PUBLIC RELATIONS: UPWARDLY MOBILE ON THE BUSINESS AGENDA

PR ‘back in the day’ used to be mainly about getting a news story out – a major contract signed, an order fulfilled, an acquisition, a new service or product range. PR was the ‘machinery’ via which these sort of good news sound bites were delivered. To a limited extent, it was also the route via which setbacks were dealt with – a bad set of Annual Results – and explanations provided usually with signals of better times ahead.

There are many shipping and port sector businesses that still utilise PR in this traditional way and have simply extended it to incorporate online media. PR in this way is effectively a good news machine, regularly pumping out digestible news to a mass audience.

Is this effective? It can be, it can do the job for which it is intended, but its positive impact can be impaired by small things, for example, the fact that the same sort of News Release will be pumped out like clockwork every month. Ultimately, this sort of monotonous news offering is likely to find the Editor’s spike. Typically, it can also suffer from not enough thought going into logistics – the timing of a News Release for example. Is it good to catch the monthly publications, is it being released at a time when readership levels are likely to be lower – the summer holidays for example – or is it being released at a slow news time when it is likely to achieve more coverage? Even the basic PR approach can be finessed but that is influenced by how far up the list of business priorities the importance of PR is placed. It takes investment to get it right.

Modern PR, however, has much more about it, more weapons in its armoury. It also operates against a background of a general uplift in the importance of branding – generating a recognisable look, value set and message – that PR should complement and reinforce. Furthermore, with data processing and analytics it is possible to target individual market sectors in a highly concentrated way and to measure the effectiveness of a given PR effort.

There are also new age disciplines to capitalise on – influencer linked PR, personalised pitches and banging the authenticity drum. An influencer is someone of good standing who directly or even indirectly can validate services or products offered – a classic example being a satisfied customer. Personalised pitches are exactly that, targeted at an individual or a set of individuals such as financial journalists. ‘Authenticity,’ this is the approach that basically builds credibility and shouts to the world, “this is real, honest and definitely not fake news.”

But, bottom line, what does all effective PR depend on – an organisation that has a business methodology that has good values, a good moral spirit and which, for example, is known to treat its workforce well and not to be at the centre of corruption allegations. If the fundamental approach is flawed, not thought through, then there is little fertile ground for positive PR to grow on and ultimately there will be a commensurate lack of belief in the marketplace.