Publics and stakeholders: The bread and butter of PR

One of the most important aspects of Public Relations is exactly that; building a relationship with your publics. But before you can communicate your carefully scripted message to those you need to reach, step one is to find out who those people are. And which publics should be on the top of your list of importance?

Often the words “publics” and “stakeholders” are used interchangeably, as if they mean the same. Others have tried to differentiate between them. R. Edward Freeman claims in his book “Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach” (1984) that stakeholders are people or groups of people who either affects your organisation, or are affected by it. These could include (depending on your organisation) customers, suppliers, employees, shareholders, members, local community and pressure groups.

Here Freeman explains the importance of stakeholders

Grunig and Hunt and Grunig and Repper are more interested in publics. They are also more concerned with issues and situation, rather than the organisation per se. Grunig’s Situational Theory is a good theory because it takes into account that the publics aren’t necessarily static. They are often dynamic groups that may change continually. One public can at one time be closely linked to your organisation as a stakeholder that is affected by your organisation, only to move to the periphery of your publics a few months later as the situation that made them affected has changed or disappeared.

Grunig divides publics into four groups:

·         Non public

·         Latent public

·         Aware public

·         Active public

Non public is the people not in a relationship with your organisation. They don’t affect you and you don’t affect them. As such it is not important to communicate with them, but one should still keep a little eye on them, in case they become involved at some point,

Latent public is people who are affected, but don’t know it yet. They are possibly on their way to become more involved, and you should think about what sort of message you send out to them.

Aware public is an informed public that is affected and realise that they are. They are the people who will ask for more information about the issue, and they may want to influence the outcome.

Active public is your loudest public. They have taken an active interest in your organisation/issue and are trying to do something about it.

Grunig’s theory means that to know how to communicate with your publics, you need to continuously keep an eye one them and analyse at which stage they are.

Crisis management and celebrity PR

Protecting a brand’s reputation may be difficult enough when your brand is a company, but when your brand is a person, it’s a whole other ball game.

People are as we know only human, and if you set yourself up to be an idol and an inspiration to the world, that pedestal can be the source of a mighty fall once you mess up. And at those times your PR team, and their crisis management will be crucial to your reputation’s possible survival.

What was that Tiger? Pictures or it didn't happen?

Take the case of Tiger Woods; Deeply respected athlete, at the top of his game, hardworking family man with impeccable morals, and inspiration to us all. He’s been called the most marketable athlete in the world, and has made obscene amounts of money on his endorsement deals.

Then the scandal broke. The not too reputable celebrity magazine, the National Enquirer, claimed Woods had had an affair.  Tiger’s response was deafening silence.

A few days later he had a car accident in the early hours of the morning, reportedly because his wife had chased him down the road threatening to smash his head in with a golf club, and all hell broke loose.

A dozen women came forward claiming to have had affairs with the so-called family man, some with irrefutable evidence of his indescretion. His infidelity had a devastating effect on his reputation, but his PR team’s crisis management made everything a lot worse.

The plan seemed to be to deny everything that couldn’t be proven, and to refuse to talk about anything else. In the first week after the crash, the only thing the world heard from Tiger were two vague statements on his webpage, sort of apologising, but mostly stating that whatever he’d done, it was nobody’s business but his family’s.

In this vacuum of information, he let the press run riot with speculation, rumours and everybody else’s opinions. When he finally decided to talk, almost two months after the story broke, the damage was already done.

His endorsement deals were being dropped in droves, his wife divorced him, and his reputation was in tarnish (although he is still an excellent golfer).

We don’t know the reasons for Tiger’s silence. As a person, it might have been the best thing for him. Maybe his wife asked him to say nothing to diminish the humiliation of the truth (the National Enquirer at one point reported that he had had 120 affairs…), or maybe he just honestly felt it was nobody’s business. As a human being, it might have been the best solution, but as a Tiger Woods the brand, it was a disaster.  

There are other tried and tested methods of dealing with moral failure for celebs. The tell all, apologise and beg for forgiveness-strategy seems to have a higher level of success.

Mark Owen and his wife Emma.

Mark Owen of Take That is another person loved by his adoring fans. He also cheated repeatedly on his loving wife, in much the same manner as Tiger Woods. It was The Sun that found out first, and called up Mark to tell him that they were breaking the story. Unlike Tiger, Owen decided to spill his guts, and hope for forgiveness.

Under the headline “I am a love-cheat, a drunk… and a complete idiot” he admitted ten affairs. This was the first mention of the scandal the public hears and with the press and the fans knowing all the facts from the very start, the consequent coverage was about his wife’s reaction, Owen’s atonement and his wife’s subsequent forgiveness.

David Letterman managed even better. His habit of sleeping with his co-workers was first discovered by one of his mistress’s new boyfriend, who subsequently tried to blackmail the popular talk show host.

Instead of paying up, Letterman went to the police and assisted them in a ploy to catch the blackmailer red-handed. Knowing that he would not be able to keep his cheating secret from his family or the public, he then daringly and unexpectedly told everything during his late night show.

Again with no more secrets to uncover, the press concentrated on the blackmailing plot and the following trial, and Letterman escaped his misadventures relatively unharmed. Hell, he even got to joke about it on his show.

The moral is, I think:

1.       Don’t cheat

2.       If you do anyway, don’t lie about it once you’ve been caught

3.       If all else fails, go on Oprah and cry. All will be forgiven.