Value‐added Public Relations: The Secret Weapon of Integrated Marketing

Citation

Rozmanith, S. (1999), "Value‐added Public Relations: The Secret Weapon of Integrated Marketing", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 16 No. 6, pp. 616-628. https://doi.org/10.1108/jcm.1999.16.6.616.4

“The function of public relations...far exceeds its marketing support function. The principal role of the corporate communications departments and public relations firms...remains...to counsel management on relationships with all the stakeholders on whose understanding and support corporate health and indeed survival depend” (p. xii). Yet Value‐added Public Relations focuses primarily on the role public relations plays in comprehensive marketing efforts, rather than on public relations as described above.

Harris looks specifically at integrated marketing communications (IMC). IMC combines the various marketing disciplines into a comprehensive communications plan that goes beyond delivering a consistent message. IMC “focuses on what customers want to know about products and services, not what marketers want to tell them in order to sell them” (p. 3).

Harris steps away from the notion that “advertising is the solution to all marketing problems” (p. 3), and instead promotes the popular notion of integrated marketing communications, of which marketing public relations is a critical component.

Harris’s book comprises two sections. The first section provides detailed case studies of some of the nation’s most successful companies that demonstrate how marketing public relations (MPR) added to successful marketing campaigns. The second section offers the reader recommended steps for planning and implementing an IMC or MPR campaign.

The first chapter lays the critical groundwork for IMC and MPR. Harris first makes the case for coordinated marketing efforts, then pinpoints the role of public relations and the added credibility it gives to a company’s messages. Most readers will already be converts to these concepts and practices, but Harris’s arguments offer a good refresher on how PR adds credibility to messages, what makes IMC successful, and what obstacles exist.

Harris uses several vignettes to demonstrate how “free publicity” offers the critical third‐party credibility to dramatically increase sales. In addition, Harris points to numerous experts and research studies to draw a clear relationship between product marketing and corporate marketing.

“One of the most important roles that public relations can play in marketing is to sensitize the company to the concerns and interests of all the company’s stakeholders. Public relations is uniquely capable of identifying issues and interpreting changes in the social and cultural environment that can significantly impact the marketplace. It can lead the company to support causes that consumers care about and help it avoid pitfalls of making marketing mistakes that can lead to consumer backlash” (p. 23).

Part I of the book is an easy read, because it offers exceptional examples of how leading marketers used MPR to gain tremendous results in specific campaigns. From Infinity to IBM, Crayola to Pillsbury, these case histories serve to spark the creativity in readers who are planning their own marketing campaigns. In all the examples, Harris demonstrates how companies taking an integrated strategy and approach gain exposure in unusual ways or for non‐traditional activities. While most of the examples are not new, together the case studies present a compelling argument for IMC and offer a plethora of ideas that a reader may apply to his or her own efforts.

The book focuses primarily on campaigns for consumer products, but cuts a wide cross‐section through the category. Examples demonstrate how MPR adds value to straightforward concepts such as introducing new products as well as how MPR can create news out of seemingly less than newsworthy topics. Anyone who remembers the Mario Cuomo/Ann Richards advertisement for Doritos can also recall the extensive editorial coverage given to the ad and, by default, to the tortilla chip.

Throughout the examples, Harris shows the various methods by which companies garnered extensive media coverage. Such methods include creating multiple local celebrities in a national contest; sponsoring scientific research; and garnering national celebrities as endorsers. It is these creative ideas put into motion that spark the reader’s imagination.

Examples, including the Pillsbury Bake Off and voting for the new blue M&M, demonstrate relationship marketing at its finest. The entire IMC effort makes these campaigns successful, but Harris focuses on the public relations activities that garner exceptional media coverage. Other examples, such as the Butterball turkey talk line on Thanksgiving, reveal how providing a much‐needed service to customers can be an exceptional brand builder and can solidify a customer’s relationship with a company and its products. The MPR efforts around the Turkey Talk Line further spread the word about the 800 number and continue to expand awareness about the service.

Campaigns that target primary and secondary markets offer additional rich examples of the value marketing public relations can add. Pizza Hut’s National Reading Incentive Program, which has no advertising budget but rather relies on public relations, telemarketing and direct mail to school principals and teachers, brings millions of young readers into restaurants and helps build brand loyalty. Media coverage of Ocean Spray’s health benefits increased sales dramatically while the company maintained its primary message to young people that its cranberry juices were a delicious alternative to soft drinks.

Event sponsorships are excellent, though expensive, vehicles to increase awareness. Harris profiles several of the Olympics’ sponsors, including IBM and Coca‐Cola. This reader believes an analysis of the failure of Reebok to capitalize on the opportunity presented by their Olympic sponsorship would have better demonstrated the tenets of successful MPR than Harris’s description of how Nike stole the limelight from Reebok.

Harris acknowledges the need to influence the influencers in a given category, as Valvoline demonstrated when the company targeted mechanics as the primary audience and conducted MPR campaigns in professional mechanics’ publications.

Harris devotes one chapter to review high tech and healthcare PR. Obviously entire books could have been written on those topics, but his treatment of these two highly specialized industries reveals the application of and potential results from IMC and MPR to the two markets.

The chapters on direct marketing offer insight into how direct marketing can be used to the greatest advantage. To target an increasingly cynical audience, direct marketing will play a key role in identifying and communicating to “markets of one”. The examples reveals how public relations professionals are bypassing the traditional media outlets and instead going directly to their stakeholders with tailored messages.

Harris offers several examples of allaying customer fears, from genetically engineered tomatoes to the Pepsi “hoax”, and demonstrates the importance of communicating honestly to customers and all stakeholders in times of crisis or concern. Harris’s analyses of these and other examples emphasize the role good media relations can play in spreading the word that the crisis is over.

Harris’ “Lessons Learned” at the end of each case history serves as a recap of the success factors in the campaign. Harris acknowledges that not all factors can be created by sheer will; the “luck factor” benefits several of the companies profiled as well as the unique power positions some of these companies hold in America today. I found the lessons to be most useful as a reference after completing the book.

Once the readers have been inspired by the true creativity of the examples cited, Harris offers a process by which to develop a successful MPR plan within the overall marketing plan. In Part 2, Harris offers one chapter each on reviewing the situation; setting MPR objectives; developing MPR strategy; implementing MPR tactics, which is a comprehensive glossary of terms; and measuring and evaluating MPR programs, which offers different methods of measuring the invaluable results that MPR provides to a company and its products. This reader found the results measurement discussion insightful, but found the rest of the section to be somewhat elementary. All elements of planning are represented and described, although the creativity that makes or breaks a campaign must come from those involved in the project.

This book is best intended for a corporate marketing professional, from VP Marketing to Manager of Marketing Communications, whose responsibilities include all IMC functions. This audience can gain much from the examples and with regard to creativity in IMC and PR efforts. It is also a useful read for PR professionals, who gain an expanded view of IMC with inspiring examples of strategic planning and flawless execution.