Britain, to name two countries in which Public Relations has reached its peak and credibility.

The exercise of the public relations activity in the country is relatively young, the first steps begin with the fall of the Trujillo regime. It should be noted that as part of the dictator's support process, this technique was used in one way or another.

• In 1940, there was a press information office in Santo Domingo run by Mr. Juan Bautista La marche. In 1950, the company Astilleros Dominicanos created an area with the name of public relations, this being the first with that name. In 1959, the first public relations office was formally installed by The Shell Company. In 1961, Banco Agrícola installed its public relations office under the responsibility of Mr. Carlos Curiel as Director. In 1962 the department of Public Relations at CODETEL, one of the most staffed today. In 1963, these functions were created at the National Housing Institute, led by Yaqui Núñez del Risco. By 1995, it had some 50 government offices and more than 150 private companies they had PR offices.

The expert's opinion:

What is public relations?

"They are like preventive medicine, they avoid the great diseases of communication and facilitate interrelation" According to Freddy Geneva. And it is that we cannot live without them. Despite the fact that these are practiced informally on a daily basis at the interpersonal level, they are essential in the economic and social reality of any country, and consequently, for any organization that pursues a good relationship with its public, who is, after all, on whom your success depends. "The non-existence of these programs denies the institutions the unique opportunity to project their heritage and potentiality, their relevance" assures Luis Concepción, Director of Public Relations at Brugal & Cía.

"I think there is confusion in certain entrepreneurs, who understand that Public Relations is advertising or promotion, and use it as such." It should be noted, however, that although this sometimes happens, this activity has been gaining ground in its march towards parcel or disciplinary specialization, as José marble explains. This is because "Public Relations has gradually been freed from the cufflinks of reductionist, utilitarian and not always ethical purposes that mere propaganda or advertising hyperbole had imposed on it." Because, today, as we have said previously, it is not the same to make propaganda or publicity, than to do or exercise Public Relations.

An exercise in full swing.

This exercise is in full development in the country and, as we have indicated, more and more private companies are incorporating them into their programs. Something different happens in the public area, where in the opinion of Ivelisse José, the process of modernization of the State must first be completed in order to be able to exercise them successfully. Although, he observes with optimism, "the incorporation of the government of Leonel Fernández of these in the exercise of political power, thus demonstrating a genuine interest in the opinion of civil society." Here we find the case of Adriano Miguel Tejada who made the leap to the public company and makes it clear that, although the government gave them great importance, there is a problem: coordination.

“A lot of work is done on the go and many times matters are not handled with Public Relations criteria but rather with the press, a general problem that occurs even in the private sector, and in which we are working to make clear what the Government Public Relations ». Because you have to be very aware that they sell a very different product from a goods or services company. "In the government you sell an image and a hope that are sometimes very difficult to grasp because it is not tangible like a detergent or food would be," says Tejada.

We must also make it very clear that far from representing just a pretty face, people skills, writing a press release or knowing how to organize a cocktail party, Public Relations involves much more than that, it requires talent and many hours of office. A few years ago there was the mistaken idea that "doing social life" was doing Public Relations, says Marión Pagés, Director of Public Relations. of the advertising Pagés. Because in some cases the figure in this field has been abused, says Adriano Miguel Tejada and insists that the dosage of the image is very important so as not to saturate the market.

"However, today, we are maturing both as a society and professionally in relation to this point," continues Marión Pagés. Affirmation corroborated by Mirka Morales, PR Manager. by Editora Listín Diario, explaining that although this situation has changed and there is still a long way to go, it is a fact that the main companies in the country, both services and goods production, have departments that in one way or another carry out Public relations. Of course, to be successful, whether practiced in the company itself or in a consultancy, Public Relations must follow effective business methods that are applicable to similar occupations and that combine counseling with the provision of services.

Local assessment of public relations discipline

However, it is good to know that many local companies still underestimate the value of this discipline, disdaining it as part of their penetration market strategies. Miguel Guerrero, President of the MG & Asociados Agency, assures that this is the natural result of a relatively narrow environment characterized by the absence of institutional norms in all spheres of national life, although, as the economy expands and competition becomes the rule and norm of the economic, political and social activity of the country, its role will be accepted, achieving the recognition it already has in more developed societies than ours.

However, what the main professionals in the practice of Public Relations in our country agree on is that they affirm that this work is not discredited, even though it still does not have the strength and importance that it really deserves in the organization chart of a company. "It is not valued in its fair measure", estimates Ivelisse José.

Those who have been discredited have been certain individuals who have believed that the functions and responsibilities of these professionals are very easy and do not require great knowledge, explains Gustavo Cruz. The mediocre work of these people has been the one that has damaged their image. And as the Barceló executive very well says "if the image of a professional is not the one indicated, what can we expect from that of the organization that he claims to represent".

They are chaos that, as happens in all professions, discredit and jeopardize the hard work of many professionals who have struggled for many years to make their way in the exercise of a relatively new profession, key to the success of a company, and of which still has a wrong idea due to the exceptions that have distorted this concept.

Level and academic preparation in our country.

The Dominican Republic has excellent professionals in the field of Public Relations, even though they are a relatively young profession and its academic curriculum has only recently been established. This situation explains the fact that none of them have properly studied this discipline, something that Marión Pagés defines as a disadvantage since the level of training lies, then, essentially, in the experience and general culture that these people have developed., regardless of the luck of having been able to train in an entity that allows them to strengthen their training outside the country.

The practice of Public Relations as a profession is quite recent and it is not until well into this century (1923) that it is given a professional status thanks to the American Eduard Bernays when he taught for the first time a university course on its principles, practice and ethics. In our country the academic presentation is quite recent and it has not been until a few years ago that some universities are offering this degree in their classrooms. Maribel Lázala informs that currently the study of this profession can be accessed at the Inter-American University, the first to offer a Bachelor's Degree in Public Relations, with a duration of three and a half years, and a Master's degree in this matter, of two years.

She has been followed by the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo with a Bachelor of Social Communication in Public Relations and the University of the Third Age, with a Bachelor in Public Relations after four years of studies. It is good to point out that, although slowly, the importance of this discipline is evident in the universities of our country, as it is taught as a subject within the curriculum of some careers such as Business Administration, Social Communication, Advertising or Diplomacy.

Given this situation, most of the professionals, Gustavo Cruz explains, come from the area of ​​Business Administration, Marketing, Advertising, Law and Social Communication, to name a few, which, over time, have achieved the necessary experience that allows them unwrap effectively.

As Luis Concepción would say "we must consider Public Relations those who work and live in this profession regardless of whether they have a career or not." To which Maribel Lázala adds that the relationist is an orchestrator of different and varied talents, who needs to manage more than one profession to allow himself the effective development to which he aspires. However, they will be «emotional intelligence, sensitivity to the environment and the needs of the community, balance, common sense to evaluate and make decisions, the ability to plan, act, communicate, commit and foster a mutual relationship between the organization that it represents and its public ”, the qualities that, according to Niní Cáffaro, distinguish the Public Relations Officer.

What happens is that relations with the media are, for most companies, the most important part of the exercise of Public Relations, although it is good to point out that these must always be integrated and be compatible with the general policy of the organization. And this is because in our country there is a very curious phenomenon, as Adriano Miguel Tejada explains, and that is that many newspapers circulate with few readers, but all radio and television newscasts are made on the basis of what appears in the newspapers. This has given rise to an extraordinary multiplier effect that, to a certain extent, means that if the written press is controlled, the rest are being amplified.The fact that in the past it was believed that a good professional in this discipline should have started working as a journalist has also led to this mistake.

Types of activities that take place in the country:

The public relations department is also in charge of carrying out or coordinating a series of activities in order to strengthen the image of the company, its products or its work with the community, among which we can mention:

• Press ConferencesConferencesSeminariesTalksConventionsInaugurationsLaunch of products and servicesComplete information dossiersFollow-up activities to maintain interestDemonstrationsFairs and exhibitionsStand design and constructionOrganization of related activitiesGiant recordingSound / music equipmentPhotographyMaster of ceremoniesCampsites

Current trend in its execution:

Depending on the type and size of the company in question, PR in the country is carried out according to different modalities. In large companies and whose products or services are exposed to a large mass of the population, you can find complete departments oriented exclusively to these activities. Such is the case of CODETEL, Banco Popular Dominicano, Grupo E. León Jiménez, Brugal & Cia. In more than one, this function is assigned to a corporate vice president who reports to the president or director of the company, as is the case of José Marble at Banco Popular.

In all the important advertising agencies in the country there is a department aimed at assisting their clients in PR matters, basically in the preparation of events and other activities.

It is more common to find public relations offices in the country that offer their consulting services and development of RR PP as an outsourced activity by companies of all genders and sizes. Many of them are associated with prestigious international firms in the field. More recently, transnational public relations firms have established themselves in the country.

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