What is PR?

Of all the elements of the communications mix, public relations is the hardest to define. Many different definitions have been suggested by practitioners and academics alike. For example, the Institute of Public Relations define PR as:

“The discipline which looks after the reputation - with the aim of earning understanding and support, and influencing opinion and behaviour. It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics .”

PR in essence, is about managing reputation and perception and establishing good relationships with key stakeholders. As such, it can be considered the key weapon in the armoury of corporate communication and reputation management. However, public relations has, rather ironically, suffered from an identity crisis. A search through marketing literature will reveal dozens of different definitions, some placing emphasis on its role in media relations, others offering a much wider perspective.

The main reason for such difficulties in defining not just the nature, but also the scope of PR, is that the ascendancy of reputation capital and the shift from product to value-focus means that the demands on PR have significantly increased. Traditionally within the communications mix PR focused on changing or influencing stakeholder beliefs and attitudes towards organisations and brands. Its activities were either proactive, by helping to generate attention and understanding through media awareness or reactive, in helping to protect an organisation's reputation during crisis or adverse publicity.

Although PR still retains these vital functions, and manages them daily for clients, its scope has widened considerably over the last 10 years. Now, at a corporate level, its primary role is proactive, managing issues and nurturing stakeholder relations. As reputation seems to have become the key capital, PR can be considered the most effective element to help co-ordinate other elements of the mix.

For many in communications, the term public relations has become redundant. The reasons behind this revolve around a mixture of negative connotations, the need to broaden their agency services and PR’s own inability to address its own identity issues.

A major strength of PR is that it plays a key role in educating audiences and further converting awareness (often generated by advertising and sales promotion) into understanding and acceptance. From the viewpoint of many organizations, its principal advantage comes from its third party credibility, when obtained through positive editorial coverage in major news media. Public relations is also critical in brand building, as brands cannot rely solely on advertising and sales promotion to foster the desired image.

Good PR is invisible; no obvious trace should be left so that consumers can point the finger at some form of news generating mechanism. Given it's ability to influence with subtly, public relations is one of the most important elements in building brands and creating both the right environment for the brand to prosper, but also for the right messages to be received at the right time to the relevant audiences. Once a clear brand identity has been conceived, it is the primary role of public relations to communicate its values to the consumers