Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
PRESENTER: This lesson is pretty much a continuation of
what we talked about in chapters one and two.
And it covers more in depth, what do PR people actually do
in a day's work, and what is their job like?
So let me begin by making an important point.
As you've heard me explain already, marketing
professionals are focused, of course, on marketing or
selling products or services.
Therefore, you'll only find them in companies where there
is something for sale--
a product or a service.
But you'll find PR people in many other types of
organizations.
So their work, as we've mentioned earlier, is even
broader in scope than marketing is.
And, this is a reminder, because you've already learned
it, marketing is to consumer publics.
Marketing is directed to people who buy, or might buy,
the product or service.
PR on the other hand, does reach consumers, but it also
reaches internal publics and multiple other external
publics, such as members of the community, or the
government, or minority groups.
So as we have discussed earlier, PR people can work in
multiple kinds of places--
government jobs, such as federal government or state,
health care, education, such as universities, major
corporations, and non-profits.
So PR people have their choice of many kinds of jobs.
And depending on where the PR person works, he or she may be
a one-man or one-woman PR department.
Or if it's a large corporation, there may be a
huge department of multiple people in that department.
And so pretty much goes without saying that the
smaller your department is, the more skills you'll need.
So if you work at a major corporation, you're much more
likely to be given a specialized task, such as just
media relations, or just consumer relations, or just
government relations.
And even within those specialties, the jobs are
broken down.
So within internal communications, you might have
someone that handles the writing, someone that handles
the photography, and someone that
handles layout and design.
So the larger the department, the more precise
your job will be.
Now, should you go looking for a job in PR, right now you
won't find too many jobs listed under the name, PR.
There is a trend away from actually calling our
profession PR.
There is a trend to renaming it to better explain the
function of our job.
And the function of our job is to communicate for our
organization.
So by far, the most popular names include communications.
So one of those is corporate communications.
Or just communications.
Here at Old Miss, we have a Chief Communications Officer.
That's his title.
In government, especially, you'll see it called Public
Information.
For example, the Centers for Disease Control has a very
large and excellent Public Information Department.
So let's say there's an outbreak of the flu.
Their Public Information Department will get
information out to the media and to other Americans about
how to handle that particular strain of flu.
Public Affairs is another name for it.
And certainly, Marketing Communications.
Some companies combine their marketing and PR into one big
department and call it Marketing Communications.
And those of you taking this class who are in our
Integrated Marketing Communications class have
heard about that.
And one last term that's not used as often, but it is used,
is Corporate Relations.
Now, look back over those, and one of them is
used, by far, the most.
And really, it's two.
So Communications or Corporate Communications are now used
four to one to the title, Public Relations.
So if you're looking for an internship, or job, be sure
you look under the Communications Department--
not just look for the PR Department.
An I've mentioned we changed that name.
Why?
Well first of all, I'm starting at the bottom of the
slide here, when you say PR, quite honestly, some people
have a negative connotation of what PR is.
When you came into this class, you probably didn't quite
understand what public relations was.
So to better explain what we do, we are, as a profession,
leaning towards the title, Communications.
Also, our responsibilities and our services have expanded.
So we do more than just public relations.
We do a whole lot more communications
than we used to.
Now, I already mentioned that the size of the department
varies with the business.
If it's a small business, it might be
just one or two people.
But one survey found the average number of PR employees
at major corporations, say, like Ford Motors,
the average is 60.
So you can imagine, out of those 60 employees, if you
were one of them, that your duties are going to be fairly
specialized.
Now, one thing the public relations profession as a
whole believes, is that we, as professionals, should be in on
making the decisions--
not on just informing the public later.
Because we can help the administrators make decisions
that do reflect well on our reputation and do enhance
relationships with our publics,
rather than the opposite.
And I'm going to give you a real life example of when that
didn't happen and it backfired.
You've probably heard of the Susan B. Komen Foundation.
It is an organization that gathers funds to pay for
research about breast cancer, and it was founded in honor of
Susan Komen, who died of breast cancer, by her sister.
Now, I did not understand this at first, but Susan B. Komen
was giving money to Planned Parenthood, but that money was
for a very specific reason.
It was to help low income women get breast cancer
screenings, or mammograms.
So they did issue funding to Planned Parenthood, but
strictly for this purpose.
Well, the foundation, the Komen Foundation, hired a new
vice president.
And this woman, this vice president, had previously run
for office in Georgia.
And when she ran for office, she described herself as
staunchly pro-life, meaning anti-abortion.
OK, shortly after she was hired, the Komen Foundation
cut all funding to Planned Parenthood for these low
income women's breast exams.
They didn't make any public announcement, they didn't send
out a news release, they just did it.
Well, how did people find out?
Planned Parenthood had a good PR person, and he or she
immediately announced that this funding had been cut.
And we don't know why, exactly, it was done.
But you can guess how it looked.
It looked as if the new vice president was certainly trying
to act on her beliefs.
So the uproar was immediate and widespread.
And you remember learning your psychographics, you can
imagine which psychographic was upset about this decision.
Certainly pro-choice people were upset, but also women in
general were upset because the funding had
nothing to do with abortion.
It was for breast cancer screenings.
So there were protests against a Komen
Foundation, as you see here.
Many sponsors that had sponsored the Race For The
Cure that the Komen Foundation puts on, dropped out.
People who were going to run in the Race For The Cure
dropped out.
Donations to the Komen Foundation dropped.
Online, lots and lots of tweets and other chatter.
The mention of the Susan B. Komen Foundation went up 80%
of typical.
But out of those, 70% of the post were negative.
And this, just a flyer I found online.
Someone got hold of the Race For The Cure logo and altered
it, as you can see, it's disgrace for the cure.
So what happened?
Well there was such a firestorm of reaction that
Komen indeed reversed that decision, and that vice
president resigned.
Now, the point of that is, had the PR person been consulted,
he or she could've said, do you understand what this is
going to look like, and what result it could have on our
foundation?
But the PR person was not involved in that decision.
So it's a really good example of why administrators need to
consult PR people before they make big decisions.
And of course, Susan B. Komen is a nonprofit organization.
OK, let's switch from nonprofit to talking about a
major corporation.
And I've already said to you that at a major corporation,
you tend to work more in a certain
department or certain specialty.
--to know.
There we go.
OK, now earlier, you heard me say that we believe the PR
person should be consulted by administrators before
decisions are made.
And because of that, we think the PR person's top job should
be right up there with the other top levels of
management.
So let me show you this chart.
So if you take a look at, of course, the top person, the
CEO, or the president, or whatever that person's title
is, right under him or her would be a series of vice
presidents.
We think the PR person should be one of those vice
presidents, or on that third tier, which would be assistant
vice presidents.
Because that is the upper hierarchy in
administrative decisions.
And we certainly believe that the chief PR person-- not all
PR people, but the chief PR person--
be on that management ladder.
Here at Old Miss, I looked into it, and our Chief
Communications Officer is on that third tier.
He is an assistant to the vice chancellor, which would be
equivalent to the vice president here.
And it may not be in the job description, but that PR
person should be the corporate conscience.
In other words, you know what your conscience does--
it tells you what's right or wrong.
Well, the PR person should remind the corporation's
administration what's right or wrong.
That you should do the right thing for your public--
not necessarily the thing that's going to
make the most money.
Because in the long run, if people don't trust you, and
don't believe in you, then they're not going to buy your
product, and your income will go down.
Now, how are those departments organized?
The head person of a department is usually called
the communications, or public relations manager, director,
or vice president.
And then under that person, you often have these separate
sections, as I mentioned, that handle the different aspects
of public relations.
Now, should you-- going to work with other departments in
the corporation.
First of all, Human Resources is the department that handles
all employee hiring and benefits, and
firing, if need be.
And so if you're doing internal PR with employees,
you absolutely are going to have to communicate with that
department.
The Legal Department will absolutely be involved in what
you do, because they do not want you making a public
statement that in some way would make the
company legally liable.
So they like to screen, often, every public statement and
every news release before you send it out.
And certainly you might work in conjunction with the
Advertising and/or Marketing departments as they try to
gather sales.
Now, I said we don't use PR in corporations, but in addition,
PR agencies, most no longer call themselves PR.
They just call themselves an agency name,
without public relations.
Or some of them call it Reputation Management.
Now, a PR agency can be one person working out of her own
home, to a multinational global organization.
And one of those global organizations, you've already
learned about, Burson-Marsteller.
Last I heard, Burson-Marsteller was the
third largest PR company in the world, and it had offices
in 35 countries.
Four of those offices are in China alone.
Some of their clients included GE, Coca Cola, Kraft Foods,
and Johnson & Johnson.
And last I heard, the entire agency employed more than
2,000 people.
So always remember, of course, as you've learned about Harold
Burson, that the founder of one of the top PR agencies in
the world came from Old Miss.
And I'm going to show you a picture of him with me, in
case you've wondered what I look like.
There I am.
And you can see we're about the same height.
And I tell you, I'm not very tall.
I'm about 5' 2 and 1/2.
So you can see Mr. Burson is about that height as well.
And should you want to look more into that agency, this is
their website address.
You can't go to it from this video, but if you just do a
search for Burson-Marsteller, you'll find their site.
Now, Mr. Burson is actually quoted in several textbooks
about what agencies' functions have become.
So here's what he said--
"It used to be that a client corporation would hire a PR
agency, and all they would want the agency to do is take
the message and deliver it."
So the client would decide exactly what he or she wanted
to say, and all they wanted the PR agency to do was get it
to reporters.
Then it became, what should we say?
So the client then began evolving into asking the PR
agency's advice on what exactly should we say.
And today, as you've already learned, it's evolved into
what should we do?
What action should we take?
What communication should we use?
And what should we say?
So PR agencies have very much evolved from just being the
communicator of a message to being part of making the
complete strategy and plan of action.
Now the next slide shows you some major PR agencies.
These are some of the top ones.
Ketchum is well-known.
Edelman, Fleischman-Hillard, Hill & Knowlton, Ogilvy,
Porter Novelli.
If you should be interested in interning at a PR agency,
these are, as I said, some of the largest.
And you can just do a search for that agency and see where
the branch might be near you.
Many of them, of course, are in New York, Chicago, other
large areas in the country.
So if you're looking for a job or internship, I wanted to
tell you about the Council of PR Firms.
Now, it has about 100 agencies,
or firms, who belong.
And so of course, that's not every PR
agency in the country.
But if you go to their website, prfirms.org, you'll
find a list of the members.
So say you're looking for a job or an internship, you can
search by specialty or location to see what firms
might be available.
Now, who hires PR firms?
Well, look--
a lot of top companies.
Almost 90% use outside PR agencies to some degree.
And they may use several different agencies for
different projects.
Now, I keep using the word agency.
Many of them now prefer to be called firms.
But I'll have a hard time switching over, so I'm often
saying agency.
OK.
Why would you hire a PR agency at a corporation if you
already have a PR department?
Well, for example, your staff members might already be busy
on projects and not have time.
Or they might not have the talent you need
for a special project.
And as I've already mentioned, this slide is really a little
out of order, and I apologize for that, many of these PR
firms today are global.
And you can see where these top PR firms listed have
multiple global offices.
And so what might a corporation hire a PR firm or
agency to provide?
Well, marketing communications.
Say you want brochures about your product, or media tours
about a new product.
Training your executives in how to give speeches, or in
how to be interviewed by reporters.
Because it can be quite intimidating to have a
reporter asking you questions.
You might hire an agency to do research for you.
Say you want to do a survey, but you really have never
given a national survey, and you don't have the capability
or the knowledge.
You might hire a PR firm to do that.
Certainly in a crisis, you might need some outside help.
For example, I'm sure you've heard of the BP oil spill.
A friend of mine with a PR agency in Mississippi was
hired by BP on the Mississippi Gulf Coast to help them with
crisis communication there.
Another reason you might hire an agency is media analysis.
And this is helping you find the mass or social media that
your target public most often uses.
And finally, you might hire them for event management.
Maybe you want to put on a big conference, or a big press
conference, or some sort of anniversary celebration.
You might hire an agency to oversee all of that.
Again, I'm having problems getting my slide to move.
Let's hope it improves, here.
There we go.
OK, some more services that a PR agency might provide to the
corporation that hires it-- public affairs, working with
the community, branding, or corporate reputation, and
financial relations.
And specialty service such as digital or social media.
Now, I wanted to show you an example of when FedEx hired an
outside PR firm.
And this, of course, is the FedEx main headquarters in
Memphis, Tennessee.
Well, two zoos in America had pandas that had
been born at the zoo.
And I was not aware of this, but there was an agreement
between China and the US that any pandas born in American
zoos to pandas that came originally from China, the
children would be returned to China.
So these two zoos had panda children.
Actually, one was 4 - 1/2 years old, and one was 3 years
old, and they were being returned to China.
So they asked FedEx, essentially,
can you ship a panda?
Well, they had two weeks notice.
Well, not only did FedEx say yes, they realized they had a
terrific public relations opportunity here.
And so to help them do it so quickly and on such a global
scale, they hired Ketchum PR to help.
Now, the two zoos, one was in Washington, DC
and one was in Atlanta.
First thing they did, and I just love this, was they put a
special decal on the plane.
And you can see there, the panda plane.
And this plane flew from Memphis to Atlanta, and then
to Washington, and then to China.
And here you see some pictures of one of the pandas in a
specially designed crate, being loaded into the plane.
Here you see more pictures of the panda.
That's one of his trainers, there, with them getting the
panda loaded up.
And you see the panda plane taking off.
And so I think what was really clever, they
called what was happening.
Panda-monium.
Clever pun.
And so they pulled it off.
In less than three weeks, they had three high profile events.
They had a sendoff in Atlanta, a send off in Washington, and
a welcome home event in China.
And of course, Ketchum having an office in China was
instrumental here.
Who were they trying to reach?
What target publics?
Well, clearly the news media, all their customers and
potential customers, any consumer who wasn't aware that
FedEx ships around the world, and they also wanted to build
good relationships with community leaders in Atlanta,
and DC, and in the US and China.
So their objectives, particularly, were to increase
FedEx visibility in Atlanta.
I certainly don't know this firsthand, but apparently, in
Atlanta, UPS issues by more people as a shipper than FedEx
is, and they wanted to sort of increase their visibility.
They also wanted to demonstrate their commitment
to communities.
And they want to themselves to be seen as the
expert in panda shipping.
Not that there's a whole big market for that, but if you
think, well, gosh, FedEx could ship a panda, I'm sure they
could handle my package.
Their research found out that there were activists opposed
to returning pandas to China.
So they had to be prepared for that.
Although FedEx--
it was not FedEx's decision to do the return.
They were simply transporting.
And then they did a lot of research on, how
do you ship an animal?
And what do you feed a panda?
And how you take care of a panda.
And so, as I've already said, they wanted to demonstrate
their capabilities and community involvement.
And the PR department wanted use traditional and digital
media to tell the story.
So they had those press conferences at both zoos that
were big farewell events and celebrations, and then had the
homecoming in China.
And to not upset the pandas, they limited photo and video
to one person each, and then shared those photographs and
video with other news media.
And so that's a repeat slide, the panda-monium.
Now, I'm going to show you on Blackboard, there's a link to
the NPR story about this, and a really interesting video
from Fedex about it.
So you can't link to them through the slide, but I'll
put them on Blackboard.
Now, the results were wonderful.
Stories about this ran in more than 1,400 media outlets,
reaching 1.1 billion people who either read or watched the
story, or heard it on NPR.
And in Atlanta--
remember, they were particularly concerned about
Atlanta's market--
they reached 35 media placement alone in Atlanta.
I thought it was kind of interesting that when a UPS
spokesperson was interviewed about this, look at what the
spokesperson said--
"UPS is not going to support in-kind shipping of these
types of cultural organizations." So I don't
know if that PR person still has a job, but that was not a
very good quote.
Now, who owns these large PR firms?
Well, interestingly, very few of them are owned by the
person whose name is on the title of the company.
Many are owned by large conglomerates.
So a conglomerate named Omnicom actually owns Ketchum
and Fleischman-Hillard, and five others.
And one called WPP owns Burson-Marsteller and another.
Now, how do those agencies get business?
So for example, how did FedEx find Ketchum?
How do corporations choose which PR agency to use?
Well, a corporation will issue something called an RFP--
request for proposals.
And again, I'll put a link to this on Blackboard.
Many PR newsletters will publish these requests for
proposals, then PR agencies make a bid on that.
So if you hire our agency, here's what we would do, and
here's what it would cost.
And they prepare a proposal.
And then the company reviews the proposals, they might pick
the top three, say, and have representatives from those
three agencies come in person to the headquarters and make
their pitch.
And then they decide which bid, or proposal, they're
going to take.
Now, --
to work at a PR agency.
Well, look at the bottom of your slide.
The entry level job, the job level at which you would most
likely be hired, is called Assistant Account Executive.
After two to three years, if you do well, you could then be
promoted to Account Executive.
And then after a few more years, to an Account
Supervisor.
Now, why is it called account?
Because you are working on client accounts.
So for example, at Ketchum, there would have been an
account executive who did nothing but work with FedEx.
So you are assigned to several accounts.
You may not work on every account the agency has, but on
the ones your team is handling.
An agency, the top job would then be vice president,
followed by a director or manager.
So you're not in line for that yet, but you might be one day.
Now, why would a corporation hire an agency?
We said, maybe already, we said it might be when their
project is beyond your staff's ability to complete.
But there are some other reasons.
First of all, an agency is objective.
They have, to use a good southern term,
no dog in that hunt.
They are not pro or con anything.
They are hired without any background
dealing with your company.
As we've already said, they might have a variety of skills
and expertise, and, in fact, resources that your company
doesn't have.
Those skills might include special
problem-solving skills.
And as we saw in the FedEx example, national and
international offices.
Also, if you hire one of those agencies, they often have a
very good reputation nationally and it gives more
credence to your PR effort.
But on the other side, let's--
at some disadvantages of hiring an outside agency.
First of all, that agency has several clients.
And so they are not full time devoted to just one client.
And they don't really know anything about your company or
organization.
So it's going to take some time to help them understand
your corporation and how it, works and what it does.
Your company's own staff might resent these
outsiders coming in.
Management is going to have to be spending time working with
these outside people.
And it's expensive.
I mean, PR agencies have to charge to make a living, so
it's not cheap.
And finally, a disadvantage might be that you have to
disclose confidential information about your
organization that you'd prefer, perhaps, to not
disclose to anyone.
Now, how do PR agencies make money?
The most common way is by billing at an hourly rate.
And that's called billable hours.
So each person who's working on a certain account literally
tracks how many minutes and hours he or she has spent
working each day and each week on that account.
So they might say, OK, I spent an hour Tuesday on Account A,
and two hours Tuesday on Account B, and 10 minutes on
Account C. Then, the agency is going to bill the client at a
rate that's determined in kind of an awkward way.
They take that person's salary, multiply it by three,
and then divide it by however many hours would be in a
monthly hourly rate at a 40-hour a week job.
And they come out with that hourly rate that they then
bill the client.
As you can imagine, the entry level assistant account
executive is making a much lower salary than the vice
president, the top PR person.
So depending on who's hours you're billing, it can vary
tremendously.
For top PR officials, they can bill at $500 an hour.
But the average rate per hour is $213 an hour.
So I mentioned it wasn't cheap, and as you can see,
that those hours can certainly add up.
They also will charge markup for anything they've done.
Like, if they made copies, they'll charge
the client for copies.
If they made a long distance calls, they'll charge the
client for those calls.
Now, that's billable hours.
The other three here are not used as often, but let's
quickly talk about them.
A retainer fee--
this is a fee that a company pays a PR agency for a set
number of hours a week.
So for six months, your company might hire PR agency A
and that agency guarantees you 20 hours a month for this
retainer fee.
Now, the hitch is, you have to pay the fee whether you use
them or not.
But you have them, essentially, on standby.
Project Fee is a fee for one project.
So let's say you hire them to put on a press conference.
You might negotiate one lump fee just for that project.
And pay for placement is rarely used, but in this case,
the PR agency doesn't get paid unless they get articles
placed in the media, or spots placed on the TV news.
OK, there is a quick video from PRSA.
Again, I'm going to ask you to link to it from Blackboard.
I actually don't think it's all that great a video,
but do watch it.
And now, what do you think?
Now that you know a whole lot more about working in PR, what
attracts you about it?
What concerns you about it?
And where do you think you'd like to work?
And you'll be writing the answers to some of these
questions in your assignment.
All right, that's the end of this lecture.
I hope you now know a whole lot more about working in PR.
So don't forget to take your quiz and do the assignment.
And we'll talk again next lesson.