Reference: Ramirez, M. (2012). Advertising and PR trends in the Philippines. Learning media literacy. Retrieved from: http://maricaramirez.tumblr.com/post/18629687822/advertising-and-pr-trends-in-the-philippines
Advertising and PR Trends in the Philippines Public relations is building good relationships with the company’s various publics by obtaining favorable publicity, building up a good “corporate image,” and handling or heading off unfavorable rumors, stories, and events. Public Relations, or PR, is the overall term for marketing activities that raise the public’s consciousness about a product, service, individual or issue. In short, PR is the management of a company’s public image that helps the public understand the company and its products. It is is most effective when it is viewed as a strategic management function supporting the business goals of the organization. PR can use all the same communications tools as in other areas of marketing. A healthy public relations strategy must permeate all aspects of the business. The PR mechanism itself exists in all organizations–whether formally managed or not. Every communication to the outside world (and even the world inside your organization!) creates an impression, causes an emotional reaction, or makes a statement about who you are and what values you hold dear. Managing those impressions, reactions, and statements should be taken seriously by operating within a carefully planned, executed, and measured PR strategy. As the Marketing Plan comes from the Business Plan, so must a Public Relations Plan come from a strong Marketing Plan. Your Public Relations program should be planned, executed carefully, and measured to ensure success. Publicity: An important part of PR Publicity also aims to create interest in a person, product, idea, organization, or business establishment generally through the generation and placement of favorable stories in the news media such as newspapers, magazines, TV, and radio. Unlike advertising which relies on purchasing power to get a message across, publicity relies solely on the quality of content to persuade others to get the message out. Good publicity helps journalists find and report legitimate news that is important to their audience. Anyone can buy advertising space but not just anyone can earn the respect of media in order to establish an effective PR campaign. A Brief History of Public Relations Public relations has been with us for thousands of years. The Greeks had a word for it: sematikos: to signify, to mean. Semantikos means semantics, which can be defined as how to get people to believe things and do things. That is not a bad definition of public relations. In 50 B.C. Julius Caesar wrote the first campaign biography, Caesar’s Gallic Wars. He publicized his military exploits to convince the Roman people that he would make the best head of state. Candidates for political office continue to publicize themselves with campaign biographies and accounts of military exploits to this day. In 394 A.D., St. Augustine was a professor of rhetoric in Milan, the capitol of the Western Roman Empire. He delivered the regular eulogies to the emperor and was the closest thing to a minister of propaganda for the imperial court. Thus, St. Augustine was one of the first people in charge of public relations. The modern equivalent would be the President’s press secretary or communication director. In 1776, Thomas Pane wrote “The Crisis,” a pamphlet which convinced the soldiers of Washington’s army to stay and fight at a time when so many were prepared to desert so they could escape the cold and the hardships of a winter campaign. Paine was a master of political propaganda whose writing could get people to do things and believe things. Benjamin Franklin made it a rule to forbear all contradiction to others, and all positive assertions of his own. He would say, “I conceive” or ”‘I apprehend" or “I imagine” a thing to be so, or it appears to be so. Franklin pioneered the rules for "personal relations” in an era before mass media had made possible a profession called “public relations.” In the middle of the 19th century appeared a man who was to become one of the leading publicists of all time, P. T. Barnum. His accomplishments include the founding of the American Museum and the establishment of the Barnum and Bailey Circus. Barnum was a master of promotion who could fill his enterprises with customers by using what we today would call sleazy methods of publicity. For example, he announced that his museum would exhibit a 161-year-old woman who had been Washington’s nurse. He produced an elderly woman and a forged birth certificate to make his case. William Seward, Lincoln’s secretary of state in 1861, gained a large American audience through his understanding of how to use the press. He told his friend Jefferson Davis (they were friends before the war): “I speak to the newspapers – they have a large audience and can repeat a thousand times what I want to impress on the public.” Public relations became a profession in 1903 as Ivy Lee undertook to advise John D. Rockefeller on how to conduct his public relations. Rockefeller owned coal mines and the Pennsylvania Railroad. Miners were on strike and the railroad hushed up the facts when its trains were involved with accidents. Lee advised Rockefeller to visit the coal mines and talk to the miners. Rockefeller spent time listening to the complaints of the miners, improved their conditions, danced with their wives, and became a hero to the miners. After a railroad accident, Lee invited reporters to inspect the wreck and get the facts. The Pennsylvania Railroad then obtained its first favorable press coverage. Lee professionalized public relations by following these principles:
ON THE IMPORTANCE OF TRUTH:
Bernays and Lee were stressing the idea that the corporation should accept social responsibility. Bernays’ ideas about social responsibility led to his refusal to accept unethical clients. He created the concept that there are many publics and each public needs to be appealed to. He advised public relations professionals to seek out group leaders and other key communicators (opinion leaders), who would be able to pass along ideas to other members of the public. Other Bernays concepts include:
Bernays put his ideas into practice when he took on as clients Proctor and Gamble and the Columbian Rope Company. Proctor and Gamble had produced a radio commercial, which was offensive to African-Americans. Bernays took these steps:
The Columbian Rope Company had an anti-union image. Bernays took these steps:
Edward Bernays may truly be called the father of public relations and Ivy Lee the first public relations counselor. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF PR IN THE PHILIPPINES PR has been practiced in the Philippines for more than half a century. The country is, in fact, considered as the "Pacific birthplace of public relations.” Introduced by the Americans in the mid-l940s, the field started with the public information officers of the U.S. Army regularly issuing news releases to members of the Philippine media. Because of sustained friendly relations between the two countries, PR in this archipelago of about 75 million people has largely maintained its Western influence. After initial exposure to American-style public information, it did not take long for the practice to spread to Philippine businesses. In 1947, the Business Writers Association of the Philippines was organized to promote the idea of corporate social responsibility and to underscore the growth in the Philippine economy. Through the Business Writers Association of the Philippines Awards, outstanding business persons were recognized not only for their entrepreneurial success, but also, what is more important, for their contributions to the community. Notable of the early Filipino PR pioneers are Pete Teodoro and Jose Carpio. Teodoro, then PR director of Elizalde & Company, a paint manufacturer, is credited with having undertaken the first organized PR campaign. Teodoro’s company was competing directly with a large American corporation thus his program was geared toward winning the goodwill and patronage of local architects and contractors. Carpio, on the other hand, managed the first major association campaign. As the Manila-based manager of the Philippine Association, a business and civic organization formed in 1949, Carpio, with the help of business leaders, helped restore a favorable investment climate in the Philippines. The country at that time was reeling from the ravages of World War II and the Japanese occupation as well as a communist-led insurgency by the Hukbalahap in the countryside. In 1966, San Miguel Corporation, one of the biggest Filipino companies since its founding in 1890 and better known worldwide for San Miguel beer, established the first PR department. Carpio organized and headed the department. Marking another milestone was Baldomeo Olivera of the Philippine Long Distance and Telephone Company. He was the first to be retained by a large corporation and given top managerial rank as vice president for PR. Significant strides were likewise achieved in the government sector. Major departments had press relations officers. In 1954, the Office of the Press Secretary was elevated to cabinet rank. The imposition of Martial Law in 1971 and the urgency to sell former President Ferdinand Marcos’ “New Society” to the Filipinos, however, gave PR a double-edged sword. Although the practice grew in stature as evidenced by the 1973 reorganization of the Office of Press Secretary into a full-fledged department called the Department of Public Information, the period was also characterized by restrictions on corporate speech and muzzling of the Philippine press. Francisco Tatad, a former newspaperman, was the first Information Secretary to become a cabinet member. It was during Marcos’ time that private corporations were increasingly tapped to support government programs. Development communication that focused on the use of information to serve the developmental needs of Third World economies was gaining currency, and PR found itself merging paths with public information. Among noteworthy examples of corporate promotion of government programs were:
The People’s Revolution that ended the Marcos regime in 1986 and restored most of the country’s constitutional freedoms signaled a new era of Philippine PR. The Public Relations Society of the Philippines The Public Relations Society of the Philippines (PRSP) is the country’s premier organization for public relations professionals. In its roster are practitioners who represent business and industry, government, non-profit organizations, hospitals, schools, hotels and professional services among others. PRSP is a non-stock, non-profit organization established on February 19, 1957 by leading PR practitioners in the country. The Society’s mission is to advance the practice of public relations by (1) uniting those engaged in the profession; (2) encouraging continuing education of practitioners; (3) generating public confidence in the profession by promoting high ethical practice and encouraging high standards of public service; (4) playing the active role in all matters affecting the practice of public relations; and (5) strengthening the relationships of public relations professionals with employees and clients, government at all levels, educators, with media and the general public. Like the Public Relations Society of America, the PRSP hosts annual Anvil Awards, an awards ceremony that recognizes outstanding programs, projects and PR techniques. The ceremony, according to Culbertson and Chen, is known as the “Oscars of Public Relations.” A campaign to save the Philippine eagle won the coveted Grand Award in 1993. PR IN THE PHILIPPINES PR has become a very important part of Philippine government. Filipino PR practitioners understand that strategic government PR creates awareness and generates acceptance of public policies and programs. It also projects an image of good, legitimate governance. But PR has never been more prominent in Philippine history than during the Marcos years (1965-1986). From the time martial law was declared in 1972 until Marcos’s presidency was forcibly ended in 1986, the government put on a massive and sustained propaganda campaign, locally and worldwide. The emphasis was on ensuring sustained U.S. government and military support. The success of this campaign was due to Marcos’s well-funded nationwide media structure. The two succeeding governments of Presidents Aquino and Ramos maintained the “monolithic government media and information system” (Culbertson and Chen, 1996). Today, three broadcast networks and a newspaper chain still remain under government control. PR is a concept from the West that has been transplanted to Asia. But Philippine PR has drawn its sustenance from its own soil. Philippine PR practitioners have been faithful to their culture, making PR in the Philippines relevant to Filipinos — especially when the government is involved. Philippine PR is self-propelled, dynamic and professional. In the Philippines, we have a phrase, suntok sa buwan (literally, a jab at the moon), which captures part of the humble beginnings of public relations practice in my country. We would churn out what appeared and, indeed, appealed as elegant PR plans. Which, more often than not, worked, after a fashion, and in the generous estimation of clients, who perhaps were themselves in no position to know better. Because we almost never did research, except that of the roughest type, we were jabbing at the moon. In spite of that, we lurched on and made points with clients from year to year. Now, we are some distance from those days, but we are not quite where we need to be.In large and advanced economies characterized by competition for markets and the need for sustaining and enlarging them – and winning the loyalty and good feeling of a wide range of important (at times fickle) audiences – which can turn adversarial almost without warning – effective PR continues to gain preeminence. This kind of PR is to be strived after. Always, it has to be buttressed by solid public relations research. Which way go the feelings and fears of stakeholders that we need to address? Or the biases and prejudices of media in markets where our clients do or plan to operate? What kind of corporate decisions and initiatives do our clients or principals have to make to create meaningful presence in domestic or foreign markets? How might important audiences think or what will they look like five years from now? As PR professionals, they should be aware of this and eventually become good at it because social media is the responsibility of PR, not just the Marketing Department. PR is all about the flow of brand communication on the grassroots level. It’s about getting influencers and mavens to start talking so that it cascades down to the rest of the prospects. The only difference is that instead of columnists you have bloggers and you have social networks instead of print and magazines. In the 2009 Digital Readiness Report made by iPressroom, it was revealed that PR companies in the US are leading the charge for social media and not traditional advertising agencies. This makes perfect sense because it’s the brand image management is the core essence of social media campaigns. As social media and internet marketing gets more traction locally, more and more companies will be turning to their PR agencies to come up with ideas on how to tap bloggers and how to use Facebook or Twitter. To the PR professionals and companies, now is that you should have your people trained properly so that when the time comes that a client asks for this, you are ready to deliver exceptional campaigns that will really have an impact on the bottom line of the business. ADVERTISING Advertising is paid communication by a company or organization that wants its information disseminated. It is mass communication an advertiser pays for in order to convince a certain segment of the public to adopt ideas or take actions of benefit to the advertiser . Advertising as it is known today is the product of centuries of slow evolution and rapid growth. Advertising is a strong part of our culture, business, and institutions. Without ads most media could hardly exists. Advertising may be in any form of presentation. It may be a sign, symbol and illustration, an ad message in a magazine or newspaper, a commercial on the radio or television, on a billboard or a poster or a banner on the net. BRIEF HISTORY OF ADVERTISING Advertising started way back in earlier civilizations. Early in history, advertisements were cut in stone and placed in strategic locations so the people could see them. Hence, outdoor advertising is said to be the oldest form of advertising. Another way of advertising then, is through the town crier. The town crier was an advertising man who broadcast his advertising copy by walking up and down the streets shouting information about the wares of his employer. With the invention of the printing press and movable type in 1447 by Johannes Gutenberg, a German goldsmith, Advertising took a leap forward and printing was made possible. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, advertising flourished where different means of advertising was introduced. Numerous newspapers and magazine articles began appearing in the late 1980’s and early 1990s. In the Philippines, the earliest Filipino traders engaged also in some form of advertising. Before the advent of the Spaniards in 1521, they made use of printed signs and town criers to communicate their business messages. As early as 1637, the first Philippine newsletter, Succesos Felices, appeared fifty three years before the first American newspaper, Publick Occurrence Both Foreign and Domestrik, came out. It was, however, only in the 19thcentury, when the first newspaper in the country, Del Superior Govierno, was printed. This newspaper kept the readers abreast of the local developments as well as the war then between Spain and France. With the development of printing and journalism in the Philippines, the growth of advertising also arises. In 1821, when the Philippines was governed directly by Spain and in 1834, when the Manila was formally exposed to world trade with the opening of the Suez Canal, the scenario for mass advertising was built. With the advancement in the technology, advertising continue to grow. Today, such media as newspapers, magazines, outdoor signs, radio, and television are used to advertise products. ADVERTISING IN THE PHILIPPINES Today, advertising is recognized as an important social institution. Its applications as an influence on public opinion and as a stimulus to public action are certain to expand both here and abroad. Breaking into the advertising field is primarily a matter of formal education and work experience. It requires imagination and the ability to work hard, plus willingness to start at the bottom and continue to study the many complex activities of a fascinating dynamic field. And according to Canadian philosopher, scholar and communications theorist Marshall McLuhan, “Advertising is the greatest art form of the 20th century.” The placement of ads in the print media such as the news paper and magazines start in the year 1735 through the publication named Pennsylvania Gazzette. With this, the magazines provided the first national medium for advertisers to place their ads. And in the turn of the century, magazines were financially supported by the finances from the advertisement rather than the readers of the magazines. In the Philippines, the development of printing and journalism gave birth to the advertisement being placed on print media. It was on December 1, 1846 when the first Philippine Daily, La Ezperanza, emerged with paid advertisement and the other dailies and weeklies followed; by the year 1896, majority of the Philippine news paper and magazines was subsidized by advertising. Another medium that advertisers can use to place their ads is through the use of sound waves coming from the radio. The very first radio ad was broadcast on WEAF in 1922 wherein the cost for a 10-minutes spot is. The principal attribute of radio as an advertising medium is that the advertisement depends only on the spoken word. With this, listeners can hear the programs and commercials while doing other things that unlike the other media, radio does not require the concentration of its listeners. Advertiser do enjoy radio as a medium because radio allow advertisers to access the homogenous group of listeners that the product can be pitched. Moreover, radio as an advertising medium is said to be effective since radio is using the human voice, the most natural way for people to communicate with each other. Another medium that entertain us through movies, dramas, comedies, reality shows and sports is television. It also offer its audience lot of persuasion through advertising since TV is one of the most used medium in advertising. From the time when television was invented, this medium has changed the way teacher teach, government governs and the way we organize our home. It even changed the nature, operation, and relationship to their audiences of books, magazines, movies and etc. it was in the 1884 when Paol Nipkow first developed a workable device for generating signals suitable for the transmission the scene of people and it was in the year 1948 when the television was opened to the public consumption and the advent television advertising. According to the study conducted by the Neuro focus, Television is the most effective medium of advertising and has the highest levels of viewer engagement. Television advertising is the result when you combine the two good points of print and radio as medium for advertisement; the ads visualization and the ads that can be heard. Currently, the best way to advertise here in the Philippines is through the tri-media which are print, radio and especially television. Because Filipinos are still tri-media dependent and television still holds the title as the most powerful and influential medium. Rowan University Communication Institute, 2005 http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-64333358/philippine-public-relations-industry.html http://prsociety-philippines.blogspot.com/ http://www.davedolak.com/pr.htm http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=48972355 http://sarahaasullivan.wordpress.com/2011/02/05/pr-in-the-philippines/ http://www.newmedia.com.ph/filipino-pr-professionals-should-be-social-media-savvy/ http://www.instituteforpr.org/2009/08/making-pr-more-than-a-jab-at-the-moon/
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