Social media is revolutionizing the way the world communicates and it is powering the public relations industry’s global ascendancy. In Asia, PR has traditionally been a relatively minor and subordinate part of the marketing mix but now it increasingly occupies centre stage. Because public relations is at its essence a social networking business, it is well positioned to thrive in the digital domain, especially in a region where mobile communications are the new marketing battleground. Media relations and publicity will always be a key part of PR, but now creating content, building communities, understanding analytics and applying the psychology of persuasion are all part of the picture. PR will always be about the art of relationships, but increasingly it is a measurable communications science.
1. The marketing might
of modern public relations
The Bangladesh Brand Bob Pickard Forum Seminar 2013 @ Dhaka
2. My thesis today
§ Social media is revolutionizing the way the world communicates and it is
powering the public relations industry’s global ascendancy
§ In Asia, PR has traditionally been a relatively minor and subordinate part
of the marketing mix, but now it increasingly occupies centre stage
§ Because public relations is at its essence a social networking business, it is
well positioned to thrive in the digital domain, especially in a region where
mobile communications is the new marketing battleground
§ Media relations and publicity will always be a key part of PR, but now
creating content, building communities, understanding analytics and
applying the psychology of persuasion are all part of the picture
§ PR will always be about the art of relationships, but increasingly it
is a measurable communications science
5. Public relations has ‘scientific’ roots
§ Bernays defined a PR professional as a “practicing
social scientist” whose “competence is like that of the
industrial engineer, the management engineer, or the
investment counselor in their respective fields”
§ He said that to assist clients, public relations
counselors use and apply their understanding of
behavioral sciences such as anthropology, history,
social psychology, and sociology
7. Pre-modern analogue public relations
§ Based on relationships with face-to-face key
§ Simple events and publicity
§ ‘Primitive’ technology
§ Analogue methods
§ Text was ‘King’
§ Ample attention span
§ Deliberate and slow
§ Enough time to tell stories
§ We measured media coverage
§ Communication to fixed locations
8. Modern digital public relations
• PR becoming more a science
• E-relationships
• Digital methods
• No attention span; distraction is a constant
• People continuously online
• Technology massively propagates pictures,
videos, motion graphics, apps, experiences
• Content is now ‘King’
• Scant time for stories
• Communication to people on the move via mobile
• We measure business impact and outcomes
9. Then and today
§ PR is telling an organisation’s story to its target audiences
§ So that those people will do and think
§ What we want them to do or think
• know of the company
• feel favourable towards its brand
• recommend its products to others
• invest in the stock
• engage in online conversations
• want to work there
11. What are we thinking about?
§ From its earliest days,
PR has always been
about the psychology
of persuasion
PR is all in the mind…
12. ...and the unconscious mind rules
§ Our deepest thoughts – the ones that account for our
behaviour in the marketplace – are unconscious
§ “According to most estimates, about 95 percent of thought,
emotion, and learning occurs in the unconscious mind —that
is, without our awareness” [Gerald Zaltman]
§ Evidence of how the emotions of the unconscious mind
drive human behaviour comes from neuroscience (using
advanced new fMRI brain scans), psychology, and is being
widely adopted in marketing
13. Stories tap into the unconscious mind
§ People tend to remember products
when they are woven into the
narrative of media content
§ They tend not to remember brands
that don’t play an integral role in the
story because people can see them as
being ‘just ads’
14. PR pros know about storytelling
• PR people spend their entire careers trying to convince executives
that they should invest more in ‘earning’ editorial media coverage
of their brands in news stories rather than ‘buying’ paid coverage
through advertising
• Because people can readily identify ads when they see them – and
we tend to think that ads are supposed to be present during times
and places we expect them to be – they attach less credibility to
their claims
• But if they see a product featured in a news narrative, people are
less likely to be suspicious and more likely to trust brand
messaging that isn’t visibly purchased
15. The news is a story product
§ The news is a product which media companies sell, and people
have attached a value to it with paid subscriptions a tangible
measure
§ News product has been produced by standards-based journalism
that is supposed to be:
• motivated by the pursuit of truth
• resourceful in the use of research
• informed by facts
• governed by standards and edited with balance
§ News content is still big, but journalism getting smaller
16. Decline of news story quality
§ In much of the world, the economic basis of the traditional
news media business is declining, and so is the quality of
editorial product
§ As a result, people trust media stories less than they did before:
• there are fewer reporters and editors
• battles about editorial ethics versus just going with what a
company hands over for content are less frequent
• money is often the only thing that seems to matter
• now more than ever, speed trumps accuracy
17. Reduction of news story quantity
§ Media companies have tried to make the news more
entertaining and opinionated (rise of spectacle and
sensation), and the result of this debasing of journalism is a
further reduction of news’ credibility
§ Therefore, in many markets here are fewer eyeballs looking
at a shrinking number of trusted news media stories
§ Less ‘signal’, more ‘noise’: the supply of journalism-grade
news is shrinking; aggregated raw content keeps
expanding
18. Where PR storytelling is shrinking
§ OK, so if a brand’s involvement in a story is still the best way
for a product to get noticed...
§ ...then what do PR people do if there are fewer trusted news
sources producing a reduced number of stories that will be
credible enough to have commercial impact even if we ‘earn’
coverage successfully?
§ Where can PR communicate narratives if the storytelling
zone is shrinking?
19. Where PR storytelling is growing
§ Social media,
through creating
brand-centric
communities and
starting
‘conversations’
20. What Sir Martin Sorrell says
§ “Facebook to my mind is
not an advertising
medium. It is a branding
medium.”
§ “I think [Twitter] is a PR
medium…it’s very
effective word-of-mouth.”
Harvard Business Review
March 2013
21. The rise of peer-to-peer communications
MONOLOGUE
“They can’t hear
me and I feel
insignificant”
“They must
listen and I will
be heard”
DIALOGUE
PASSIVE CON-SUMERS
ACTIVE
PRO-SUMERS
C O N V E R S A T I O N
C O N T R O L
22. B2C PR
IF a declining media business can no
longer generate an ample supply of
compelling story content...
IF, owing to its resource constraints,
media is becoming an automated
and uncritical B2C conveyor of
pre-packaged marketing
information passed to them by PR
people (which may not be a good
thing!)
§ THEN why can’t organizations fill the void themselves
telling stories directly to the public?
23. What Richard Edelman says
§ “Every company is a
media company”
ZDNet
February 13th 2013
25. Which network for what?
United States data from
Harris Interactive, 2012
26. Birds of a feather flock together
A social network is a social
structure made of nodes
(which are generally
individuals or
organizations) that are tied
by one or more specific
types of interdependency,
such as values, visions,
ideas, financial exchange,
friendship, sexual
relationships, kinship,
dislike, conflict or trade.
28. Persuasion 1.0
§ Going back to Dale Carnegie in
1936, we know that making
people feel important is the
precursor to persuasion
§ Once PR-driven interactions make
people feel important (‘someone is
listening to me’), then stories are
told via conversations
“Make the other person feel
important and do it sincerely”
29. Communication starts with listening
§ ‘You are important to us’
§ ‘We need your opinions to help inform our actions’
§ ‘We are listening to you and you will be heard’
30. Carnegie’s other astute observation
§ “When dealing with people, remember you are not
dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures
of emotion, creatures with prejudice and
motivated by pride and vanity”
31. Emotions
§ Whether or not there is listening, of course social media
increases the demand to be heard, regardless of merit
§ [Ironic that those demanding to be heard can often seem
least interested in listening!]
§ ‘Me’ and ‘I’ narcissism, lack of attention span, rampant
impatience, toxic anger and abuse abounds
§ Crowdsourcing intelligence versus mob rule?
33. The seven deadly digital sins
1. Lust ‘I want this’
2. Greed ‘I need this’
3. Gluttony ‘I must have more’
4. Sloth ‘I haven’t thought about it’
5. Wrath ‘I am angry about this’
6. Envy ‘I want what s/he’s got; I am worth it’
7. Pride ‘I am better; I deserve this’
34. The power of metaphor
§ Lots of work is now being done in the area of
‘conversation communication’ and ‘trans-media
storytelling’
§ Where the two meet allows persuasion marketers
to tap into the massive PR power of metaphor
§ Conversation communication enables the easy
application of metaphors used in everyday
language for the development of marketing
narrative – e.g. ‘word pictures’ – to convince
consumers about a product brand with story
‘frames’ that already exist in their
unconscious minds
35. Metaphor elicitation
§ Research is key, asking people before starting a PR
campaign things like:
• When you think about [company], what is the first thing
that comes to mind?
• What do you feel when you see this [product] image?
• Can you share some of your past experience in dealing
with [area where product offers some benefit]?
36. Concrete words for abstract concepts
§ Affection is warmth (“John is a warm person”)
§ Important is big (“That’s a huge job you have”)
§ Difficulties are burdens (“What a heavy workload”)
§ Actions are motions (“He’s a mover and shaker”)
§ Purposes are destinations (“Light at the end of the tunnel”)
§ Life is a journey (“Marching to the beat of a different drummer”)
“The
abstract
way
we
think
is
really
grounded
in
the
concrete,
bodily
world
much
more
than
we
thought.”
-‐-‐
John
Bargh,
Yale
psychology
professor
37. We’re wired for stories
Scientific American Mind
Source: Hoffman (August/September 2008)
38. The modality of storytelling
§ Zaltman contends that while marketers tend to
consciously think in terms of text, ‘real’ people
unconsciously think in terms of images
§ As eyeballs migrate to the Internet, even ‘word
picture’ text will not be enough as multimedia –
videos and pictures and sounds – are being
programmed by PR people for persuasion
39. Persuasion 2.0
§ When people commit
themselves in public to
something, they have
created a new ‘image
template’ of themselves...
§ People will do and say
whatever is necessary
to conform with their
new public image...
43. Applying search insights
§ Using tools like Google Trends, PR people can mine search
results for key words, and inject compelling metaphors into
online content by combining Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
tactics with conventional PR approaches
§ The ‘natural language’ words people are using to search
can be discovered, the results of which can be used to
tailor a narrative’s messaging elements.
§ Keywords can be crafted as metaphors, which can be
integrated into media messaging, news releases, speech
content, ‘elevator pitch,’ etc.
44. Will attention spans sustain stories?
• Continuous partial attention (multitasking)
has been debunked, and we now know
that people can rapidly switch between
mental channels with ‘the executive mind’
deciding what we pay attention to
• “The internet is there for snacking, grazing
and tasting, not for the full...feast that is
nourishing narrative. The consequence is an
anorexic form of culture. Plot lies at the
heart of great narrative: but today, we
are in danger of losing the plot”
-- Ben Macintyre
52. 40%
80%
Global
Asia
Source: Global data from Burson-Marsteller Global Fortune 100 Social Media Checkup 2010
Asia data from Burson-Marsteller Asia-Pacific Social Media Study 2010
53. Global
Source: Global data from Burson-Marsteller Global Fortune 100 Social Media Checkup 2011
Asia data from Burson-Marsteller Asia-Pacific Social Media Study 2011
84%
80%
40%
81%
Asia
2010 2011
54. 39%
37%
36%
42%
47%
55%
53%
52%
83%
Trading
Technology Equipment
Capital Goods
Transportation
Consumer Durables
Banking
Constuction
Materials
Chemical
of the world’s top 2000 companies
are headquartered in Asia
Source: Forbes Global 2000 list
55. The digital opportunity for Asia
1800s
1900s
1980s
2000s
The rise of Britain
The rise of America
The rise of Japan
The rise of the Four Tigers
2010s The rise of China & India
2020s The rise of ?
56. Corporate Achilles’ Heels
Not-so-new
§ Product safety
§ Lay-offs/closures
§ Environment
§ Human rights
§ Nationalism
§ Terrorism
§ Pandemics
New,
and
growing
• Customer
service
• Adver=sing
claims
• Greenwashing
• Marke=ng
conduct
• Smart
mobs
61. 12 months away from a digital crisis?
http://www.slideshare.net/bmasia/bursonmarsteller-digital-crisis-communications-study
62. Companies unsure what to do
http://www.slideshare.net/bmasia/bursonmarsteller-digital-crisis-communications-study
63. What about countries?
“Troubles in Bangladesh are
beginning to spoil its reputation
among foreign companies that had
flooded into the country—and are
highlighting risks to investors looking
for new manufacturing bases
cheaper than China.”
65. debt
crisis
•
food
prices
•
climate
change
energy
supply
•
the
digital
divide
nuclear
security
•
youth
unemployment
66. Governments cannot do it alone
§ Old systems and institutions simply
cannot cope with new complexity
and speed
§ These challenges require the
engagement of an entire society
of stakeholders
§ The role of public relations is
therefore key
Klaus Schwab, World Public Relations Forum 2010
67. The relationship imperative
Collaborate with stakeholders for success today and
sustainability tomorrow demands:
§ Governments need to engage corporations, NGOs and
ordinary citizens in their work
§ Corporations must show profund accountability to all
stakeholders
§ “Public relations in the public interest” – relationship
brokerage to help bring about economic recovery, political
freedom, technological advancement & social justice
Source: Dan Tisch, Global Alliance for PR and Communications Management
68. What Harold Burson says
§ “PR is often regarded as synonymous with
communication, but communication is
actually only one facet of the art of
public relations”
§ “The task of PR is actually to improve
‘relationships with society’”
§ “PR’s key role is to advise top officials of
companies or organizations about how to
act in an ethical or socially correct manner
when making a decision on a course of
action. In a sense, PR acts as an
organization's ‘conscience’”
Asahi Shimbun
January 29th 2012