Public Relations Theory and Practice

Case Study: Making the Brand Awareness for Ingenious Restaurant.
 

The restaurant business will target the students as well as employees from the nearby college as well as offices as the primary audience. The location of the restaurant has been strategically selected in the heart of the city where a number of colleges as well as offices are established. The presence of high range of organizational as well as academic institutions will help Ingenious Restaurant to attract the students as well as office professionals. At the same time, the restaurant will also target the elderly people as their secondary audience. The homely environment as well as comfortable ambiance will greatly help Ingenious Restaurant in respect to impress the elderly people. They will be highly encouraged to take their food in a peaceful and tension free ambiance.

Ingenious Restaurant will immensely focus on the campaigning activities in order to gain the attention of the customers. In this particular context, the print, digital as well as online media will be highly targeted by Ingenious Restaurant. The company will eventually continue with the campaigning activities in these numbers of Medias. The print media as well as digital media will be greatly able to reach the students as well as elderly people in order to generate brand awareness. Moreover, the creative subject of the campaigns will be able to raise interest of various educated audience. At the same time, the social media websites will be highly helpful in operating the social media campaign within the youngsters and office professionals. Just like print and digital media the online media will help Ingenious Restaurant to enhance the mass media exposure in an extensive fashion.

There are several strategies, which will be greatly helpful for the enhancement of the brand awareness for Ingenious Restaurant. The most effective suggestion is mentioned below:

• The Optimization of the website of the company will be able to help the company to develop impressive as well as reputed brand awareness. There are several considerations, which will be most effective for optimizing the website. The designs of the website will be most effective for attracting the customers. The designs will include mobile/responsive, layout, social share buttons, accessibility; fonts, colors as well as logo must be attractive for impressing the audiences. Moreover, the restaurant must optimize their website with the help of title tags, keywords, and Meta data as well as image all text for improving the appearance of the websites within the search engine. Furthermore, the conversion rate optimization will be most effective for converting the websites into actual sales with the help of persuasive messaging, visual of clear customer journey, personalization utilization, as well as testimonials.

The next step for developing the brand awareness is focusing on the referrals, which will eventually raise the brand awareness in a significant manner. The word of mouth plays significant factor to generate the brand awareness in the extended target market. There are various different factors, which will be the major focus for obtaining the referrals. Customer service is proved to be the most efficient strategy to gain the satisfaction of the customer so that they are motivated to refer the restaurant to their family and friends. The discount offer also plays a great role as a motivator in respect to gaining referrals from the customers. The grievance control policy will also help to produce a customer centered business approach which in turn increases the loyalty of the customer. They will be inclined to discuss their experience with their acquaintances and that will develop a positive brand image. 

Essay 1: Definition of PR and implication for business 

Public relations (PR) can be defined as the maintenance of the public image of an organization or a Company. It denotes the relationship between the public and an organization or a Company.  Public relations of a Company or an organization are denoted by the ways an organization communicates with the public (Jan and Khan 2014). It is very important for an organization to maintain its public image so that it not only retains its consumers but also enhances its brand image and builds a brand loyalty. It is very important for a company to maintain its public image. The public image of a company is the deciding factor of its continuance and of its future. Through newsletters and press conferences, an organization is able to present itself and communicate with them. This communication has a direct impact on the business of the organization. Through public relations, a company is able to determine the public opinion and perceptions, which in turn shapes the plans and policies of the organization. Through public relations, a company also performs its duty as a responsible corporate citizen and gives account of its responsibility towards the society. The public relations of a Company enhance the image, loyalty and brand value of an organization (Smith 2012). 

Public relation is a process of communication with the public adopted by organization. The company must be straightforward in defining its mission and vision to their stakeholders. A company must report its activities transparently in their financial statement so that their stakeholders can have a clear understanding of the goals and objectives of the company. Public relation also includes the management initiatives to understand and take into account the opinion of its stakeholders (Brynielsson, Johansson and Lindquist 2013).

Public relations have a huge impact on the business of a company. The issues faced by the company must be addressed properly to their stakeholders otherwise they may get offended and company can loss business and its market position. Even when a new product is to be launched by the company, they must take initiatives to make their stakeholders understand the various advantages, benefits and the drawn backs of the product (Black 2013). After that, it must take into account the opinion of their stakeholders on the new product and try to implement the same in that product. The company to address public relation with the help of media should also do proper advertisement.  

Essay 2: Sponsorship and PR benefit that come through sponsorship 

Sponsorship can be explained as a material support, which is given by an unrelated partner to an activity, organization or an event. Through sponsorship, a brand can increase its awareness among the public and enhances its loyalty and brand value. Through sponsorship, a brand can attract consumers and build a positive relationship with the public (Schultz et al. 2015). The way an organization communicates with the media and the public is denoted as public relations (PR). PR helps an organization to build a positive image and can win the faith and belief of consumers.

An organization communicates with the public through newsletters, press conferences, public appearances, etc. (Ki et al. 2015). Sponsorship is also an important kind of PR through which an organization or a company creates awareness among the public. An event or an activity in which thousands of people are expected to come and which is expected to be seen by many viewers across the globe is generally sponsored by reputed brands. Nowadays every big event, starting from a small function to an international sports match can be seen to be sponsored by various companies. The idea of sponsoring such events or activities is to attach with the consumers emotionally through their experience with the events or activities being sponsored.

In the past, only big companies were seen in sponsoring big events, but over the time small and medium sized companies also undertook to sponsoring events so as to enhance the visibility of their brands in the public. An event has the potential to connect a brand with a huge mass of people. Linguistic and cultural barriers can be easily transcended through sponsorship and a familiarity can be created among the people regarding the brand. A visible image of a brand name or its logo creates more interests among the consumers and a consumer extends his hand to try out the products of the sponsor firsthand. Sponsorship has proved to be a more efficient way to connect to the public. A list of questionnaires and details of a product fails to attract the number of customers which a single sponsored event attracts at one go (Han et al. 2013). Sponsorship thus generates many benefits and after each sponsored event the sale and promotion of a product rises to a large scale. It is thus a very significant kind of public relations and small, medium and large enterprises use this as a marketing tool to enhance their brand image and value in the market (Zdravkovic and Till 2012). 

Essay 3: Media relation and crisis management 

In today’s world, relationship of organization with media can be very proactive in its nature and affect the reputation of the company in either ways i.e. positively or negatively (Coombs 2014). An important part of the organization activity is to deal with the media, which should be done very cautiously. Whenever, a company launches a new product it has t take the help of media to promote it to its clients, customers and pubic. The media also address the impact of the new launch on the society.

Crisis management has become a rising field in recent days as managing the media during the crisis period is very critical as it can hamper the reputation of the company. It is becoming more and more important for professional handling public relation in both corporate development non-corporate business sectors (Theaker 2013). The models used for teaching crisis management aims at improving the theoretical concept of crisis communication in relation with media. Emphasis is given on the transparency and earnestness with audience friendly approach. It focuses on planning, design, development and execution of crisis management programs for companies and their relevant business.

In the event of down turn, a organization takes the help of media to address the issues that are affecting the organization negatively. If this is not represented to the public in a positive way then it may adversely affect the company. Therefore, the management of the company should try to avoid spotlight during the crisis period of the company to protect the reputation of the organization as well as the reputation of him (Howard and Mathews 2013). During the up times of the company, media can play an effective role in addressing the fact that the company is reliable and it delivers good quality products to their customers. It can also take professional help to represent various issues relating to the company in media so that is has a positive effect on their clients, customers, employees , management and also towards society and government.

Public relationship is an integral part of the teams handling crisis management at the time of down turn. They should set standards and best practices for crisis management, which can turn out to be a very important and effective tool to handle media during down turn (Dozier, Grunig, and Grunig 2013). There are various types of crisis like; financial loss, safety of public and chances of its information system being hacked; which must be  under the control of responsible persons who can address it properly to the media during crisis.  

References 

Black, S., 2013. Practice of Public Relations. Routledge.

Brynielsson, J., Johansson, F. and Lindquist, S., 2013. Using video prototyping as a means to involve crisis communication personnel in the design process: innovating crisis management by creating a social media awareness tool. InHuman Interface and the Management of Information. Information and Interaction for Learning, Culture, Collaboration and Business, (pp. 559-568). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

Coombs, W.T., 2014. Ongoing Crisis Communication: Planning, Managing, and Responding: Planning, Managing, and Responding. Sage Publications.

Dozier, D.M., Grunig, L.A. and Grunig, J.E., 2013. Manager's guide to excellence in public relations and communication management. Routledge.

Han, S., Choi, J., Kim, H., Davis, J.A. and Lee, K.Y., 2013. The effectiveness of image congruence and the moderating effects of sponsor motive and cheering event fit in sponsorship. International Journal of Advertising, 32(2), pp.301-317.

Howard, C.M. and Mathews, W.K., 2013. On deadline: Managing media relations. Waveland Press.

Jan, A. and Khan, M.F., 2014. Social Media Is Nothing But a Public Relation Tool. The International Journal of Business & Management, 2(12), p.272.

Ki, E.J., Kim, J.N. and Ledingham, J.A. eds., 2015. Public relations as relationship management: A relational approach to the study and practice of public relations. Routledge.

Schultz, D.E., Barnes, B.E., Schultz, H.F. and Azzaro, M., 2015. Building customer-brand relationships. Routledge.

Smith, R.D., 2012. Strategic planning for public relations. Routledge

Theaker, A., 2013. The public relations handbook. Routledge.

Zdravkovic, S. and Till, B.D., 2012. Enhancing brand image via sponsorship: strength of association effects. International Journal of Advertising, 31(1), pp.113-132.