Public relations are related to advertising in that both are about Sometimes each is used by the other, in doing a campaign. For example, advertising may support a campaign to drink more lager with an in pub promotion organized by the public relations team or a health education advertising campaign aimed at children may be supported by a public relations program of activities in schools. Likewise, public relations may use advertising to support or spearhead a publicity program to reinforce messages. Together advertising and public relations have a freedom and range of techniques at their disposal which advertising alone does not since public relations reputation and to persuade through opinion while advertising my space of time in which to say exactly what it wants you to believe.
If advertising is as old as the first caveman who scrawled 'Bonzo is the greatest Caveman' across a cave wall, then public relations must have started before Mankind learned to write.
The first time one person whispered in the ear of another to make or break a third person's reputation, then public relations was born.
Although the great American T fioma T Jefferson in 1807 used the term 'public relations', and in England the pen was mighty and writers such as Swift and Dickens promulgated their ideas hoping to change public opinion about a whole host of social or scientific or political issues, until the First World War, public relations was thought of as propaganda. Today we view propaganda in a dim light, thinking it a tool of unscrupulous politicians or others who wish to control us. In America, image making started early when at the beginning of this century, wealthy John D Rockerfeller Jr, hired a press agent to change his image from that of a mean old rich man to that of philanthropist. The press agents succeeded by having Rockerfeller give money to charity. But the First World War gave a real boost to public relations when governments created massive campaigns to help get mass popular support behind the war effort. One man of great influence in public relations was J S Edward L Bgrnavs, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, emerged during this time in America.
The First World War gave organized public relations in Britain an opportunity to be used on a national scale and official publicity was carried out by a number of organizations. A new Ministry of Information was set up when the Second World War broke out. The publicity generated about how to use food, save fuel, and a hundred other matters are all well recorded. (From time to time, these are discussed on radio and TV.) After the war, the Central Office of Information (COI) was established. It remains the major source of information on behalf of the government. The COI releases information abroad as well as within Britain.
While advertising had long been favored by British industry, public relations were hardly used until the beginning of the 1950s. Even then, this was a blend of press relations and promotional work. During those years several consultancies emerged and a number of public relations practitioners arose who became, in a real sense, founders of modern British public relations. Among these was Mrs Gjna Franklin whose career illustrates the development of consultancies and methodology in Britain. She went to America, studied under Dr Bernays, and returned to Britain determined to create a company specializing in public relations. This company, at first attached to an advertising agency, later became an independent public relations consultancy.
At first her campaigns concentrated on press relations, and promotional based publicity. But as the years passed and British industry became more sophisticated in recognizing and using the potential of public relations, Franklin changed her approach until she based all her campaigns on concepts likely to be admired even today by any leading consultant on either side of the Adantic. Perhaps more than any other person, she opened the public relations field in Britain to women. In her early days, looking for something that would make her consultancy just that little bit different, she chose to have an all women agency. Looking her potential clients' right in the eye, she would say: 'Women buy your products, why not have women help you publicize them women understand women'. Then, she would trot out an array of fresh, original ideas backed up by a parade of articulate, intelligent and experienced public relations women. What client wouldn't have succumbed to Mrs. Franklin's consultancy?
To illustrate the conceptual basis of her thinking when arriving at a public relations platform on which to build a campaign for a consumer client, no better example could be found than her approach to the problem of one international manufacturing giant. When told by them that the sales of budgerigar seed were disastrous and the market might easily disappear within a few years, Mrs. Franklin came back with what you may think was a simple answer but it was profound in terms of changing British public opinion she said, 'Breed your own consumers' And she set out to do just that by making the little budgie one of Britain's most popular pets. When Britain loved budgies, seed sales soared. This is to make a long, hard, thoughtful, and imaginative campaign sound simple, which it wasn't. Franklin steadily incorporated new academic studies and scientific methods, such as behavioral psychology and social auditing, into her work. The barriers she broke down about women in business are numerous because she moved as an equal among commercial interests which were so much then, as now, dominated by men. Men as well as women in British public relations today owe her a debt of gratitude for her contribution in helping British industry come to terms with public relations as a formidable management and marketing tool.
