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What Public Relations Should Boil Down To

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This is a crazy, roller-coaster of a profession. Though I’ve only just begun my career in the last year, I’ve delved into corporate communications, agency work, freelance, the world of publicity, and now nonprofit PR.

The job of public relations is definitely fascinating, and continues to grow as more and more people are choosing it for their career path. College students all over the world are seeing the benefits of choosing this profession, though some are honestly in it just to jump on the social media bandwagon, but let’s be real. PR is about so much more than just social media.

What is Public Relations? This is a question I hear often, though I’m confident most people who ask me already know. We are in the business of creating and maintaining good relationships with the publics of whatever organization we are working for. It’s advocacy but with a clear focus.

Yes, people confuse it with advertising and marketing all of the time, though the three are actually more integrated than you might realize. Still, there is one thing that definitely separates the profession from so many others, including it’s “cousins” of advertising and marketing. It’s the one thing that PR should always boil down to.

Love.

PR is about showing love and reacting to how it is reciprocated. We craft relationships and images out of love for our constituents: the government, investors, our own employees, and of course, the consumers of our brand.

“But Jon,” my internal conscious says as I write this, “PR really boils down to making your company look good no matter what. It’s about saving a company money and creating good press, not love!”

This is my internal reaction to the idea that PR should boil down to love. Being in the business for a short while, I’ve seen the bad side of how PR is used just as much as I’ve seen the good. That said, I’ve seen the success of PR versus the failure of PR and that leads me to the conclusion that PR needs to boil down to love.

I believe this not based on how the profession has been judged and seen by others in the past. I believe this not based on what I want out of the profession.

I believe that PR is about love based on everything I have experienced up to this point in my career. 

Yes, we write press releases, measure ROI, pester journalists and do whatever we can to increase the bottom-line for our organization. That’s the reality of our lives in PR. Everything we do, whether we do it in love or not, has to be sustainable.

All of these things, however, are just goals. They’re what’s necessary to achieve the vision of whatever organization we are a part of.

To truly find success in PR, the message has to be sent in love. It has to respond to the needs of whomever is affected. Sure, a PR professional can’t please everyone. What may be good for consumers is not necessarily good for stockholders. Not every consumer is going to like a new policy change or maybe something as simple as a new logo.

It’s the PR pro’s job to maintain balance between these opinions and concerns, constantly using two-way communication, that yes, social media has allowed us to foster better than ever before.

Is there dishonesty in the profession? Absolutely, but that’s because there are dishonest people. The good PR pros know that shortcuts and coverups are the most impractical options for how to deal with crises. This is why you will often see companies owning up to their mistakes and making them right. You know that a good PR team is behind those decisions.

PR goes by a set of rules very similar to how we operate as people. You have to show love. To your customers, to your employees, and to your partners. When an organization operates by this creed, they will find success in PR.

Like what you read? Connect with me further via twitter @JonNegroni. I’ll follow back if you seem like a real person.

Don’t forget to check out THE JON REPORT every day, updated at 8am for a list of today’s main headlines as selected by my editorial team (me) 

Are Soda CSR Campaigns Really Misleading?

I read a disturbing bit of news yesterday. A Policy Forum article from Washington has been released asserting that corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaigns by soda companies such as PepsiCo and Coca-Cola are misleading and don’t face enough regulation from the government in comparison to Tobacco companies.

I strongly disagree.

My main issue with this study is that it blatantly attacks CSR campaigns such as PepsiCo’s Refresh project, which has awarded grants to community causes such as park restorations, for “distracting” against how harmful their products are.

Read this: “For example, CSR campaigns that include the construction and upgrading of parks for youth who are at risk for diet-related illnesses keep the focus on physical activity, rather than on unhealthful foods and drinks. Such tactics redirect the responsibility for health outcomes from corporations onto its consumers, and externalize the negative effects of increased obesity to the public.”

Let me repeat for emphasis: “Such tactics redirect the responsibility for health outcomes from corporations onto its consumers, and externalize the negative effects of increased obesity to the public.”

My issue with this is the premise, which is that people are victims and can’t take care of themselves. We have a situation where people can’t be blamed for not having the common sense to use soda in moderation. The main point argued is that soda companies aren’t transparent enough about how harmful their beverages are, as if having the ingredients and serving sizes listed out aren’t good enough.

“The soda company made me fat. I thought I would be healthy because they give money to charity.” -Apparently people?

When it comes down to it, bad behavior is a product of ignorance. People know soda is bad for them, but they choose to drink it anyways. Why attack the soda company for using CSR campaigns to increase sales? They are trying to make a profit, sure, but that doesn’t make them  “evil” as some people seem to believe. Their product is loved by many people who do drink soda in moderation. What happens to those of us who want to enjoy a can of soda every now and then?

Yes, we should have basic education for people on what is healthy and what isn’t. People should have access to information that lets them now how to take care of their bodies. The solution is not, however, to criminalize soda for having CSR campaigns and then increase regulation as if soda is as harmful as cigarettes.

The result of increasing regulation with soda companies means several things: prices go up, soda companies disappear, jobs disappear, and people are still suffering obesity. I 100% guarantee you that if soda was abolished from the planet, obesity would not end. People are healthy because they exhibit self control and understand that too much of anything is bad for them.

These campaigns would be “misleading” if soda companies were trying to tell us that their products are good for us. Instead of lying, they actually promote campaigns that encourage people to be active in their communities and give to charity, etc.

So, our society is actually likening soda companies, as this article put it, as a “social ill” on par with Tobacco companies and should be reprimanded for trying to position themselves as being “socially acceptable” through CSR. What they’re saying is that a person is wrongfully believing that soda is good for them because a soda company gave some money to charity.

As far as I can see, this is baseless on the fact that soda companies are not in the business of controlling our behavior. They’re selling us a product.

JN