Writing Public Relations Objectives
Figure out the objectives for______________________________________public.
Category To have an effect on Awareness
Acceptance
Action
Direction Especially, to Create, Generate
Increase, Maximize
Maintain, Reinforce
Decrease, Minimize
Effect (w/awareness) Attention or Comprehension
(w/acceptance) Interest or +/- Attitude
(w/action) Opinion or Behavior
Focus About ______________________________________________________
Time Period______________________________________________________________
Message Planner
1. What’s the situation?
List who what where when why
2. What’s the objective?
3. Who are the key publics? (KP)
4. What is the tone of the message?
Will your KP respond to funny, serious, sarcasm, drama?
5. Write the benefit statement
Stay on message – KP think “Why should I care?”
6. What do you want them to remember?
What is the effect to KP?
7. How can we satisfy our key publics with our features/benefits?
How do we get KP to do number 7?
8. What’s the “So What?
9. What is the visual?
10. How will we evaluate?
Your client wants to be "in the media". How are you going to make that happen? What will you write for them, about them?
Timeliness – Now. Recent. Upcoming. New. Newly discovered.
If something is new, then people want to know about it. If it happened weeks ago, or even days ago, interest wanes because other stuff is happening now that is getting our attention. We still may be interested in old events and situations if newly discovered, especially if that discovery sheds light on current situations or changes our beliefs or attitudes.Proximity – Geographic. Close to the audience. Psychologically near.
We are more interested in those events that occur close to home than those that occur far away. Our interest progresses outward to our neighborhood, our city, our state our region, our country. It’s relative. We are interested in what affects us or what seems to affect us. We are in what relates to us as men or women, as people of a certain age, or in certain kinds of families. So, an accident on I-81 that kills three people near Winchester ut will certainly get covered in the Winchester Star. An identical accident on I-81 just north of Martinsburg probably won't be in the Star at all.
Prominence – Famous people. Power people. Names.
If Dr. Larry Lain falls down the stairs and breaks his ankle, it's not really news. If President Bush breaks his toe, every paper will cover it. It might not be what happened that’s so important, but who it happened to. Famous people get people attention. We are interested in them because we feel like we know them because they are in the news, on the TV, on the movie screen. They present themselves to the public as leaders, role models, friends. Powerful people make news, even if we might not be all that familiar with their names, simply because of the control they have over people’s lives. But we know them by their titles – the president of the largest employer in town, the president of the college, the owner of the factory.
Impact – Consequence. Magnitude. Number and/or Degree.
How many people does it affect? A strike at a local auto-parts store that puts eight people out of work isn't very big news, but a local teachers' strike, affecting 2,000 teachers and 30,000 kids certainly is. Now, let’s go back to the auto-parts store, and change the scenario. Let’s say the store burned to ground. It was the only place in this particular town that hired the mentally handicapped. Now store’s employees are facing no income, no jobs, and eviction from their homes. So, while the number affected might be low, the degree of impact is high, which then can raise the news value.
Unusualness – Novelty. Different. Weird.
Something that is unusual, and firsts, lasts and onlys will often make news. Changes in the status quo will make news. Consider that all the planes land safely today at Dayton International Airport. That’s not news because we expect all planes to land safely. If a plane crashes, that’s a change in our expectation. We could argue that crime has become so commonplace that it probably shouldn’t be in the news anymore. But perhaps it does because we don’t want crime to be the status quo. Under this category, we get the "weird" news about giant cabbages and stupid criminals leaving their driver’s licenses at the scene.
Conflict – Opposition. Controversy. Drama. Debate.
Conflict can be on a grand scale like war, or one person’s fight with cancer. Conflict is the human condition, the Shakespearean drama, the zoning battle at City Hall, the corporate raid and stockholder loss. Here we can see the connection with the consequence, and how prominence, proximity, and timeliness become important in determining how big the news is here or elsewhere.
Emotional Appeal – Human Interest. Hopes & fears. Laughter & tears.
These are stories that pull at our hearts, that evoke emotion. These are the personal tragedies, heroics, super kindness, oddities, kids and animals. This news value is often indicated in photos, video, audio where we can see/hear those involved and impacted by. Listen to the 5-minute segments of Story Corps on NPR and you'll be crying in your oatmeal.
Charles A Dana, Editor of The New York Sun from 1868 until his death in 1897, famously said:
- If a dog bites a man, that’s not news. But if a man bites a dog, that is news
- What you see is news, what you know is background, what you feel is opinion.
Lester Markel, Sunday Editor of The New York Times from 1923 to 1964, added:
- How do news values change depending on where you get the news?
Go to https://www.washingtonpost.com/
Find a story that interests the team.
Look for the story in another source.
Then look for the story in different mediums
- Video
- Audio
- Social
- Written
Each principle should look up where else the story was covered.
Take a look at what news values get privileged.
But how do I figure that out?
Look at the headline
How is the language different?
Are there photos? How does that make a difference?
How does the audience make a difference?
How does your client's use of social media change how they are seen with their primary audience? (more about internal and external audiences later) Take a look at this article to incorporate it into your assignment.
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