ASSIGNMENT

Short Answer Assignment (Public Relations)

Short-Answers Assignment (Public Relations)

This assignment is based on proving responses to eight questions, mainly dedicated to the public relations field.

Answer to Question: 01

Integrating Public Relation Advertising and Marketing in a Campaign

In today's environment, PR, advertising and marketing can be blended together in order to combine efforts for an integrated campaign. This is possible in many ways, while PR can add to the effectiveness of a strong advertising campaign in a very cost-effective manner. There lies immense opportunity to blend these three mechanisms into the program as one, developing a clear understanding of the objectives of public relations, creating effective messages targeting the audience and the gate-keepers along with utilizing marketing tools to effectively convey the intended message to the audience using strong campaigns.

The digital age has caused a remarkable shift to the ways in which communication industries like marketing, advertising and PR operated in previous times (Johnston & Zawawi, 2009, pp. 206). The unique skills of PR practitioners, though it may seem to be somewhat de-motivating, must accompany marketing and advertising campaigns in order to deliver to the audience in the strongest of ways. Flexibility, innovation and integration with marketing and advertising can create synergies for the PR managers and may result in a remarkable benefit for the entire team. One of the possible responses to an economic downturn is a reduction in the budgets for PR, marketing and advertising, something that the decision-makers come up with, as an instant strategy. However, incase these communication industries are integrated into one, a reduction in budget for any one of these may not result as harmfully as otherwise. This way the PR industry prospers as a result of such integration and complements each other in pursuing common goals: to have the message delivered in an effective manner (L'Etang & Pieczka, 2006, pp. 65-68). In order to maximize the Return on Investment (ROI) and bestow the industry with an exchange of professional talents and capabilities for a “mutual good”, it is imperative to integrate the three industries since they complement each other very smoothly, resulting in an overall positive impact to the entire organization.

Answer to Question: 02

Example of One of Grunig's Models in a Recent PR Campaign

Grunig's four models of public relations find immense applicability in today's world, where different PR campaigns are suing of the four models in disseminating information or simply influencing the public to respond in an intended manner. One of the most widely-used models is the “Public Information Model”; a one-way communication system in which the speaker disseminates information while the audience is all ears to it (Grunig, 1992, pp. 33-35). There is a need to understand the audience prior to speaking to them, since they are the ones whom you wish to convey the information. There must also be a mechanism to take and handle appropriate feedback from them, since in these situations, feedback is instantly received. This technique is usually employed by governments, non-profit companies and educational institutions to speak to ...