Examining The "Publics" in Public Relations

Examining the “Publics”
in Public Relations
Six Different Types of Publics
 1. Traditional and nontraditional
 2. Latent, aware, and active
 3. Intervening
 4. Primary and secondary
 5. Internal and external
 6. Domestic and international
1. Traditional and Nontraditional
 Traditional: Groups with which
organizations have ongoing, long-
term relationships.
• Examples?
Traditional Publics
 Examples include:
• Employees
• News media
• Governments
• Investors
• Customers
• Multicultural community groups
• Constituents (voters)
Traditional and Nontraditional
Publics
 Nontraditional: Groups that usually
are unfamiliar to an organization.
• Can be a challenge because
nontraditional publics are hard to
study/research.
 Example: Kablooie Microwave Popcorn
Scenario
Nontraditional Publics
 Other examples of specific groups of
people that companies, in the past,
have not marketed to?
2. Latent, Aware and Active
Publics
 A. Latent Public: A group whose
values have come into contact with
the values of an organization, but
whose members haven’t yet realized
it; the members of the latent public
are not yet aware of a relationship.
Latent, Aware and Active
 B. Aware Public: a group whose
members are aware of the
intersection of their values with
those of an organization but haven’t
organized any kind of response to
the relationship.
Latent, Aware and Active
 C. Active Public: recognizes the
relationship between itself and an
organization and also works to
manage that relationship on it’s own
terms.
• Opening scenario, the teenagers are the
“active public.”
3. Intervening Public
 Def: Any public that helps you (the
organization) to send a message to
another public.
• Examples:
4. Primary and Secondary Publics
 Primary: A public that can directly affect
your organization’s pursuit of its values /
goals – this type of public is of great
importance (i.e. investors).
 Secondary: A public whose ability to

affect your organization’s pursuit of it’s
goals is minimum – but you still want to
have a good relationship with them (i.e.
local stores that sell microwave ovens)
• They are indirectly affected but you still need
to “clean things up” with them.
5. Internal and External Publics
 All publics are either internal or
external (either inside of our outside
of your organization).
6. Domestic and International
Publics
 Domestic: Publics within your own
country.
 International: Outside of the
country.
• Considerations with international
publics?
International Considerations
 Example:
• You have a plant in the US but a branch
in Mexico.
 Does manager (or someone) speak English?
 Do you (someone) speak Spanish?
 Colander issues
 Time zone changes
 ??
Things We Need to Know about
ALL the Publics
 1. How much can the pubic
influence our organization’s ability to
achieve our goals?
• Is the public primary or secondary?
• Key to successful business is to focus
efforts on those who have the most
impact (don’t have time, money,
resources to focus on all publics).
Things we need to know..
 2. What is the public’s stake in its
relationship with our organization?
• A relationship begins when an
organization and a public share the
same values and goals.
 We need to identify what specific goals this
public has that has brought them into
contact with our organization (what
attracted them).
Things we need to know..
 3. Who are the opinion
leaders/decision makers for the
public?
• Once we (our organization) identifies
who these people are, we as public
relations practitioners must focus our
efforts on them.
Things …..
 4. What is the demographic profile
of a public?
• Demographic profile:
 Who is the public?
 How many members does the public have?
 Age, gender, income, education level, and
number of children per family within the
public?
Things…
 5. What is the psychographic profile
of the public?
• Psychographic information tells us what
members of a public think, believe, and
feel.
 Are they liberal? Moderate? Conservative?
 Are they religious? Atheist?
 Do they like technology? Avoid it?
Things…
 6. What is the public’s opinion of our
organization?
• The opinion the public holds of the
organization is crucial.
 Finding out what their opinion is tells us how
to approach them (as friends, foes, etc?)
Things…
 7. What is the public’s opinion of the
issue in question?
Co orientation
 Def: The research process that
public relations practitioners use to
discover where our organization
agrees and disagrees with important
publics on a particular issue.
• Can eliminate damaging misperceptions
about what each side believes.
Co-orientation
 Done by asking and finding the answers to
four questions.
• 1. What is our organization’s view of this
issue?
• 2. What is the particular public’s view of this
issue?
• 3. What does our organization “think” the
public’s view is? (is it accurate?)
• 4. What does the particular public “think” our
organization’s view is? (is it accurate?)

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Examining the “Publics”

 Secondary: A public whose ability to

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