Dear Sanjay,
great question and ironic that an advertising veteran asked this question without asking that himself. please note here have no bias here being a PR person and am not the rabid ones who consider advertising and PR are chalk and cheese.
but with my stints in both advertising and PR for a while now can say one thing with absolute confidence. who is the target audience and how sure are we in reaching that target audience is a question that begs and answer and is not scientifically answered by any major communication tools be it advertising or PR.
let me give you an example. An agency brings out a full page ad. in The Hindu. who is the target audience the ad. is targeted at? the newspaper reader??? which segment of newspaper reader? what surety is there that, the focus audience amongst the newspaper readers is reading that page? and how does on even know that the reader read the ad. today? ditto for the coverage in the paper obtained by the PR firm taking the editorial route.
TAM/People meter/IRS are all numbers which speak of reach which is like saying India has one billion consumers. The whole point is, is your message reaching your consumer/TA?
It is a challenge shared by all communication functions and not PR alone. we have a logn way to go but every professional across functions understands the importance of getting there.
To use steven spielberg analogy, it is the holy grail for communications. and ofcourse the famous Ogilvy quote- we know 50% of advertising is waste. we just dont know which one?
Again am more a communications professional and not a PR professional and would be a pity if my views were to be seen in the advertising Vs PR context.
regards,
Xavier Prabhu
PRHUB
today most advertising agencies place advertisements in dailies and commercials in TV
To: prpoint@yahoogroups
From: sanjaym@mastek.
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:15:15 +0530
Subject: [prpoint] Who is the target audience for PR professionals?
Dear All,
Recently at one of the forums a veteran of the advertising industry asked a pertinent question . "Who is the PR targeting?" . This simple question fumbled the PR agency , they struggled for an answer . The agency had done a good job at changing the perception of targeted journalist as per their perception study they presented about an organization , the scores were good on all counts top of mind recall , management perception understanding of positioning etc . Yet the question was whether this helped the organization in any way .
The question by the advertising veteran raises a point "is media the target audience" , is "public the target audience" – if so "who is the public , are organizations fooling themselves and getting a ego boost by getting covered in the print media ? Some PR agencies still go around flashing advertising worth of print coverage , "does getting a few lines in the papers on a news item change public perception – again the important question who is "public" ?
Can media/journalist be the target audience for PR and how would shifting of media perception help the organization? The related problem as has been pointed earlier are PR agencies only good at media relations ?
Warm regards
Sanjay Mudnaney
Sanjay Mudnaney
AGM Corporate Communications
Mastek
M +91 9821876559 , D + 91 22 28247745
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