By Shelley Spector
Many years ago, I had occasion to ask Eddie Bernays, the father of public relations, what he thought was an ideal undergrad level PR program.
Considering this question was asked years before a PR degree would be widely conferred at U.S. colleges, Bernays had the opportunity to construe his own ideas for an ideal BA degree in Public Relations.
"In today's world, the best PR degree would be equally divided among three disciplines: one-third journalism, one-third psychology, and one-third business," replied Bernays.
In short, what he was saying, students should learn the tools of the trade through journalism: news writing, understanding of news and the media. They also should learn the principles of human motivation: an understanding of our publics and how best to influence their perceptions.
And very importantly — and here is where Bernays thought our profession was truly lacking — future PR professionals should learn finance and how businesses operate. By this he didn't mean just our client's business, but the greater business world.
Fortunately, a growing number of PR grad programs, like NYU's, are now incorporating into curriculums courses that teach students critical skills, like learning how to read a balance sheet, writing an IR program and understanding SEC compliance. But yet few undergrad programs are requiring this. They should.
PR students should also understand the growing influences of politics and government on the practice of PR. Equally important for tomorrow's practitioner is an appreciation of reaching a global audience.
So what does this mean for today's PR graduate? What are some of the subjects most valued in the PR field but that undergraduate PR students never learn?
1. Consumer Behavior. Of all the courses I took at my college's business school, the one that proved to be the most potent to my appreciation of public attitudes was Consumer Behavior 201 — a mix of social psychology, market research and mass communications. Only through learning how to assess customer sentiment, is it possible to influence attitudes and behavior and eventually build what Bernays' called a "two way street" of trust between an institution and its publics.
Malcolm Gladwell's "Tipping Point" and "Blink" are excellent explorations of the topic, as is my old time favorite book that first introduced me to consumer behavior "The Hidden Persuaders" by Vance Packard. Although published in 1957, its theories of motivation and influence are still relevant today.
2. The Stock Market. Understanding the sentiment of the investing public, especially the people who own your client's stock, is critical to anyone working or representing a public company — which will be most communicators, at some point or other in their careers.
It's impossible to create and conduct a PR campaign without taking into account how best to reach the professional and individual investor: to recognize how the news you're releasing will impact the stock, how securities analysts will be evaluating the chairman's recent remarks and how the introduction of a new product will impact perception on Wall Street. Keep track of the Dow and NASDAQ; read at least the first page of The Times' Business section and, for extra credit, read the Wall Street Journal.
The more you read, the more you'll understand how best to position your company as well its management before the investors. Also, and maybe most importantly, you'll be able to have meaningful dialogues with the top management.
3. Sales, Finance, Manufacturing and Supply Chains. As PR people, we sometimes get so wrapped up in creating outside perceptions that we often overlook what's happening inside. How does the company develop new technologies, build sales, manage supply chains, and export to new markets? How does it handle operations, manage finances, analyze competition, and train its workforce?
Take time to truly get deep into the company: talk to workers on the factory floor, attend a sales presentation, sit in on a production meeting or have lunch with an engineer. It will not only help you create more effective campaigns, but they'll help you learn the inner workings of the company, and ultimately, help you achieve increased respect in the C-suite.
The better you understand the company's culture—its acronyms, terminology, departmental structure and even its politics — the better you'll represent it to all its stakeholders.
4. Politics and Government. No organization is immune to what happens inside the beltway. Washington is no longer just the province of the government relations department. Every PR person today needs to understand how decisions made in DC can have profound and long-lasting impact on operations in the future (see the Sarbanes-Oxley Act). Bills being considered today may well impact your company tomorrow.
Rulings at regulatory agencies, decisions by the Supreme Court, speeches made on the House floor — all of these potentially have an affect on your company's bottom line.
Keep tabs on political trends and presidential polls. Read political blogs, watch politically diverse coverage and read the sites published by your company's industry trade associations. The most penetrating PR campaigns today are those that are informed, at least in part, by what's going on in Washington.
5. International affairs. Few companies today operate exclusively within its own country's borders. With the public becoming more diversified—culturally, politically and economically — PR people have a lot learning to do.
How do we engage and win the trust of these new groups of stakeholders whose cultural backgrounds are so different from ours? How do we assess their perceptions, influence their attitudes, and build their trust? How do we best create a dialogue when we can't even understand their language?
Here, an old axiom is relevant: to be understood, first understand: read the international press, subscribe to the Economist and stay attuned to events affecting particularly influential overseas markets.
Read case studies of communications programs that reflect cultural sensitivity (a good recent example is Aflac’s response to recent events in Japan) and programs that did just the opposite (like the introduction of the Nova car in Latin America).
Any good undergraduate public relations program will arm students with the tools of the trade: media relations, writing and research. But it's up to them to take that education up a few notches up, getting their arms around consumer behavior, market research, Wall Street, Washington and the rest of the world.
Only by truly appreciating the inner depths of a company, and the new environments in which they operate, can PR people learn how to build that "two way street" of trust that Bernays originally had in mind.
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Shelley Spector, founder and president, Spector & Associates, New York, is a veteran of Hill & Knowlton and Ruder Finn. |