I’m not very knowledgeable on the everyday running of a firm or corporation outside of what the accountant does, and I can’t seem to put in the right phrase on google to get anywhere near an answer to this question, so:
What do marketing and/or public relations firms do? I know they have other businesses or celebrities or whatever as clients, but what do they do for these clients? I know it can sometimes depend on the company, but what are some of the activities that go on?
Thanks in advance.
A small sample of some functions of a public relations firm:
Marketing and public relations are two distinct, though closely related, disciplines.
Marketing can be thought of as taking a product and creating a market for it through the use of pricing, promotion and placement.
Pricing – determining an appropriate price for the product, taking into account costs of manufacturing, overhead, competitive pressures, etc.
Promotion – creating attention to and interest in the product via the use of advertising, discounting, samples, and so on.
Placement – establishing an appropriate channel for consumers to find and purchase the product. Determining that selling motor oil might require a channel to garages, to service stations and the regular vehicle owner.
In some cases, a marketing firm might use its experience to recommend that there’s a profitable customer base out there for decaffinated, diet, lime-enhanced orange juice with extra calcium, and work with the supplier to tailor the product to the customers.
Public relations, in its broadest sense, is simply a channel of communications between an organization and the public. What we in the U.S. normally think of as public relations is primarily getting the organization’s message out through a third party (the media, word-of-mouth, etc.) In other words, creating “buzz.”
If I’m a movie star, I want to build and keep a fan base that will see my movies, thus showing the producers that I’d be a good choice to cast in their next blockbuster. My public relations firm sets up interviews with media, coordinates my personal appearances, tries to ensure that the photos of me visiting a children’s hospital get in the paper (and the ones of me leaving a crack house at dawn, don’t) and in general shows me off in my best light.
If I’m a widget, my public relations firm tries to convince the widget-buying public that I’m the best widget in the world, by distributing engineering studies that show my widget superiority, making sure that celebrity widget users only use me, sponsoring widget rallies, handing out samples of me to people in hardware stores and so on.
Does that help?
Both of you helped a ton. All this makes sense, I just never thought of it. Thanks muchly!
From kunilou,
The “buzz” thing is more powerful and subtle than advertising.
Product placement in movies: a given model of car probably doesn’t happen by chance. Remember how the actors all smoked in old movies? and often the brand name was made visible.
They try to get the buzz into news stories, blogs, whatever. There is a lot of political P-R happening, at least for the last 15 years or more on talk radio for instance.
Why do people think Social Security will be bankrupt five years from now, when its huge surplus will still be increasing in size at that time? and how little it’s been discussed that Medicare has a bigger problem sooner?
And the Schiavo case has led people to think that judges should not be the ones to make decisions (notice no one questions who would referee arguments, if you take matters out of the courts). Congress is weighing in on this, and why?
For some of what they do, allow me to suggest *PR Watch *. They basically dig dirt on the industry, which frequently makes for fascinating reading.
Until last week, my wife worked for a PR company that specialized in companies from outside Japan that wanted to get better known among Japanese consumers. Most of them were food-related, but there were a few clothing and fashion ones as well.
For one food client, for example, she arranged to have a number of cooking/variety shows do segments about the product, and organized a cooking seminar hosted by the wife of the American ambassador, among many other things. For all of these, she’d send out invitations and information packets to reporters from newspapers, magazines and TV shows that would be most likely to give a favorable review (if you’re pitching broiled chicken, don’t invite PETA monthly), and prepare all sorts of giveaway gift packages (i.e. bribes) for these same reporters. Most of her time, however, was spent compiling and evaluating media clippings and then reporting to the client on how (and how frequently) they and their product were being mentioned.