Brazil's 'Full Public Relations' compound '4 Rs' by MACHADO NETO, Manoel Marcondes - PhD (USP)
© Manoel Marcondes Machado Neto, 2016, www.fullPR.net
Since the crisis which involved Enron and WorldCom, generating the Sarbannes-Oxley Law, in 2002, in the United States, the term 'public company' no longer designates 'state organizations'. The previous meaning named those organizations which issued shares in the stock market, obliged to give public satisfaction to shareholders, investors and authorities, as well as to society in general - adopting the concept of transparency. An 'active transparency', proposed by the author of the compound of '4 Rs', come after the addition of communication tactics to transparency laws and capital market regulations.
Excerpt from 'The business of transparency' (P. 45)
This activity is related to the creation of a narrative and means the ability to tell relevant stories. The expression, which is synonymous to 'tell a story' has been adopted in the context of marketing communications. 'We all have seen and heard, TV commercials and radio to explain a business, a product, a service, in 30 seconds - or less - the time it takes to go from the ground floor elevator to the third floor... always a challenge of advertising'. Kambri Crews, a renowned American storyteller.
Excerpt from 'The business of transparency' (P. 74)
One of the biggest challenges in our times of the information and knowledge society is precisely the research, production and editing of content, data, history and brand properties, which requires discipline, promptness, accuracy, attention and sense of urgency. One must have a good design (instigating, provocative, beautiful and clear), a lot of free information to the netizen, functionality, friendliness and some interaction (norm of Web 2.0 – something which is already staying behind in 2016).
Excerpt from 'The business of transparency' (P. 67)
This is the well conceived and well executed 'birth' of an organization, from the choice of name and colors to its application of materials of day to day operations (headquarters, fleet, uniforms, stationary, advertisement, website etc.). For example: all the gas stations are similar – precisely to make identification easier by the user, in the street, even at a distance, at the time of fueling a vehicle. The same happens with the fast food restaurants. Naturally, this identity requires the next tactics of Recognition, branding and brand image lining up. In a market where the client faces many choices and rapid changes, a distinctive identity constitutes a relevant/major competitive differential, providing brand recall.
Excerpt from 'The business of transparency' (P. 78)
This is all the effort made around a symbol, with the name expressed in a text or not, that is distinctive of an organization. The brand works as a signature. Example: Nike, in its beginning, associated a drawing to its name. Later, the brand has dispensed the text and just the characteristic trace (baptized 'swoosh') that immediately communicated its identity. The word, in French, for signature is 'griffe' – something we use to relate things with fashion industry. And the customers of fashion products (clothes, shoes, accessories, fake jewels, cosmetics etc.) became accustomed to buying products, and even services, such as those rendered by beauty parlors in L'Oreal stores, for example, based on 'griffe'.
Excerpt from 'The business of transparency' (P. 78)
For Pinho (1996), institutional advertising aims 'to strengthen and add value and soul to the company’s brand, promoting its acceptance as a public institution. It can also disclose the aspects related to its social responsibility and to services rendered to consumers. Institutional advertisement, while consolidating and strengthening concept and reputation, must be aligned with the social and ethic values of the organization'. It is a precious resource, although considered expensive because it does not result – immediately – in revenues. We recognize campaigns from organizations like Greenpeace, Red Cross, and UNESCO also due to their institutional advertisements on television, newspapers, magazines and internet.
Excerpt from 'The business of transparency' (P. 80)
Beyond logos (logotype and logomark), an organization can also 'dress itself up' with other attributes. A sound signature, for example. Think of how many commercial banks have as a background a sequence of musical notes. As well as communication of a car manufacturer or supermarket. Remember the Intel TV ads and its genial aural signature, with only four notes. Another brand image tactic: the adoption of a 'brand ambassador', a quite old action, still present in the media. Even the olfactory aspect – not to mention the most recent innovations of the so-called 'neuromarketing' – has been considered when aiming to obtain distinction. Try to visit a clothes' boutique (of the same brand network) – you will probably smell the same environmental fragrance in all stores.
Excerpt from 'The business of transparency' (P. 79)
To know, understanding and previewing what your customers want is vital for the success of any kind of company, of any size. If you own a shop on the corner, for example, it is much simpler to serve your customers than to do it in a supermarket chain. You know what your customers want, because you see them almost every day and can talk to them face-to-face, needing no researches or questionnaires. There is also a much nearer relationship between the person who procures and the one that makes decisions. In fact, both roles are many times played by the same person. It is this knowledge and understanding of customers that great companies try to replicate when, since they began to invest in customer relationship management (CRM) systems. The concept is essentially 'knowing the customers better and using this knowledge to serve them well'.
Excerpt from 'The business of transparency' (P. 84)
It is the operationalization of the orientation concept for internal audience, which is materialized by the use of common traditional marketing tools aiming at satisfying the needs of the internal public of the organization in terms of relevant matters before to communicate them externally.
Excerpt from 'The business of transparency' (P. 83)
The interests of internal public, for an example, does not always match with investors’ interest (a relevance public segment in case of incorporated companies). As already mentioned, the processes of downsizing may embitter populations of entire communities because of unemployment, but the same decision must be appreciated by the stock market operators due to rising prices in stock exchange. Dealing with large corporate issues – like the installation or closing of a plant, a process that will result in layoffs, merging processes, or purchasing of a former competitor, is not something appropriate for improvisation.
Excerpt from 'The business of transparency' (P. 88)
'Relationship with customers is an intangible asset identified when an entity manages its business using a central area of sales or Call Center, whose model of business includes renovation rights and several opportunities for product sales to existing customers at the time of business agreement. This asset represents the expected value of economic benefits arising from future business of existing customers'. Mourad and Paraskevopoulos.
Excerpt from 'The business of transparency' (P. 90)
It is to try to establish dialogue between parties that become antagonistic because any circumstances arising from ordinary operations. For instance, in the course of a construction, a given company affects the regular supply of water or power an entire neighborhood. Such a company will have to establish 'bridges of understanding' towards the surrounding community to their construction location.
Excerpt from 'The business of transparency' (P. 95)
It is an individual acting at an appropriate structure to meet the clientele beyond the everyday consumer transactions. It was conventionally understood that an appeal to the ombudsman would be that 'second instance' to whom the customer would appeal after not being well served by the product/service acquired and by the systems of customer services that would received them in a first approach in the company or public sector department.
Excerpt from 'The business of transparency' (P. 93)
'From rescuing relevant historical facts, the organization enlarges its ability to inform the public and transmit them messages of emotional nature in order to conquer them. Doing this, the organization empowers its identity and positively consolidates its image and reputation. After all, it is through narratives composed by images and texts – written and spoken – that we share the history of our life, family, society and brands, whether they come from companies or people. We defend that, when rescuing the history of an organization, it is essential to listen to several actors who were directly involved in the trajectory, regardless of hierarchy or type of relationship'. Zanuso and Vernalha.
Excerpt from 'The business of transparency' (P. 110)
This attitude appears in the context of corporate governance, with transparency commandments and responsibility to account for public satisfaction and brings together, two concepts: the capacity to answer – answerability and capacity to punish – enforcement. The first concerns of the obligation of the agencies that provide public services to inform and explain its actions. The second, the faculty that regulatory agencies have to impose sanctions and loss of power to those who violate their public duties.
Excerpt from 'The business of transparency' (P. 108)
This is the first task to which a PR in an organization. It is essential to know with whom the organization needs and wants to relate to, in order to be prepared for an effective communication with each segment of the involved public. It is a necessary diagnosis for the planning of specific communication actions. The instruments to achieve each of the identified target public must be necessarily defined at a later stage.
Excerpt from 'The business of transparency' (P. 113)
Before making institutional communication, it is necessary to “think institutional”. Such challenge lies beyond the realm of semantics, situated in a more philosophical view: what attributes can turn an organization – this imperfect entity formed by imperfect men – into an institution? What to do in order to make an organization be in the same level of 'platonic' institutions such as the Republic, the Justice, the Philanthropy; the secular ones, such as the Academy, the Church, the State? In fact, it is a question of raising the concept of an organization to such a high level that no one can doubt it or that no one ever expected it to abandon an employee or a customer, to evade taxes or information, to have a dishonest practice or deceptive advertising.
Excerpt from 'The business of transparency' (P. 116)
It is a current discussion, the so-called 'public image crisis'. This topic has been the focus of articles, reports, courses, a lot of media training, the use of self-proclaimed 'gurus' and a series of other 'inventions' that, many times, do not come out to meet the real benefit for the organization, which is found vulnerable for a fatal accident, a sudden drop of the value of its shares or a rumor noisiliy published in the press, for example.
Excerpt from 'The business of transparency' (P. 120)
Dissemination is the PR activity 'par excellence', from its birth, since former journalist Ivy Lee – in 1906 – in the United States created the new activity. That is the 'locus' of obtaining the so-called 'free publicity', ie, the inclusion of an individual or organization in the news, in the editorial part, in a non-advertising (unpaid) space, of the press.
It is a PR work, mainly for journalists (working out of the media, of course) to obtain an occasional space and at the limit of success, in consolidating its clients, individuals and entities, as sources of information for the press.
Excerpt from 'The business of transparency' (P. 118)
The term designates the activity exercised towards members of Congress aiming to influence before a new bill is voted. Pressure groups are organized around their interests and hire professionals who develop, along with the congressmen, enlightening and persuasion activities targeted at congressmen aiming to defend the points of view of their clients. In the Congress of the United States, for example, the activity is regulated.
Every 'lobbyist' needs to be accredited to attend corridors and offices of Parliament in the legitimate exercise of the conversations at the 'lobby' (because of this the term 'lobbying') of main hall of public buildings.
Excerpt from 'The business of transparency' (P. 98)
To know the thought of the so called 'public opinion', or at least of a certain segment, is essential to organizations which intend to offer a product or service, or even a new speech in the market. The marketing professionals know a similar practice very well, the 'market research'.
Nevertheless, when we are dealing with ideas, causes, elections, the term 'public opinion poll' (or opinion reserch) is more applicable.
Excerpt from 'The business of transparency' (P. 113)
It is a practice increasingly adopted by the organizations. It involves financing initiatives of other initiatives, giving them financial viability and benefiting itself from the visibility they provide. In marketing for the arts, such practice can be defined, in Brazil as 'cultural marketing', that is the physical-financial support of artistic-cultural products and services as a means of promoting the sponsoring brand.
Excerpt from 'The business of transparency' (P. 104)
The most consolidated strand is that of commercial events, such as fairs, salons, exhibitions and conventions, in which companies take part to mark their presence before the public of the involved industry. Examples: there is no publishing house which does not aim to participate in the Frankfurt Book Fair, the biggest world event in the field of books and reading. Also, it is unthinkable for an automobile manufacturer not to have a booth in the main automobile salon, or for Microsoft to reject, out of snobbishness, the fairs of Information Technology. Besides this kind of event organized by a third party, companies create their own events, the 'brand events'.
Excerpt from 'The business of transparency' (P. 105)
As a result of over 30 years of experience obtained as business consultant, researcher and professor, the ‘4 Rs’ compound proposed by Manoel Marcondes Machado Neto is a breath of renewal in the field of Public Relations, with vocation to spread like a virus both in academic circles as in the world of organizations, regardless of their size, in all segments of business.
The dismemberment of the ‘4 Rs’ by 8 strategies and 16 tactics (above) related to actual demands of any organizations: Recognition, Relationship, Relevance and Reputation is a direct, concise and practical mnemonic formula towards an ‘active transparency’. In resume: the condensed knowledge in this book is a genuine course of Public Relations. And, as we learned from the author, of ‘Full Public Relations’ – the Brazilian unique approach of PR professional education.
Renato Möller, public relations professional (UERJ), master in Business Administration (FGV - Fundação Getulio Vargas) and PhD in Social Psychology (UERJ). Secretary-general (Conrerp1 - 2013/2016).
‘Every professional area has a moral purpose.
Medicine has health. Law has justice. Public Relations
has harmony – social harmony’.
Seib and Fitzpatrick
Public Relations Ethics, 1995. In Simões, Roberto Porto.
Information, intelligence and utopia: contributions to a public
relations theory (Summus, 2006)
Public relations are, more than a profession and a
set of activities, a choice of education.
Education which privileges multidisciplinarity,
holistic vision of communication, and the
understanding that organizations are made up of
relationships that always demand improvement
and management. Relationship ‘with the internal
public’, ‘with the press’, ‘with the community’,
‘with governments’, ‘with regulatory agencies’,
‘with investors’, ‘with costumers’, are the names
nowadays for the positions that an academic
education in Public Relations has always given
special treatment to in Brazil, with a view to the
much desired corporate citizenship.
Institutional Folder - Conrerp 1
Rio de Janeiro, May 17th, 2010
‘The other side of the ethics medal is transparency’.
Manoel Marcondes Machado Neto
3rd ABRACOM Corporate Communications Forum,
São Paulo, April, 9th, 2014
Manoel Marcondes Machado Neto was chosen ‘PR
of the Year – 2013’ by traditional survey by Portal
‘RP-Bahia’ and complete, in 2016, 35 years as a
PR professional, offering to the business
community – and for individuals in need of
disclosure too – a comprehensive and didactic
compound that he calls ‘full public relations’,
also presented in the website ‘www.fullPR.net’.
Luis Monteiro
Editor A
Author
About the book
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Social Marketing
The renowned author Philip Kotler is also a reference as a pioneer in that marketing field. His book 'Social Marketing: strategies to change public behavior' (dated 1971), is a text that worth reading. Social marketing usually comes related to 'public initiatives', which have an appealing message and a social use, such as public health campaigns, electoral campaigns and military recruiting (conscription).
Excerpt from 'The business of transparency' (P. 98)