Lecture 6 - Corporate Social Responsibility

Our most recent lecture was on CSR or Corporate Social Responsibility and it got me thinking on the idea of CSR as a gimmick.

I mean, I think, that CSR is in itself a PR activity. It helps corporate image and strengthens the corporate brand. CSR programs does this by presenting corporations to be caring, socially responsible and ethical organizations rather than huge, powerful and elite conglomerates. CSR programs are meant to communicate to the public that corporations are doing their part for the world and are genuinely concerned enough about societal issues to dedicate their time and resources to addressing and correcting these issues.

And I'm sure in some cases corporations are genuine in their concern.

But the lecture was really interesting in getting me to think about whether the public or consumers actually still buy into the vadility of CSR programs or whether they are becoming wary to the idea of CSR as corporate PR.

Whilst researching the topic of corporate social responsibility online, I found (to my surprise, quite frankly) that the Gaurdian's website has an entire section dedicated to Corporate Social Responsibility.

Or rather on examining whether corporations are really practicing ethical business and whether corporate social responsibility programs are really what they claim to be.

The site is very interesting with articles on how CSR programs often do not live up to their hype. A really great article covers how Disney's claims to be have created a CSR program aimed at being environmentally friendly are just part of a bid to spruce up their image.

The article states Disney CEO Robert Iger's opinions about Disney's bid to be more environmentally firendly.

"In case anyone thought this do-goodery would damage the bottom line, CEO Robert Iger promised that the wider purpose was to "make our brands and products more attractive, strengthen our bonds with consumers, make the company a more desirable place to work, and build goodwill in the communities we operate. All of this contributes to shareholder value.""

This is just an example of the types of artciles the site features.

What struck me is that, if a large print publication's website can have a entire section of their highly popular website dedicated to Corporate Social Responsibility or rather the vadility of Corporate Social Responsibility, then isn't there a widespread skepticism about the genuineness of CSR programs and more broadly how successful can CSR programs be in convincing the public that corporations are genuinely doing good?

Haven't CSR programs then become transparent to the public as PR activities or as bids to help corporate image?

I think so. I think the public are increasingly seeing CSR as gimmickry and I beleive the PR people of corporations need to seriously consider the immplications of this for their CSR programs.

Here is a link to the website;

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/corporatesocialresponsibility

Lecture 5 - Women and PR

’I think there is a glass ceiling, but it’s cracked. In three to five

years, it will shatter.’

That's what Marina Maher, President of Marina Maher Communications in New York says about the PR industry and women.

And I hope she's right.

In today's lecture we talked about women, PR and the feminization of the PR industry. We heard a really lively debate about women and PR that presented some interesting (and invalid) reasons for why women are not as good professionals as men.

The lecture really got me interested in looking at the status of women in the PR industry and like most any other industry women do not dominate.

While PR maybe increasingly seen to be the stronghold of women, it is in fact men who are in power. I found this really great article outlining how hard it is for women to get to the top in PR and how most of the top level positions are still held by men. For example;

"There are no female CEOs in the top 10 PR agencies...Generally, in the ’O’ class (CEOs, COOs and CFOs) women are woefully under represented. Take a look at the structure of the top agencies. At Fleishman-Hillard, men fill the top four slots. After that come the regional presidents. Two out of eight of these are female: ElizabethSolberg in the Midwest and Janise Murph in the Southwest."

So it seems that this notion that women 'rule' in PR is an illusion, and as in any other industry women must still work hard to be treated equally to men and must operate in a male-dominated arena. I hope we do it, and at least in PR women come out on top.

Here is the link to the article:
http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/104741/50-powerful-women-PR---Women-outnumber-men-PR-field-few-top-Just-long-will-glass-ceiling-shatter-Rebecca-Flass-investigates/?DCMP=ILC-BETAMORE

Lecture 4 - PR and ethics

So in our most recent lecture we discussed PR and ethics, and took a look at what we meant by the term 'ethics'.

This topic was super interesting to me and really got me thinking about the profession of Public Relations. I mean, Public Relations practitioners and Public Relations in general gets (ironically) such a negative image because of the perception that as professionals and an industry we do not act ethically. Public Relations is perceived to help corporation or other organizations 'pull one over' the public or to 'spin' the truth. I think we are seen today like the 'ad men' of the early days of advertising. Almost like fast talking, sales men that will say anything to sell anything. But in this media saturated society organizations need PR professionals to communicate effectively with their audiences, it is after all only a job. But what to do about the idea that PR is unethical? Strangely the profession all (supposedly) about image and perception, has a very negative image itself. I am not sure how to pose a solution - anyone have any ideas?

Until then enjoy this cartoon I found, which seems to sum up the idea that PR practitioners have no ethical center!

Lecture 3 - Political Communications and PR

Our most recent lecture was on Political Communications and Public Relations. In it we discussed issues in political communications such as media management, image management and information management done by political parties. The lecture was really engaging and what I really found interesting was the discussion around how campaign public relations can make or break a political party's chance at winning an election.

The lecture reminded me of an incident that happened back home in the 2005-2006 national elections.

At the outset the Liberals were the expected winners, with very few expecting the Conservatives to win the election. However a lack of a cohesive campaign plan on the Liberal's part and a well-thought out campaign and communications strategy on the Conservative's part led to a defeat for the Liberals. That's just some context though and not my main point. One the crucial blows to the Liberals came in the form of a PR faux pas which badly hurt their image and gave the Conservatives plenty of ammunition to paint the Liberals in a negative light in the media.

Ironically the mistake was made by the Liberal Director of Communications, Scott Reid. When discussing a Conservative initiative to give Canadian parents money for daycare, Scott Reid said that the money would go towards "beer and popcorn".

The quote was in the papers, all over the news next day and taken to mean that the Liberals thought parents were irresponsible and would misuse daycare money. it was a blow to the party's image. The mistake followed the Liberals all the way through the election and because of it they perceived to be elitist and insulting. It was even thought to be one of the main reasons they lost the election.

What struck me about this whole incident was the power of image or of a mistake in regards to image management in deciding a whole election and even a whole country's fate. I think its cause for reflection on how important our roles as PR professionals, especially in the political sphere, has become.

Here is a link to a story about the incident;

http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2005/12/11/daycare051211.html