What is PR?

“I study Public Relations.”

“Oh cool… What’s that?”

And there it is, the million dollar question that I get asked so many times when asked what I study. My usual response is “oh you know, it’s kind of branding and marketing kind of stuff”.

I actually went to a job interview the other day, for a reasonably well going, but independent restaurant, where the manager asked me what I intended on doing with that degree. I was quite astounded by this because, firstly, how rude to ask someone that? Secondly, this is an independently run restaurant, as far as I would have thought, they’re the kind of people who could use someone like me to help promote their restaurant and should definitely know what PR and Publicity is.

Now you’re by no means alone, struggling to get your head around what PR is. Even the industry itself struggles to come up with one specific definition. My favourite definition so far has been the one from The Charted Institute of Public Relations.

Public Relations is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour. It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics.

I feel like this definition really captures what PR is and why it’s important. The way people view a brand or organisation can change how you think about them. Lets be honest, even though Cliff Richard was not convicted of assault and child related sexual issues, he would now not be the best choice to have promote a children’s charity.

I also like this definition because it focuses of what I find so interesting about PR. I find it so fascinating that humans are so easily ‘manipulated’ for lack of a word. I doubt you could anybody who says they have never been affected by PR, not everyone is a passive audience, but people may be more passive in certain cases. A football related campaign would have to work a lot harder to make me want to attend their event or whatever than a fashion campaign for the same sort of result.

I’ve always enjoyed this building of a brand. I’ve always been involved in music and drama (thank you parents for coming to see all my shows!) but the behind stuff such as the social media, the running the event, the marketing of the show has always had me fascinated.