PR, SOCIOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY

Nevena Semova

“PR man not only needs to be smart and intuitive, he needs to understand psychology, sociology.” E. Burnays

CONTENTS PR and Sociology

Public opinions

PR and Psychology

Consumer behaviour

ABOUT ME

DEFINITIONS

Sociology: the science of human society and social relations, organization, values, beliefs and change

Psychology: the study of the human mind and its functions, esp. those affecting behavior

QUESTION 1

Your big launch is only 10 days away when you learn that the CEO has to go abroad and your biggest customer will no longer endorse you. All press and broadcast media have been invited. Do you:

A. Ring round every editor and cancel?B. Try to find another tame customer?C. Turn it into a "Thank You" party?

PR AND SOCIOLOGY

- Public opinions

- Silvio Berlusconi and the cucku PR model

PUBLIC OPINIONS

The complex collection of opinions of many different people

Term first used in 1588 by Montaigne

Jacques NeckerThe Overton Window

SOCIOLOGY AND PUBLIC RELATIONS Closely related to each other Society can form and receive the message Public trust Lobbyists

Video 1 (Sociology and Crisis Management) Video 2 (Lobbying)

QUESTION 2

You’ve worked hard for weeks to get everyone to sign off on a Press Release making a major announcement and now you’re ready to circulate it - but time is short. Do you:

A. Email it to everyone listed in the directory?B. Spend the night on the phone asking each

recipient how they like to receive releases?C. Pay an agency to distribute it for you?

SILVIO BERLUSCONI IN THE SOCIETY Unprecedented media

influence Consistent message Match the needs of the

public – “Football, reality shows and pretty girls”

Asocial behaviour

Vertical and propagandistic communication

Inability to adapt to the change in communication (Internet buzz: The untouchable)

ControlPopularity: decreasing30% now vs. 60 % last year

THE “CUCKU” MODEL OF PR “Cucku policy - saving the country from the

worst impact of the recession” – B. “Listening to others and playing with them” –

B. It is ‘cute’ and that ‘it works’ – B.

Using people’s motives to gain their support Impersonating values, shared by the public

Italians love BerlusconiThe cucku policy is gaining consensus and

imitation and not only in Italy.

MESSAGE AND MEDIA “Italians love me and I’m right in everything I do” Criticism towards centre-left opposition Attack the magistrates: I’m innocent; I’m a victim

of law persecution. Italian irony

TV dominance Internet is a threat

OBAMA VS. BERLUSCONI

Advocate sacrifices on behalf of the public good

individualistic and self-concerned culture

Decreasing followers

Have fun and sex, use high heel shoes to appear taller, be rich, play games, tell dirty stories, play cuckoo to international leaders

collectivistic culture

Decreasing followers

Obama’s message Berlusconi’s message

QUESTION 3

You’ve sent out the Press Release you’ve been working so hard on to your target media. How do you follow up? Do you:

A. Phone editors personally to ask "Did you get our release?"

B. Phone friendly journalists and ask them to make discreet enquiries about whether your release is being used?

C. Forget about it and start on your next release?

PR AND PSYCHOLOGY

-PR and Psychology – a long partnership-Edward Bernays - Propaganda and PR-Mc Donald’s-PR and changes in consumer behaviour

PR AND PSYCHOLOGY – A LONG PARTNERSHIP

Understanding and influencing human psychology

Balance theory Cognitive dissonance Selectivity

Influence of Sigmund Freud

application of Freud's theories about the irrational, unconscious motives that shape human behaviour

Repressed feelings and primitive forces drive us Exploiting peoples’ subconscious desires to

manipulate the mass opinion and behaviour

THE FATHER OF PR - EDWARD BURNAYS Influence from Sigmund Freud

From NEED to WANT/DESIRE – changing the consumer behaviour

Propaganda in War - 1st World War

Public Relations in Peace Torches of Freedom

QUESTION 4

A low-rent magazine that’s not even on your target media list rips off some of your pictures from the Internet and prints them. They are low resolution and badly reproduced. To add insult to injury, you are not even credited. Do you:

A. Phone the editor, give him a roasting about breaching copyright laws?

B. Write a letter of complaint to the editor, asking him not to do it again?

C. Put high resolution pictures on your website, phone the editor to congratulate him and invite him to help himself to pictures in future?

MCDONALDISATION Fast Food Facts:

50,000,000 consumers per year (US) $ 110,000,000,000 spent on fast food Fast food leads to obesity and health

complications Fast food demand abolishes natural resources

and is a great threat to the environmental balance

» Supersize me » Big Mac

PR AND CHANGES IN CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

Before One-way communication Spin messages Manipulating

The all American Breakfast

Now Participatory culture Consumers choose Two-way

communication Online societies Enlightening

consumers Encouraging choice

Lays – Maak de smaak

QUESTION 5

You work for a company that makes/sells gold watches. Your CEO conceives a PR plan – "Let’s give everyone who comes to the press conference a gold watch. Put it in the invitation -- that’s not bribery, just a product sample!" Do you:

A. Talk him/her out of it, losing Brownie points for lacking audacity?

B. Go along with it, but omit the offer from the invitation – leaving it to individual journalists on the day whether they accept or not?

C. Ask if you can have one of the freebie watches for your Mum?

DISCUSSION Is society less susceptible to manipulation?

How much do we actually know?

How does globalization change Public Relations?

How does Social Media change the field of Public Relations?

How can you show your added value as a PR practitioner?

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!

SOURCES: Unleashing the power of PR (ISBN0787982792) Integrated Communications, M.Vos, H Schoemaker

(ISBN9789460942976) http://ciampini.wordpress.com/2010/03/28/berlusconi-does

nt-need-pr/ http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=gR7EA8Z1lt

8C&oi=fnd&pg=PR12&dq=global+society+trends&ots=Mdsc355zbQ&sig=F9YWgcLZbq0Ki41xmorpqR52QF8#v=onepage&q=global%20society%20trends&f=true

http://personaldemocracy.com/blog-entry/joker-effect-how-participatory-culture-may-disrupt-politics

http://pritalia.blogspot.com/2010/05/italy-berlusconi-government-increases.html

http://www.prconversations.com/index.php/2009/06/berlusconi-has-begun-to-rationalise-and-theorise-his-cucku-model-of-public-relations-is/

http://www.prconversations.com/index.php/2010/02/obama-losing-control-of-his-narrative/

http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Fall99/Westbrook/models.htm http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101214/wl_afp/italypolitics

berlusconi http://www.myfit.ca/nutrition/fast_food_statistics.asp http://portfolio.prblogs.org/2007/03/14/how-is-psychology-i

mportant-to-public-relations/ http://www.youtube.com/ Questionnaire: http://www.theprtrainingcentre.com/pr_train

ing_tools.html