Marketing Communications

330 CHAPTER 10 PUBLIC RELATIONS

enhance internal communications among employees because they provide the structured

setting and the opportunity to communicate issues that are otherwise neglected. Th e same goes

for team meetings, projects and social activities. An example of the latter are team-building

activities, such as go-karting, paintball, exotic trips or survival weekends.

Communications through media

Direct mailing or internal e-mail can be an eff ective tool of internal communications. Bulletin

boards, on the other hand, are not so eff ective. Th ey are hardly noticed and people tend to

walk past them without looking. In-house newsletters are a frequently used tool and allow the

diff usion of information of a less urgent nature. Company TV narrowcast through TV sets at

places in the company that are frequented by a lot of people (restaurants, halls, etc.) are excellent

means of rapid diff usion of essential information. Annual reports, both fi nancial and social,

can be distributed to all personnel. Pens, noteblocks, coff ee cups, placemats, mousepads, etc.,

can support the logos or slogans of a major internal communications campaign.

Public affairs

Th e purpose of corporate advertising is to reinforce the attitudes towards the company

and/or its products. Th is type of advertising is oft en mainly aff ective, and is seldom used

to convey information or to elicit sales. It is mainly targeted at the general public or broad

audiences. It is a PR tool that is oft en used to reinforce the corporate image. Companies also

use diff erent types of publications to inform publics and/or build a favourable image with

target audiences, namely newsletters, fl yers, brochures and annual reports. Corporate events

sponsorship is used to enhance the corporate image. Th e latter technique is discussed later

(see Chapter 11 ).

Lobbying is the activity that companies undertake to infl uence the decisions of governmental

bodies or the opinion of pressure groups in a positive direction. Lobbying implies giving

information, negotiating, infl uencing complex decision-making units, and getting the best out

of it for the company. Oft en, lobbying is done by specialised companies. It is an increasingly

important business, in which a growing number of lobbyists are employed.

Most of what consumers and stakeholders know about companies and the issues that surround them comes from

the news media. There has been a tremendous growth in the volume of business news that appears in the media.

The selection by journalists of the issues to cover or not to cover significantly influences the opinions and perceptions

of the public. The specific ability to influence the salience of topics, attributes of these topics and images among

the public by making them salient in the media is called agenda-setting. Agenda-setting theory and research lead

to the following ‘rules’:^20

z The amount of news about a company that appears in the news media is positively related to the public’s awareness

of the company.

z The amount of news coverage devoted to particular attributes of a company is positively related to the proportion

of the public that defines the firm by those attributes; if a company mainly receives press coverage about its

products, it will primarily be known through its products.

RESEARCH INSIGHT

Agenda-setting as a PR tool

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