Cross post from [log in to unmask]

I thought this explanation of public relations would be useful to give us a common language to use in discussions

Public Relations
is a firm's communications and relationships with its various publics.

These publics include the organization's customers, suppliers, shareholders, employees, the government, the general public,  and the society in which the organization operates.  Public relations programs can be either formal or informal.  The critical point is that every organization, whether or not it has a formalized, organized program, needs to be concerned about its public relations.

In comparison to personal selling, advertising and even sales promotion, expenditures for public relations are usually low in most firms.  Therefore, publicity concerning a company's products or affairs is an important part of an effective public relations effort.

It is information disseminated through the public media at no cost.  It is generally achieved by placing commercially significant news or obtaining favourable presentation of company or product in a published medium.  Since they don't pay for it, companies have little control over the publication by the press of "good" or "bad" company news.  But for this very reason, a consumer may find this type of news source more believable than if news were disseminated by the sponsor.

(as you read this, you can see how formula companies are using publicity, especially news releases about new research findings, to their advantage - they get lots of free publicity!)

(you can also see that since we have no $$$ for breastfeeding, public relations is a very powerful tool for us).

Janice Reynolds

(source for definitions used in Groundwork 1 & 2, "Foundations of Marketing" 3rd Edition, Beckman, Kurtz & Boone, 1982)

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