Enhancing Public Relation Strategy for Contemporary Business Organizations

Running head: PUBLIC RELATION
Public relation
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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Introduction
The current business state of affairs demands distinctive and effective promotional and
marketing approaches for the business organizations. This is due to the reason that intensity of
the competition is much higher in the current time and traditional promotional approach of the
business organizations will not help in gaining competitiveness in the market. In addition,
goodwill and brand identity plays an important role in gaining competiveness for the
organizations1. The more favorable will be the goodwill around the particular brand, the more
will be their probability to gain the maximum output from the market. In this case, public
relation is a major tool being used by the contemporary business organizations to get connects
with their external stakeholders. This refers to the process of the maintaining the relationship
between the organization and their customers in most effective manner. Public relation also helps
the business organizations in creating favorable public image and enjoys better customer recall
value2.
However, on the other hand, it should also be noted that ineffective management of
public relation strategy will have negative impacts on the business organizations. This is due to
the reason that ineffective approach of public relation strategy will lead to negative word of
mouth in the market and will affect their business potentiality3. Thus, it is important for the
business organizations to follow certain steps in having their public relation strategy in most
effective and ethical manner. This essay will discuss about the shortcomings of the current
approach of the public relation strategy and what can be improved. In addition, this essay will
1 Urbancova, Hana. "Competitive advantage achievement through innovation and knowledge." Journal of
Competitiveness 5.1 (2013).
2 Hennig-Thurau, Thorsten, and Ursula Hansen, eds. Relationship marketing: Gaining competitive advantage
through customer satisfaction and customer retention. Springer Science & Business Media, 2013.
3 Grunig, Larissa A., and James E. Grunig. "The relationship between public relations and marketing in excellent
organizations: evidence from the IABC study." Public Relations and Communication Management. Routledge,
2013. 93-118.

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identify the major issues with the current approach of the public relation strategy and will
recommend a few steps for further enhancements.
Current approaches of public relation strategy
Public relation strategy is having number of elements that can be used in different manner
by the business organizations. One of the major and most popular ways of initiating public
relation strategy is using of social media marketing4. This is due to the fact that social media is
having huge market penetration in the current time and it provides the platform for the business
organizations to get connected with the customers in more personalized manner. However, using
of social media should be taken care of properly or it will be adverse impact on the business.
According to Paek and Hye-Jin et al., (2013), social media is mainly being used by the current
business organizations for campaign promotions and not for enhancing their relationship with the
customers. This is due to the reason that with the help of the social media, business organizations
are mainly targeting the huge active subscribers for pushing the sales of their products and not
for creating connections with them.
Thus, it can be concluded that majority of the business organizations are initiating push
marketing strategy with their public relation approach. According to the theory of push
marketing strategy, new products are introduced in the market and promoted to the customers for
their sales. In this case, the requirement of the customers is not given the major focus rather the
products are pushed in the market. Thus, according to the author, even though the organizations
are using social media as an element of their public relation strategy, but it is not creating the
brand recall for them. For instance, the introduction of the yellow lenses of Snapchat caused
4 Ferguson, Mary Ann. "Building theory in public relations: Interorganizational relationships as a public relations
paradigm." Journal of Public Relations Research (2018): 1-15.

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huge public outcry in the market5. This can be considered as one of the major failures of public
relation strategy due to the reason the prior to the introduction of the yellow lenses; Snapchat did
not bother to take the feedback of the customers. According to the reports, this caused adverse
impact on the business of Snapchat and negative perception among the customers.
Another major shortcoming for the current business organizations in initiating their
public relation strategy is the using of wrong content in wrong place. There are number of
instances where it is seen that using of wrong medium and wrong content lead to failure of the
entire process. As per Pearson (2017), ineffective approach of public relation strategy is causing
the contemporary business organizations failure and negative impact. According to the authors,
majority of the business organizations perceive public relation strategy as a collective tool that
can be used in different alternative ways in generating the positive outcome. In accordance to
this concept, business organizations are using their public relation strategy in different
approaches and thus they are having more risk of facing negative consequences.
One of the most prominent examples of public relation strategy failure due to the wrong
content and medium and situation is promotional newsletter of Adidas during the Boston
marathon 2017. It is reported that they issued newsletters for the people complete the full
marathon by saying “congrats, you survived the Boston marathon”. This was being done in
contrast to the bombing in Boston marathon in 2013. Even though the idea was unique and but it
was presented in wrong time and with wrong content and caused negative impression among the
customers6. Thus, as per the author, it is important for the business organizations to select the
5 bbc.com. "Anger Over 'Racist' Snapchat Filter." BBC News. N.p., 2018. Web. 14 Oct. 2018 .
<https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37042475>.
6 Boult, Adam. "Adidas Apologises For 'You Survived Boston Marathon' Email." The Telegraph. N.p., 2018. Web.
14 Oct. 2018 . <https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/19/adidas-apologises-survived-boston-marathon-email/
>.