Commodifying Information

Commodifying information means that organizations focus their information acquisition and public relations efforts on the cost effectiveness or productivity of supplying information to help key markets, audiences, and publics make a wide array of decisions. Many think of public relations as a discipline that provides information. The concept of commodification challenges practitioners to go the extra step of being ever more accountable for the return on investment of acquiring and using information for the interests of building mutual relationships.

People desire information to make decisions they deem valuable. Their desire for information is a function of their involvement, need, or desire to make a decision, according to involvement theory. People experience higher levels of involvement when they need or want to make decisions.

Organizations communicate for two broad reasons: to get out messages (containing information) that management wants to be told and to respond to the needs and wants of markets, audiences, and publics. The desire by management and its stakeholders may or may not be a close fit.

Organizations engage in public relations to supply information to people who want information. Executive management people expect public relations to provide information to targeted individuals to influence their decisions and, often, the choices executives want them to make. For various reasons, executives may want to withhold information desired by others. Information can drive decisions, whether it is information the organization wants people to have or whether it is information people want.

Typically, it is thought to be more costly to provide people with information the organization wants them to have, if the people do not have some reason for receiving and using the information. This condition leads public relations to be thought of as a mass communication discipline, broadly casting information through the mass media to put it before some small part of the public, even if targeted. People are inundated with information. Thus, attracting attention to information and getting it considered is a serious strategic challenge.

A commodity is something that is bought and sold. It affords ease of transaction and convenience. In the purchase of goods and services, this concept is relevant. Most of the goods people buy are a commodity. It is standardized to make the transaction as easy as possible. In some countries such as the United States, people rarely barter. Goods come packaged as commodities, even fruits and vegetables. This commodification makes the transaction easier, one the buyer may feel he or she has more control over.

Services are also commodified. For instance, routine and even special dental or medical treatments are performed at standard fees. Legal and other professional fees can be commodified so that the purchaser has a reasonable sense of what the service is and what it costs.

As public relations practitioners seek to understand and measure their practice, they should realize the advantages of calculating how much various bits of information cost to acquire and to make available to key publics. Thus, for instance, they can calculate the cost effectiveness of providing such information in an “on demand” format, such as a website, because typically persons who encounter information in that medium are looking for it, rather than randomly skimming the mass media. Members of relevant publics are cognitively involved in searching for, getting, and using key bits of information to make decisions. Information on demand for customers or reporters, for instance, can reduce the cost of disseminating the information.

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