Are Clients ALWAYS Right?

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Are Clients ALWAYS Right?

It’s not unusual for clients of service providers to insist
that their budget dollars be quickly applied to a variety
of flashy tactics. Yet, when pressed, many acknowledge
that what they REALLY want for their money is visible,
end-game change.

This is especially true in public relations where clients
often second-guess careful plans for achieving that end-
game change by insisting on premature use of tactics like
news releases, talk-show appearances and sports
sponsorships. But obviously, flashy tactics alone will not
satisfy those clients once they start looking for a return
on their public relations investment. Because it is then
that it becomes clear, sometimes painfully, that their goal
MUST be the kind of change in the behaviors of key
stakeholders that lead directly to achieving their business
objectives.


Thus, it is quality planning, and the degree of behavioral
change it produces, that eventually captures client attention,
not tactics.

These days, with public relations budgets always in mortal
danger, tactical chats between a client CEO and public
relations counsel probably sound like this: “Do something
about those activists chaining themselves to our plant gate
and yelling that our emissions go into the river. It’s costing
us big money each day that plant is shut down.”

Or, “How are we going to calm down those Garden Club
members down in the lobby waving around those
cockamamie newspaper reports and talking to the TV cameras
about the additives we use? Where’d that reporter get those
numbers, anyway? It’s costing us sales!”

Or, “Please people, what are you doing to encourage a
favorable Town Council vote on our petition for that new
highway off-ramp?”

What’s common to each of those rants? The CEO is asking
his public relations people to modify somebody’s behavior.
He doesn’t want to talk tactics, or even strategies. He wants
those activists off his property, he wants those print and
broadcast reporters to do a fairer job of reporting on his
production methods (hopefully getting the Garden Clubbers
off his back), and he wants a real effort made to move public
opinion in a way that encourages local officials to approve
that badly needed vehicle ramp.

Modify somebody’s behavior, that’s his goal, and that’s the
job of the public relations agency and its client’s corporate
professionals. Fortunately, the key to a successful effort is
the fact that people really DO act on their perception of the
facts. In so doing, and in a cumulative way, they form the very
public opinion that those practitioners must now inform.

So, what is their strategy? In short, to reach those perceptions
with the facts as they know them. Hopefully, the messages
they use will be clear and persuasive, and will change negative
or inaccurate perceptions, then alter behaviors in the client
company’s direction.

Using the three examples above, when the activists become
satisfied with explanations of the company’s new, public
commitment to correct their emission problems, the protesters
can be expected to leave the plant gates.

Editorial board meetings with local newspapers and television
stations will begin to bear fruit with more balanced reportage
of the company’s efforts to meet emission standards which, in
turn, will reduce negative public opinion.

And, while the agency’s briefing sessions with town council
staff will do little to hasten a formal vote, a targeted
communications effort is likely to lead to a community opinion
poll showing positive movement in public, then official
sentiment about the new highway off-ramp.

In the end, a sound public relations strategy combined with
effective tactics leads directly to the bottom line – perceptions
altered; behaviors modified; client satisfied.

end

Bob Kelly counsels and writes for business, non-profit and
association managers about using the fundamental premise of public
relations to achieve their operating objectives. He has authored
245 articles on the subject which are listed at EzineArticles.com, click
Expert Author, click Robert A. Kelly. He has been DPR, Pepsi-Cola
Co.; AGM-PR, Texaco Inc.; VP-PR, Olin Corp.; VP-PR, Newport
News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co.; director of communications, U.S.
Department of the Interior, and deputy assistant press secretary, The
White House. He holds a bachelor of science degree from Columbia
University, major in public relations.
mailto:bobkelly@TNI.net Visit:www.PRCommentary.com



Are Clients ALWAYS Right? - To learn more about this author, visit Bob Kelly's Website.

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