Public Relations

The term public relations (also commonly referred to as PR) refers to a set of communication activities used to manage perceptions and reputation. Normally these activities are initiated by a PR agency or a PR department within a company or institution, and have a specific objective of communicating targeted information to relevant stakeholders. These stakeholders may include employees, consumers and customers, government agencies, stockholders, financial managers, public interest groups, or society as a whole. PR usually reflects an effort to promote a desired message and reinforce a relationship between an organization and a targeted audience(s) (such as a hospital and the population it serves). However, it may also seek to promote the position of a single individual with a specific public (such as the U.S. surgeon general and the U.S. school-age population).

PR and marketing are often confused in terms of their respective purposes. This suggests significant overlap between the two and considerable debate. Is PR part of marketing? Is marketing included within PR? Are they both independent of each other or are they interdependent? Regardless of one's position within this debate, one important differentiating aspect of PR is its consistent focus on goodwill and public understanding. As such, PR may be viewed as an important subset of activities under the larger umbrella of an integrated marketing communication strategy.

PR messages may either reflect a one-way communication or be interactive. PR employed in health care management may be one-way government health warnings, for example, or may be two-way, as in the case of asking for the public's attitudes and intentions on key health issues.

The specific activities of PR include press releases, exposure of expertise, lobbying, event management and sponsorship, presentation of research findings, the promotion of public affairs and community relations, corporate communications, and crisis management. Over 70% of PR is corporate-based messages to various publics. This type of PR (sometimes referred to as marketing public relations) is used to reinforce such marketing activities as product or service introduction (such as new pharmaceutical advancement approved by the FDA, introduction of a new hospital service), price changes (such as raising of health insurance premiums), or a change in procedures or structure (such as change in hospital procedures, corporate restructuring or re-engineering).

In sum, public relations provides a valuable set of tools. In attempting to use the media to reach specific audiences, it focuses on goodwill and public understanding, and is typically part of a larger comprehensive marketing communications strategy.