PR book On-line Readings in Public Relations by Michael Turney
Publicity phase of public relations
© 1998; 2020; 2024 Michael Turney Table of contents Practicing Public Relations home page About the author

 
The publicity phase of public relations was the first and least-developed of three or more stages in the development of what we now view as the profession of "public relations." However, back then, in the 19th and early-20th century, what we call "public relations" was most often referred to as publicity, promotion, or press agentry.

During this stage of the profession's development, those who performed these tasks were primarily concerned with creating awareness of, and building recognition for, the individual or organization they represented. So, "getting their client's message out" to the widest possible audience was paramount. Conceptually, and on company organizational charts, their work was seen as closely tied to advertising.

 
Practitioners working during the publicity phase of public relations saw their work as ...

 
Maximizing public awareness of their organization/client was the primary goal.

In the late 19th century attempts to generate publicity became more and more common as publicity's effectiveness became increasingly apparent. While it seems blatantly obvious to us now from our 21st century perspective, it took a while for promoters who organized concerts and theatrical performances to realize that audiences for entertainers whose names were widely recognized were almost always larger and therefore more profitable than audiences for lesser-known artists. They came to realize that it often didn't -- and still doesn't -- matter whether those well-known entertainers were known for the quality of their performances or simply because of newspaper stories about their personal lives. The sometimes depressing truth is that fame and notoriety are often much more effective in attracting audiences than artistic quality.

In a similar way, manufacturers and store owners saw the sales of common, household products with well-known brand names surge past identical but unlabeled products and also surpass sales of other products with brands which were less heavily promoted and whose names were less familiar to consumers. Brand names started to become important to consumers, and the fundamentals of what's now called "brand management" began developing in large company board rooms.

And, some politicians found that they could get elected on name recognition alone. Voters sometimes vote for the most familiar names on the ballot and show little or no regard for the stance the candidates took, or didn't take, on issues.

Organizations and individuals alike began believing that becoming a household name was the key to success. And, the emerging field of public relations defined its role as getting those names into as many households in as many ways and with as much frequency as it possibly could.

 
"Making the news" became critical.

Edward Bernays who is often regarded as "the father of modern public relations" looked back on the early days of the profession and described the work of early public relations practitioners in the following way in the introduction to his 1953 book The Public Relations Idea Book:

"Most of them saw their work only in terms of obtaining favorable mention in the press for their employers."

Such practitioners and their clients who had faith in this approach to public relations embodied the phrase "To know us is to love us." Their implicit assumption was/is that if they generated enough publicity and got enough media coverage to make themselves a household word, everything would work out fine for them. People would know and love them and be eager to patronize their businesses.

Therefore, public relations practitioners focused their efforts on "making the news" or "getting ink". They measured their success in terms of how many newspaper and magazine column-inches were devoted to the organizations they represented. Other common measures of success became press release placement rates, the percentage of their news releases that were picked up and run as news by the media, and the number of media who used each release. The more media who ran their stories and the longer these stories were, the more successful the public relations effort was believed to have been. When the broadcast media became popular, getting and tracking broadcast air time became at least as important as getting and counting column-inches in newspapers and magazines print media, and the basic measure of success remained: "How much coverage did we get?"

The only problem publicity-seeking practitioners usually had with press coverage was not getting enough of it.

The following statement, often attributed to P.T. Barnum in an age long before broadcasting came on the scene, epitomizes the view of those who felt publicity didn't have to be favorable as long as it was frequent.

"I don't care what the newspapers say about me as long as they spell my name right."

Even when press coverage of their clients was negative and reported bad news or embarrassing revelations, many practitioners were unfazed. While some would respond by trying to create an even bigger wave of positive publicity to over-shadow the bad, others would simply revel in the negative attention. This was especially true within the entertainment industry.

Many people, not just those in show business, believed that a stage play or performer "banned in Boston" almost certain to attract sell-out crowds of people who wanted to see what all the fuss was about in other cities. That's because Boston had a long-established reputation as a prim and proper community. It also had a Watch and Ward Society that pre-screened all entertainment before it could be presented within the city limits and shut down any that didn't meet its standards of acceptability. (By the way, Boston was also the city where major theatrical producers would most often try out their new shows before opening on Broadway.) Consequently, some producers and entertainers ranging from Gypsy Rose Lee to Howard Stern sought to have their shows banned in Boston or to garner similar negative publicity in other cities. -- This isn't just an urban legend. It was documented during the 1990s and early 2000s by the public relations trade journal pr reporter which ran frequent stories about playwrights, producers, and performers who tried to "push the envelope" by intentionally inserting a too-sexy scene or strong language that might get their show banned or, at least, issued a warning notice. pr reporter concluded: "It never fails to pack `em in."

Even today there's occasional evidence that negative publicity can sometimes be beneficial.

 
Obviously, publicity phase thinking hasn't completely disappeared.

Although most textbooks proclaim that public relations has grown up and changed dramatically since P.T. Barnum's days, there are still many public relations practitioners -- especially those who deem themselves press agents or publicity experts -- who see their primary role as coming up with interesting and exciting stories to pique the interest of reporters and editors. Some, but certainly not all, of these practitioners will do whatever it takes to generate publicity and get their stories into the media including:

Make no mistake, publicity and media coverage are important aspects of public relations no matter what stage of development it's in. Practitioners in all phases of public relations have to be concerned about the media coverage their clients get. But, those operating in the second or third phase of public relations don't use media coverage measured in column-inches or seconds of air time as their primary measure of success.
 

 
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revised 14 May 2024