6.1. Corporate Public Relations

Corporate public relations departments exist by many names and in many configurations, often grouped together with marketing departments and/or reporting to the same vice president. Names such as “Communications and Public Relations” or “Marketing and Communications” are common places to find corporate public relations departments. Equally, the name of the person running the department may vary, from “chief communications officer” to “director of communications” or “vice president-marketing and public relations.”

The functions of these departments are varied and can include media relations, investor relations, internal communications (i.e., employee relations), digital communications, issue management, crisis management, and other functions. Added specific functions may include organizing conferences and trade shows, leading media tours, liaising with politicians and VIPs, hosting large employee gatherings, and managing the public profile of key organizational leaders (namely the president and/or CEO). These departments are frequently responsible for an organization’s overall brand and may liaise extensively with the marketing department (if they aren’t already a part of it).

Media Relations

Although not every organization is newsworthy or wishes to be, most larger organizations seek ongoing relationships with local, national, and/or international media. These relationships facilitate the flow of information to and from the organization to audiences.

The size of the media relations staff is relative to the amount of news coverage the company receives or expects. For example, a major firm with its headquarters in a major city will probably have a more active relationship with the press than a smaller organization located in a small town.

Due to their level of controversy or public interest, some industries generate more media attention than others. Organizations with highly visible chief executive officers (CEOs) also tend to attract more media interest, and many CEOs have a presence on social media forums, such as Facebook or Twitter, to facilitate public interest. Such CEOs may have a dedicated press secretary who is part of or liaises with the communications/PR team. The chief communications officer or director of communications normally has some hand in managing these communications, as well as preparing executives for major media appearances, key industry speeches, employee meetings, testifying before government entities, and participating in community events. This facet includes speechwriting, ghost writing op-eds, and rehearsing key messages and delivery for media interviews.

Investor Relations

Some companies integrate investor relations into PR/communications. Investor relations involves communicating with the company’s shareholders and the financial analysts who follow and report on the company. In a publicly traded company, the investor relations function must comply with a number of securities regulations regarding the company’s disclosure of its financial information. These activities involve the release of quarterly and annual financial results and providing timely information to shareholders regarding any event that meets the definition of materiality, an event that could have a positive or negative impact on the company’s share price. In fulfilling these requirements, the investor relations function works closely with the finance and legal departments, as well as the company’s outside auditing firm.

Employee/Internal Relations

Though sometimes undervalued, a company’s communication efforts with its own employees can yield the highest returns. Employees often feel they are the last to hear of major developments within their organizations, but the most successful organizations are now placing greater emphasis on keeping employees well informed, conducting an ongoing dialogue with internal audiences, and incorporating their views into management policy in a symmetrical manner. Much of the focus in internal communication is now centered on the role of frontline supervisors. When that individual does a good job of communicating about issues, employees are more willing to pay attention to organization-wide initiatives.

Digital Communications and Reputation Management

Increasingly, companies are prioritizing social media as a vehicle for customer relations, media relations, and even employee relations. In all cases, these can be problematic interactions.

Communications/PR departments often have a dedicated social media team to push content out and to manage the inbound traffic. The professional communicators in these roles must be well trained on how to communicate in the “corporate voice” (on brand) and must be able to exercise tact, diplomacy, sensitivity, and often humour (tastefully and cautiously).

Unlike traditional media relations staff who typically work regular business hours, social media teams are often broken into irregular shifts, with some people starting earlier than normal business hours and some finishing much later. Major global brands will sometimes have social media staff handling their accounts 24 hours per day.

Social media is now where corporate brands are often most quickly tarnished and also most aggressively defended, so this function is intimately involved in reputation management. A single ill-advised tweet from a corporate social media account can have disastrous consequences (especially for the sender’s short-term job security). This aspect of corporate communications is also linked to issue management and crisis communications.

Issue Management and Crisis Communications

Industries that are prone to hazards, risks, or product failure (such as the airline industry, the petroleum industry, pharmaceuticals, and so on) usually have dedicated crisis communications plans and personnel in place. When not managing a crisis, they’re training everybody else to be ready and updating their crisis communications plans.

The key to issues management is providing wise counsel to the organization’s senior leadership team whenever major decisions are debated. Organizations face many choices in the course of business and virtually all the major ones have a communication dimension. An effective corporate communication function counsels the organization of potential risks, predicts and interprets stakeholder reactions and behaviours, and helps the organization translate strategy into action.

Liaising with Marketing Departments

Many corporate chief communications officers spend a great deal of time interacting with the chief marketing officers (CMOs), or marketing heads, of their organizations. Although the marketing function usually has primary responsibility for selling products and services, the corporate communication function normally manages the corporate or organizational brand, as well as the overall reputation of the organization for quality, customer service, and so on. This activity may include corporate advertising that speaks to the attributes and values of the entire organization rather than of a specific product or service. It also includes participation in industry coalitions, leadership forums, and academic panels. Research by Stacks and Michaelson (2009) found parity between public relations messages and advertising messages, meaning that public relations should be equally incorporated into the marketing mix alongside, rather than as subservient to, advertising.

6.2. Agency Public Relations

In addition to in-house departments, many organizations—from small firms to huge global entities—work in partnership with public relations agencies to develop and implement communication programs. These agencies generate billions of dollars in revenue, employ thousands of communications specialists, and serve as the source of training and development for hundreds of young entrants to the field each year.

6.3. Government Relations, Public Affairs, and Issues Management

Government relations and public affairs are the types of public relations that deal with how an organization interacts with the government, with governmental regulators, and the legislative and regulatory arms of government. Government relations and public affairs are discussed together in this section; the two functions are often referred to as synonyms, but there are minor differences.

Government relations is the branch of public relations that helps an organization communicate with governmental agencies.

Public affairs is the type of public relations that helps an organization interact with the government, legislators, interest groups, and the media. Public affairs are often issues of public concern that involve grassroots initiatives, meaning that everyday citizens organize and create a movement in favour of a certain issue or perspective. In that case, public affairs specialists would work to resolve conflict or negotiate on behalf of an organization, working with these groups to create solutions.

These two functions often overlap, but government relations is often a more organization-to-government type of communication in which regulatory issues are discussed. In public affairs, communication is directed to governmental representatives, including lobbying efforts.

In some organizations, the governmental relations arm or public affairs unit is coupled with issues management or it can even be the same public relations executive responsible for both roles. Issues management and public affairs are extremely close in their responsibilities, goals, and activities. Both issues management and public affairs seek to facilitate interaction between organization and the government or governments with whom it must deal. However, issues management is the larger function because it deals not only with governmental and regulatory publics, but also many other audiences. The governmental relations or public affairs function is more narrowly focused on legislative, regulatory, and lobbying issues.

6.4. Nonprofit, NGO, and Activist Public Relations

Nonprofit or not-for-profit groups are mission-driven organization that seek to advance some societal, religious, ideological, educational, environmental, or other ethos. They often have programs to further those aims at a grassroots level, such as by providing free or low-cost services, funding projects, or otherwise “acting locally while thinking globally.” For example, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) often has local animal shelters and takes government contracts to help with local animal control bylaws, all while advancing the cause of animal rights through public education and political engagement. Public relations efforts on behalf of nonprofits generally involve disseminating public information, persuading stakeholders to adopt the ideas of the organization through the use of press agentry and asymmetrical public relations, and the use of symmetrical public relations to increase donor funding and governmental funding of the initiative.

Nonprofit public relations often relies heavily on member relations, meaning that it seeks to maintain and develop relationships with supportive publics who can distribute the organization’s message and often pay a membership fee or give donations to assist in providing an operational budget for the nonprofit. Member relations is often conducted through the use of internet websites, magazines, newsletters, and special events. Fundraising (or “development) is the final, vital part of nonprofit public relations. Development is tasked with raising funds from both large-fund donors, writing grants for governmental support, and conducting fundraising with smaller, private donors.

Activist groups are special interest groups that arise around an organization in order to establish some type of change around their particular issue of concern. Activist groups normally arise from a “grassroots movement,” meaning that it comes from everyday citizens, rather than those who work in government. That fact makes it slightly different from an NGO and oftentimes activist groups are less official in the formal structure of their organization and its nonprofit status, compared to nonprofits or NGOs. Activist groups can be small and informal, such as a local group of parents banding together to protest a school board decision or they can be large and more organized, such as Greenpeace.

Activist groups can differ in their purposes and reasons for existing, and in the amount of action-taking behaviour that they undertake. Activist groups exert power on organizations in many forms of pressure, such as appearances at “town hall” type meetings, rallies and demonstrations, boycotts, anti–web sites, e-mail campaigns, letter-writing campaigns, phone calls to legislators, lobbying, and events designed specifically to garner media attention. Activist groups are usually filled with young, educated, and motivated ideologues with a strong devotion to acting on behalf of their cause. These groups are normally quite effective in their efforts to have organizations integrate their values into organizational policy.

One concept of note is the growing phenomenon of astroturfing. This is a corporate effort to simulate a grassroots organization that advances political positions favourable to the corporation funding the campaign. These campaigns are not truly grassroots in any respect, but companies go to great lengths to simulate the notion that there is broad, popular, activist appeal to whatever political position they are advancing, as opposed merely to their own self-interest. Such odious practices are perhaps most commonly seen coming from the fossil fuel industry.