CHAPTER NINE: Strategies To Proactively Manage Activity

"If you fail to plan, you plan to fail."

Without a properly thought-out strategy for any PR campaign, it would most likely lead to failure. This chapter is closely linked to the previous chapter on public relations research. In fact, PR research is crucial in coming up with a suitable strategy for a PR campaign. Research (RECAP) As previously discussed, proper research allows the PR team to come up with a good campaign strategy. Both internal and external research comes into play here. Internal research includes the evaluation of past campaigns to see what worked and what did not, taking into account factors that led to the success or failure of those campaigns. External research involves things like surveys and other forms of market research. The aim is to find out more about your target audience, their needs, the best ways to gain their attention and so on. Analysis and Identifying Publics and Audiences There would be no point in conducting huge amounts of research if the results of those studies are not analysed. The findings of your research - the numbers, data, facts and figures need to be tabulated and interpreted. Questions like "What do these numbers mean?" and "What does this finding suggest?" need to be answered. Also, this would be where SWOT (Strengths, Opportunities, Weaknesses and Threats) analysis comes in. SWOT analysis is important in the strategy-making process and it highlights areas which will need to be looked into when formulating the strategy. This would also be the time to clearly identify the target audience of the campaign. This will allow the PR practitioner to consider the different ways of informing or communicating with the target demographic. This knowledge is crucial when deciding strategies and tactics for the campaign. Goal-setting Based on the results of the analysis, the PR practitioner/team can then begin setting realistic goals for the upcoming campaign. The setting of goals and objectives allows the PR practitioner to develop a series of possible methods and strategies to reach that goal. Throughout the entire process, external parties like other departments in the company may be called in to provide inputs. Goals may continuously be modified and refined. By the end of the entire goal-setting process, the campaign should have a clear goal as to what it intends to achieve. Setting the Strategies The aim of a PR campaign is to create a meaning and to let your audiences understand and receive that meaning the way it was intended to be received. Therefore, when constructing a strategy for a PR campaign, it is important to keep these meanings in mind. There probably will never be a single straight-forward route to take when developing a strategy. There will always be options. Here is a case study of the strategy adopted by Porter Novelli (a PR company) when launching the DVD of Pixar's Finding Nemo. Firstly, they have established that the target audience for their campaigns would be children between 3 to 11 years of age. The have also realised that although their targets are the children, the actual consumers doing the spending would be their parents. The strategy that Porter Novelli decided to adopt in the end was to use education as a platform for publicising the DVD. Also, the "underwater" theme was also an important aspect of the strategy as Finding Nemo was a film about the adventures of a fish, which takes place almost entirely underwater. Tactics - Implementation of Strategies After coming up with the strategy, steps have to be taken on how to put those plans into actions. These steps are known as tactics, which is basically the implementation of the strategies that have been developed. Going back to the case study of the Finding Nemo DVD launch, some tactics adopted by Porter Novelli was to implement a "Back To School With Nemo" programme which was targeted at school teachers. A kit was provided which included:

• Finding Nemo name badges for kids to wear on their first day of school


• Ocean ideas for the classroom (activities and decoration ideas)


• Great Barrier Reef information and activity sheets


• Flash cards with ocean animals


• Certificate template


• Finding Nemo book & poster


• A feedback form

This move was in line with the strategy of using education to promote the DVD.

Also, going in line with the underwater theme that was proposed as a strategy, the PR company had a media launch at the Melbourne Aquarium.

Monitoring and Evaluation

The final phase of the PR campaign would be to monitor public responses to the campaign and to measure and evaluate the level of success of the campaign. This material can then be used as research for future PR campaigns.