What Is PR?
Public Relations, or PR, is a conscious activity whereby an organisation creates a communication process with interested parties, including the public. It should not be confused with news, news is simply the release of information to the public and this may be done in an uncontrolled way. Regardless of what is being communicated, be it good, bad or indifferent, it’s important for an organisation to communicate in the most positive way possible. In the UAE, Driving Growth work with their clients to manage their PR activities.
News
A good example of the difference between news and PR, and a great example of how PR can go badly wrong, would be the very recent incident involving United Airlines and one of their passengers. The story, as far as we know it, was that the airline had overbooked their Chicago-Louisville flight and needed to offload 4 passengers to make way for 4 staff members who had to be in Chicago for work. Having failed to get any volunteers, United decided to randomly select 4 passengers to offload. One of those selected didn’t want to leave and was subsequently forcibly removed by security. The images of his removal shocked the world, with the passenger, David Dao, being dragged from the flight with blood on his face after being injured in the struggle. This would be considered news rather than PR – there is no company input on the information.
PR Gone Wrong
What happened next would be considered PR. The airlines CEO, Oscar Munoz, publicly apologized for the incident but at the same time, sent an internal communication to employees both praising their actions, and criticizing Mr Dao for his behaviour, describing him as being belligerent and disruptive. Now, many would say Mr Dao had every reason to be both disruptive and belligerent given the circumstances – he had bought a ticket, taken his seat and was ready to fly when he was forcibly removed because United needed to free up his seat for one of their employees. Following widespread condemnation of the incident, Munoz sent out a second communication to employees further apologizing for the incident. United are coming under fire on two fronts, the initial incident (news) and their CEO’s response (PR). Had Munoz responded differently, or simply not sent the first communication, the event may have made the news but the PR impact may have been less negative.
Result
The above situation is a good example of how PR can be handled badly and further exacerbate what is already a negative situation.
If you would like to know more about how Driving Growth can help your organisation with its PR, or indeed any of the other services it provides, take a look!
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