Discuss about the Promotional Culture Publics and Commercial Democracy.
Public relations can simply be defined as the way or the method any organization, person or a company maintains its reputation and fame to the public. In the context of organizations. Public relations also means the way the public, or the customers rates a particular organization, its values and thee goods and services that it sales. However, this concept of public relation and its maintenance is not that easy. There are certain apparatus that are used to measure public relations, certain methods and approaches to public relations as well. The most important principles that needs to be adhered to are telling truth, taking requisite measures in order to keep the promises made to the customers, providing contact information to the customers, maintaining good amount of photographs of the institution or organization. The principles of public relations also incorporates factors like maintain good media relations, using adequate tools of PR, monitoring the facts that are being disclosed and saying active through out (Morris & Goldsworthy, 2016). Maintenance of public relations is a 24 hours job.
In order to understand further details of public relations and the way it is operated, an example of an organization is taken. The chosen organization is Tesco. Tesco is a British multinational grocery and departmental store. It is at the same time one of the leading chain of retail store in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1919, it has its headquarters situated in Hackney, London, England, UK (Tesco PLC, 2018)
Political factors: a number of political factors impacts Tesco like the tax rates, law and order, legislation acts and may more.
Economic factors: Tesco owns a market share of 30% in the UK (Tesco PLC, 2018). The company needs to adhere to the economic conditions of the countries that it wishes to open its store. According to the economic condition of the country, Tesco would be able to leverage its revenue, generate profit, increase its sales and so on.
Social factors: The social factors include the factors like culture, faith etc. Tesco modifies the supply of its products and services in accordance to the changing demand and supply in the market. For instance, Tesco lately is focusing on stronger stocks of fruits, juices and organic productions, since according to the recent trend, customers now-a-days are conscious about their health and likely avoids starchy, fried foods and carbonated drinks.
Technological factors: With the advent of technology, Tesco has been able to increase its production on a grand scale. It makes the use of latest technological advanced machines and instruments to run the entire store. Be it the packaging techniques or the handling of customers, the store used the latest technological advancements. For instance, it has its own app for inline grocery store that is delivered to the customers (Tesco PLC, 2018). Apart from that the customers are also benefitted with automated checkout thus avoiding the long queue.
Legal factors: The government rules and regulatory factors without any iota of doubt are to be adhered by the company. The company is bound to follow the rules laid down by Food Retailing Commission (FRC) in 2004 according to which the company would not be able to change the prices of the food items without prior notice to the body. In order to respect the rules, Tesco tactfully allows its customers to buy fuel in lowered cost according to the amount the customers spend in the grocery stores (Tesco PLC, 2018).
Environmental factors: Tesco is responsible towards the environment. It has clearly announced that it would reduce the amount of carbon footprint by 50% and at the same time it also monitors the waste products that it dumps (Tesco PLC, 2018). It makes the sewage chemical free before finally dumping it.
Stakeholders and shareholders are individuals, institutional bodies of any particular company that invests in the initial period in order to expect high returns (Gregory, 2015). The stakeholders of Tesco are myriad. The stakeholders of Tesco are listed below:
The board of directors are the shareholders. Tesco monitors increased profit with the increase in the number of shares that is bought from the company.
Customers can also be called both the public and the shareholder of the company. Customers can be both individual or small business that buys goods and services from the company. In many cases, small grocery owners buy goods in bulk from Tesco stores. Customers can be called stakeholders as they invests in the good to get value for money.
The employees of the company can also be regarded as the stakeholders of the company. While the employees at Tesco constantly are in working mode for the betterment of the organization, the organization on the other hand provide programs of employee benefits, makes security benefits to the employees etc. apart from that the senior employees are facilitated with medical insurance on the part of the company.
While maintaining public relations, Tesco has faced a number of challenges. Regardless to mention that the gigantic organization that Tesco is, it has a number of rivals. It does not take much time to make mountain out of moles. It is needless to assert that public relation and media are attached to each other. While a good performance of the company is highlighted and brought to limelight by media strengthening its public relation, on the other hand, negative publicity equally decreases the base of public relations (Wood, Wrigley & Coe, 2016). Negative publicity if not monitored in proper time can result in customer retention. It can further impact the sales and marketing department of the company thus hampering the profit margin, as well as its market share and reputation.
An incident can be taken for example. On 27th of April 2018 it was revealed that the customer details that are taken by Tesco are shared with a number of organizations and institutions. To be specific, the customer details are shared by Tesco to six hundred external companies. Though it triggered the fear of misusing the personal details of the customers like age, gender, full name, contact number and in some cases address, it has handled at the right time by the company. Tesco was clear and transparent about the external agencies that it delivers the information of the customers. According to Tesco, the customer information are taken in order to maintain the details of the customer and also to track a record of the goods that individual customer purchases (Imrie & Dolton, 2014). Keeping a track helps the company to analyze the ongoing demand of goods and services as well as the company offers special discounts through leaflets on customer’s address and through text messages. Apart from that, the company also provides offers and discount. The other challenges that are faced by Tesco are listed as follows:
Targeting the exact influencers regarding objectives of the company: Tesco faces the challenge to opt for the exact social media influencer which would help the company to build profitable and equitable relationship with its customers. Though the price and the quality of its products and service remain the primary and the major part through which it can mould its customer base, social media, no doubt also plays an important role at the same time. Tesco manages external agencies related to marketing and public relation to get a speech about the company from renowned celebrities (Cronin, 2018). Good review and attractive comments about the goods and services of Tesco on social media platforms like facebook, youtube, instagram, snapchat also plays a leading role in shaping the idea of customers towards the brad, as well as influences public relation at the same time.
While establishing long term relationship with influencers on one hand benefit the company on one hand, on the other hand it also faces some disadvantages. Long-term relationship helps the organization to settle with less money. Thus, it cuts on its capital investment. However at the same time, the company runs the risk of using same channel and sources to maintain its public relations (Tse et al., 2016). It threats the lack of innovation in maintain a positive public relation. Agencies makes the use of same stereotypical ideas that at times may become boring to the customers.
Financial constraint: Tesco maintains that it invests a lump some of the total budget o choosing the executives of the public relations department. Poor financing may lead to poor reviews. However, at the same time, maintaining a good public relation is not directly fetching the company with financial profit. Perhaps due to this reason the company at times folds up its hands while financing public relation departments.
Expectation management of the customers: It is highly impossible to manage the expectations of the customers. This is one of the major challenges in the context of public relations faced but Tesco. The unrealistic challenges of the customers like expecting too low prices for quality goods put the company at real tough time (Bell, Hollows & Jones, 2017).
Poor usage of social media: At Tesco, public relations are largely dependent on the use of social media. At times, the public uses to social media like whatsapp, facebook and twitter badly. For instance, the use of abusive and malicious language about the company is very common that has been witnessed. This makes a negative impression about the company, even if the company remains positive.
thus, it is well understood that managing public relations is a critical job. Since public relations incorporates not only the voices but also the demands and likings of public, managing these different strata of demand is impossible (Moon, Uskul & Weick, 2018). Its true that Tesco faces a number of challenges in managing the same. However, at the same time, public relation also bestows the company with a number of profits too.
Can be a strong influencer- Public relations are likely to influence customers more than any other sources. Customer tend to have faith and believe on the messages that are delivered from the end of objective source rather than the agencies that are paid for advertising messages. This form of promotion that has been adapted by the industry is not only credible but at the same time it is also all persuasive that floats the customers (Hamilton, 2016).
Is reached far: this is perhaps the most interesting advantage or opportunity of public relation. The same story is available at a number of outlet or store and a number of customers at different stores can pick the same up. Thus, it benefits the customers at the very same time. Also, the story reaches to a wide array of audiences at once.
Benefits with cost cut: public relation benefits the organization as it cuts on the cost of advertising media placement. If done in the house the cist rate goes up even more. Public relations on the other hand is advantageous as it is more economic and it serves no less than paid advertisement media (Stacks, 2016).
The strategies that are maintained by Tesco in the context of public relation are as follows
Credibility: since Tesco knows that customers are over cautious at spending, credibility is imperative to its business strategy. Thus, more the Tesco appears in media, more the customers are magnetized towards the organization.
Target Market: Tesco sets its target market strategically. In order to reach out to its target markets, it announces its articles in the right places. For instance, articles drafted by Tesco would not be found in some kids magazine, but would be found in a finance magazine. It is likely that only the targeted customers or the interested investors would go through such magazines.
Image: Tesco strategically enhances its business through public relation. It is not about a part, a particular product, or a department of the organization. It is about the entire entity. Image incorporates all the facets of the organization and the Tesco uses this strategically to elevate its image to its customers.
Surveys: The practitioners of public relationship at Tesco conduct surveys in order to have an estimate of the evaluation of PR. Surveys are an excellent apparatus that can measure the customer’s attention and awareness. It also helps to measure the customer’s awareness towards particular product, or the department as a whole.
Analyzing the content of media: Media monitoring is another way of evaluating PR. It works in a specific way. Concerned department monitors the number of times the advertisement appears on cable and social media sites (Dicey, 2017).
Online metrics: Before and after the campaign, the analyst generally conducts a social media and website analysis in order to track the differences in the customer’s reaction. Some specific tools and apparatus are used by the analysts in this case to monitor the level of traffic in the company’s website. Apart from that, PR can also be used to raise the awareness of customers using social media as a tool. For instance, it is likely possible that after a campaign has been conducted, the inflow of likes and comments on social media platforms like the company’s own facebook and instagram account will be more than before. The frequency would be raised which would also benefit the company with more new customers of different countries coming to know about the organization.
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2011 |
After the resignation of Sir Terry Leahy, Phil Clarke becomes the new chief executive. Major price drop, 500 million pounds specifically Failing of price drop strategy since the customers are not convinced |
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2012 |
Clarke attempts to compensate the failing of price strategy by investing an amount of 1 billion pound (Tesco PLC, 2018) Tesco is announced as the most successful retailer in the US |
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2013 |
Tesco suffers its first huge drop in sales in the last 20 years |
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2014 |
Christmas sales were poor in 3013, though the company pulls gear and start with profit Market share minimize to 28.7% Is attacked by Aldi and other companies |
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2015 |
Tesco has to permanently shut down 43 stores In order to incorporate simplicity, the range of the products that are offered are cut down by 30% (Tesco PLC, 2018) Buys 21 superstores Tesco is put under legal consideration for bragging its profit statement Tesco pulls its hands from its fleets of corporate jets |
Conclusion
In the concluding part it can thus be asserted that public relation is an important criteria that needs to be maintained by all organizations. Though it does not fetch any company with direct financial profit, yet, it is largely responsible for all over branding and image of any organization. Tesco seems to maintain a well PR base. The report talks about the opportunities that Tesco can acquire through PR. It also points to the challenges that the company faces as well. The objectives, stakeholder map, PR tactics and strategy, effective use of social media, Situational analysis, timeline etc are well elaborated throughout the assessment.
Reference list
Bell, D., Hollows, J., & Jones, S. (2017). Campaigning culinary documentaries and the responsibilization of food crises. Geoforum, 84, 179-187.
Cronin, A. M. (2018). Public Relations Capitalism: Promotional Culture, Publics and Commercial Democracy. Springer.
Dicey, A. V. (2017). Lectures on the relation between law and public opinion in England during the nineteenth century. Routledge.
Gregory, A. (2015). Planning and managing public relations campaigns: A strategic approach. Kogan Page Publishers.
Hamilton, D. (2016). Public relations and engagement in the not-for-profit sector. The Public Relations Handbook, 422.
Imrie, R., & Dolton, M. (2014). From supermarkets to community building: Tesco plc, sustainable place making and urban regeneration. Sustainable London, 173-194.
Moon, C., Uskul, A. K., & Weick, M. (2018). On culture, ethics, and hierarchy: How cultural variations in hierarchical relations are manifested in the code of ethics of British and Korean organizations. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 48(1), 15-27.
Morris, T., & Goldsworthy, S. (2016). PR-a persuasive industry?: Spin, public relations and the shaping of the modern media. Springer.
Stacks, D. W. (2016). Primer of public relations research. Guilford Publications.
Tesco PLC. (2018). Tesco plc. Retrieved 28 April 2018, from https://www.tescoplc.com/
Tse, Y. K., Zhang, M., Doherty, B., Chappell, P., & Garnett, P. (2016). Insight from the horsemeat scandal: Exploring the consumers’ opinion of tweets toward Tesco. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 116(6), 1178-1200.
Wood, S., Wrigley, N., & Coe, N. M. (2016). Capital discipline and financial market relations in retail globalization: insights from the case of Tesco plc. Journal of Economic Geography, 17(1), 31-57.
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