I think its the best way to come-up with some special cause and come into the eyes of the world, for example in INDIA people are very crazy about CRICKET game, so it usually happens that some organizations like (DLF) usually come up with a cause and organize a cricket match so that they be good in the eyes of media and get more advertisement.
Other Real world example would be during the time of financial crisis '09 banks had to win the confidence of the customers to be in business for example Citigroup or Bank of America, released a large campaign for its business. Furthermore, some video examples of smaller financial institutions can be seen with advertizing measures. The banks use all kinds of media, for example newspaper, billboards, television etc. Especially in interviews, banks have the chance to give an awesome statement about the capability and the security for their customers.
Also from my perception this kind of advertising is becoming too much attractive these days not because of ease in selling there products but also making their audience aware about the social causes which every organization should get into.
Here's a link of the video i found in youtube.
During one summer, I interned with a company named William J. Green & Associates. They handled crisis communication, media relations, marketing, pretty much any sort of communications service. One day a company that they represented had a problem. A smokestack from one of their factories shot out black tar over a whole neighborhood. The tar covered people’s houses, cars, grass, everything.
ReplyDeleteThis created a firestorm of news coverage from all of Pittsburgh’s news channels. They interviewed people who said they were scared to let their pets out because they might eat the tar and die. They were upset they couldn’t let their grandkids out to play when they came to visit. From this event, I saw firsthand how media relations and crisis communication works. It was my job as the intern to watch the news every day and splice together all the stories on one video tape. This was going to be used by us to see what people’s biggest complaints are so they could give some suggestions as to what the company should do to appease the people that were hit by this.
Meanwhile, my bosses were writing up press releases and calling up their connections at the news stations so they could get a press conference set up to talk about the situation and how they were going to handle it. They did that type of stuff to provide a balance in the media coverage to give their client a fair shot.
Here is the website to William J. Green & Associates. It was really a fun place to work. There was something new to do and learn everyday.
http://www.w-j-green.com/menu.html
I think every company, no matter what business they are in have to deal with media relations at one point or another. The business that I am looking to get into is the film/ television business. Dealing with film and television, this plays a huge role with media relations. Part of the basic point is to serve the viewer and that right there is a huge part of the media relations. A television channel for example has to have a statement of what their station is about and what they are trying to accomplish with their programming. After this, they have to follow up the specific type of programming they are going for. With every television station, there is a specific group of audience who usually watches and is sought after by the station. The television station has to keep its viewers by following their statements and stand behind the shows they air. If not, they will lose a lot of viewers.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, I think it’s really interesting to see how things are spun in media relations today. It’s almost like marketing in a sense because you are trying to sell you side of a story or your way of how things went. From this, people can believe you or not. Some companies take things very serious by watching their words that they choose and even how they speak and the images they show.
One great example is with past President George Bush during the bailout and the recession. There was a huge media relations blitz against him and his cabinet. Bush had to come up with an idea, a bailout, to sell to the people of America. This was a major task because many people were against some of his ideas on the bailout. He had to choose his words carefully, learn to spin the bad ideas into the good and then gain the trust of the people. If not, the people of America would not be in favor of the bailout and his presidency might run into some serious problems.
The media is a power house in the world of business that can either benefit or cripple a company. When company's underestimate this power many problems can be created. The lecture on Wed. even discussed the importance of communicating with one voice to the media and with one message.
ReplyDeleteThe company that I used to work for, Blockbuster, understood this concept and very much emphasized it with its employees. Anytime something happened that they believed would gain the attention of the media a reminder was sent out to all staff members to refer any media inquiries to the corporate communication department.
However the one time that this did not happen there were major implications for the company. in the spring of last year the company was looking to refinance and move the majority of its holdings to a new bank that would have better financial results. Some how the media got hold of this information and interpreted as the company filing for bankruptcy. Once this happened there was a rush of people to the stores inquiring about this information wondering what was going to happen to their local stores, as well as creating nervousness amongst the shareholders that the company would not have informed them of this information.
This is just one example of how a simple miscommunication can create such a major impact on a companies welfare. The company reacted quickly, sending communications to all employees informing them of the situation as well as contacting major media outlets so that they could communicate the correct information. The company's fast actions and relations with the media were able to save the company millions of dollars and a possible real bankruptcy.
After the successive crises which have affected the image of McDonald's in France at the end of the years 1990 (mad cow, movement anti-universalization, war in Iraq, problems of obesity…), the chain of restaurants decided to react by putting the environment in the middle of its communication strategy.
ReplyDeleteOther with dimensions of the Atlantic, one calls that the “greenwashing”, but McDo is defended some: the multinational affirms to have become aware of the impact of its activity on the environment since already well a long time. Towards the end of the year 1980 more precisely, when NGO “Environmental Defense Fund” joined at McDonald's in the United States to see how to reduce the quantity of waste produced with each been useful meal. From this time the definition goes back to an environmental strategy: the American seat gives general orientations (like the reduction of the quantity of waste, with 3R: to reduce, re-use and recycle) that the subsidiary companies and franchized apply according to the characteristics and the local standards. Certain “good practices” born on the grounds are then applied to more large scales. McDonald's thus prides itself to have reduced in about twenty year of almost 50% the quantity on packing used.
Only, since the years 2000, an environmental stake even more important arrived in the middle of the topicality: climate warming. A problem also much more difficult to treat for McDonald's, because to reduce the gas emissions for greenhouse effects requires to act on all the chain of provisioning.
It is there that France had the appearance of a pioneer: first subsidiary company of the group to have established its assessment carbon (CO2 160g by meal on average in 2005), McDonald's France established targets in precise figure (- 8% of emissions from here at 2010) which it proves relatively easy to check. Still more interesting, the group benefits from its commercial weight to push its suppliers to respect these same objectives.
On the other hand from these engagements for the environment, the group withdraws benefit in term of brand image. For example, Mcdonalds.fr proposes environment (éco-cat, éco-blog, éco-newspaper, etc) whereas the media are made the echo of the openings of “green” restaurants and other environmental innovations of the group. What to make forget for a time the medical problems posed by “junk food. ”
However, the McDonald's website has just been updated, with a part “environment” more packed much, putting for the first time ahead the policies of conservation of energy and relegating to the second plan the traditional problems of waste. It should be also said that in 2008, France became the first source of revenue for McDonald's apart from the United States, thanks to a continuous growth of the sales since several years, and this in spite of/thanks to a communication centered partly on the environment: that has to give ideas to some in Illinois.
If it is difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of the environmental engagement of McDonald's behind the communication, a thing is sure: McDonald's France succeeded in transforming a risk into term of reputation in an opportunity marketing to rectify a chipped image.
Media relations are those activities that involve working directly with persons responsible for the editorial (news and features), public service and sponsored programming products of mass media.
ReplyDeleteI had a sad example when I was in my Business School in north east of France, in a city called Nancy. As in IUP, we have a lot of associations, which are in different areas, and organizing different events. One of them is called the BDE (Bureau Des Eleves), translated, it would be, the Office For the Student. Basically, it is an association which is responsible for everything with is in relation with the entertainment for the student of the school. And they are organizing, at least once per month, a huge party, in a big Event room, in the middle of the forest. These events are generally concerning 200 to 350 people, you pay a fee at the entrance, you get a stamp on your hand, and it is open bar.
It is really well organized; the association is providing free buses, going from downtown of Nancy, to the party place, approximately 25 minutes drive, starting at 8 pm, until 5 am, every hour.
Unfortunately, some students are not from downtown, and are coming with their own car, most of the students who are driving are responsible, and are only drinking one or two beers, not more. But some of them are not, and in 2006, a very sad thing happened.
One of the students was drunk, took his car with another friend, who was also drunk, on the way back to his place, he had an accident. His friend was not moving, and he thought that she was dead; he walked to his parents place, and hangs himself. This was a big shock for the whole school, a lot of professors and students knew him, he was a really nice guy.
The media jumped on this story, and immediately went to meet the director of the school, but he was not a really big media fan, and refuses to speak with them. The journalist discussed than with other students, everybody had his own story, some didn’t even know about it, because within the school, we didn’t have any information.
The consequence of this non-communication was hard, journalist described the school as a party place, with no responsibilities, no supervising of the school on the association. Parents also started to ask for explanation to the school; they wanted to know how this tragic event could happen, and if what they read in the newspaper was right.
By not answering questions from the journalist, the director of my school made a big mistake, and this had now to be fixed. He organized a conference with all the students, to inform us what happened, the exact facts, and the school sent a mail to all the parents. Explaining the exact facts, where, when and what happened, and that the only lack of responsibility was from the student, not from the school, and also not from the association, who was providing free buses.
If the director would have reacted before, using the media in the right way, explaining the facts, maybe all the negative consequences which occur after would never happen.
i can remmeber one example from when I was attending Penn State University for my bachelor's degree. WWE wrestling was going to be in town so a bunch of my friends and I decided to camp out at the Bryce Jordan center to get the best tickets available. Throughout the night we were joined by about 500 people who had the same goal as us. In order to gain publicity the marketing director at the Bryce Jordan center invited the local TV and newspaper stations out the following morning to do a story on the spectacle. They even ran a couple of contests for the people who were waiting for tickets and gave out free tickets to other events. This not only created excitement for the WWE event, it created a buzz for subsequent shows and I'm sure ticket sales increased without even looking at the numbers myself.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.centredaily.com/
here is a link to the newspaper that came out and did a story on the event. I could not find the exact story as this happened about 6 years ago.
Focusing on the impact of a companies media relations is very important. However, while companies wish to ensure good relations to provide positive repercussions for thie business, experts are able to manipulate this communication path.
ReplyDeleteThis was quite evident during President Obama's campaign. His communications team planned well. Using new technologies, his campaign was able to side step many negative reports by involving the main constituents, the voters, directly. As a result, his campaign was able to manipulate the reports coming from the media but putting pressure on them from the voters.
His use of the internet and even text messaging gave the voters a new feeling of power. For the first time in history, voters felt like they were in control of the news, not the news reporters. As negative reports were released by reporters, the campaign diverted all attention by going directly to the voters. Claims that the media were acting on the old school methods of "backing big business", his campaign was able to convince voters to ignore the media.
Another manipulation was to use the internet for contributions. Knowing that small donations from multiple accounts would not be traced, this venue was capitalized on to create mass contributions, sums that have never been seen before.
While these manipulations of media relations obviously worked for his campaign, many dedicated democrats, including myself, refused to vote democrat in the past election.
His campaign was no different then any business. There is a target goal that the business intends to meet. Like any business, while manipulating its media relations to initially produce the desired results may prove effective, eventually the truth surfaces and this can prove detremental to a company's reputation.
Here is a link to the tactics that the Obama campaign used to "win" the position of president.
http://comprehension.prsa.org/?p=414