Tenth Week.

After reading the given chapters and articles, I think the key points of week 10’s lectures are that research and evaluation are huge parts of PR as it determines what goes into the PR project/programmes, finding out the actual elements of the programme/campaign and finding out the results of the outputs on the target audience/public. These steps help ensure that the following campaign would be better than the last, learning from past mistakes made.

It is important to identify the skills and resources available and the desired outcomes before you choose the methodology and later on the research techniques. There are roughly about 25 different informal and formal research techniques that are stated in the text which indirectly showed that there is no hard and fast rule in doing research.

This chapter showed a great link between business marketing and public relations, the common factor being, the need to research and evaluate before deciding on a campaign/programme/project.

The readings made me think and realize that research is the base of every campaign, programme and projects. Before reading the chapter, it did not occur to me that research was that important in a public practitioner’s world. Public relations to me, was basically about interaction with the public, true enough, research is just that: public relations practitioners had to interact with the public using different mediums to get the information that they need.

Ninth Week.

After reading the given chapters and articles, I think the key points of week 9’s lectures are that, as stated in the conclusion, there are no right or wrong sets of tactics used by public relations practitioners and there are no specific sets of tactics that would defiantly bring about success. Also, the ability to differentiate strategies and tactics is essential as well as understanding their importance.

Claiming that one tactic is better than the other is redundant because it has nothing to do with which tactic is better. It all eventually leads to which tactic is used for what kind of situations and whether this tactic was used appropriately and correctly. Also, it is best that the tactics are used together as a set so as to achieve the best outcome for the public relation goals. There are no specific tactics that should be in a set, instead the public relations practitioners should pick the few that would benefit and help in achieving the goal.

The readings made me think and realize that it is really demanding to have to stick to the budgets and yet at the same time have an impact on the public, making it even harder to pick the right tactics which such limited choices. Also, strategies plays a larger role than what we credit it to be.

Eighth Week.

After reading the given chapters and articles, I think the key points of week 8’s lectures are that effective and extensive planning are two factors event management and sponsorships can not do without. Nothing in the world is free, it obviously applies to sponsorships as well; sponsorships all expects returns.

There are three types of sponsorship stated in the text: philanthropic sponsorship, corporate sponsorship and marketing sponsorship. These three each target different companies and the most popular one is marketing sponsorship because companies of all sizes would want to generate profit and that is exactly what marketing sponsorship brings about.

We see that in both sponsorship and event management, media is an important factor. A good event and a good sponsored project brings about media coverage which is important to any company as it would also generate revenue.

A good example would be Coca-cola. In one of my marketing lesson, my tutor mentioned Coca-cola and asked us why they are such a success. He answered and told us that one of the many reason is cause they do things big. Coca-cola takes the opportunity to become a sponsor for a particular event, but not as a sub-sponsor, but instead the one and only sponsor. With this comes large media coverage as well as attention on Coca-cola. This example highlights the effects that sponsorship could bring about.

The readings made me think and realize that one (public relations practitioner) actually has to be very tactful when it comes to writing the sponsorship proposal as it is difficult to get picked through one measly report. Also, event management is not as easy as it seem, it involves planning, planning and more planning.

Seventh Week.

After reading the given chapters and articles, i think the key points of week 7's readings are the importance for practioners to infuse interpersonal efficiency with written articulation to achieve optimum collaboration with journalists. Practioners need the proficiency in both handling actual contact with journalists and constructing their subsidies if they hope to get their stories out through the media.

Although a practitioner's job criteria did not initially involve the need for proper journalism training, they must realise that journalists themselves already have a hard time choosing stories and writing them. They definitely do not need to be burdened with amateur journalism.

The readings made me think more about public relations theory and practice in that practitioners and journalists are not two separate parties. They have come to notably depend on each other despite the dissatisfaction resulting from differences in approaches and purposes.

There is really no complete solution to perfecting practitioner-journalist relations, only improvement. Practitioners just have to keep in mind that in order to make a successful media pitch, they have to take into consideration each and every journalists individual preferences. It does not make sense for a practitioner to be wholeheartedly unbiased when it comes to their represented company. So it is inevitable that not all journalists will be agreeable with certain pitches.

As commonly said, you really can't please everybody.