Focus Group Interviews

Focus group interviews are a marketing research technique that has been successfully adapted to the needs of public relations practitioners. They do not yield the strictly quantitative data that can be gotten from a sur­vey. But they have the advantage of being open-ended and permitting members of target groups to speak in their own terms of understand­ing, provide their own emphasis, and respond to the views expressed by other members of the same group. The focus group interview re­quires trained moderators and equipment for recording the sessions. Audio and/or video tapes have to be put in transcript form, and then the transcripts must be summarized and analyzed. Sometimes focus group interviews are used as the basis for designing the questionnaires used in survey research, creating a valuable linkage between the two devices and enhancing the value of both. An example is the focus group research done by Larissa A. Grunig at the University of Maryland that sought to learn the attitudes of adults toward the housing of mentally ill people in apartment buildings within the community. "The focus groups were considered formative research, to be conducted before a telephone survey of a sample of all county residents and well ahead of the public relations plan to be developed and implemented by the consulting firm," the report said.

Analysis of Data

Analysis of data that already exist can be the fastest, and often the least expensive, means of acquiring information that can help with the plan­ning of a public relations campaign. Some examples:

• When the Children's Hospital Medical Center of Akron sought to position itself as specializing in the emotional and social well-being of children and their families during medical treat­ment, secondary research included studying the admissions and functions of all twenty-seven hospitals in the area, and also an analysis of national statistics on "latchkey" children who re­turn from school to their homes without parental supervi­sion—a phenomenon that has a bearing on the independence and/or the emotional needs of many children who are treated.

• When Time magazine decided to help increase voter turnout in the 1988 presidential election by staging a "National Student/ Parent Mock Election," it started by analyzing census and pop­ulation statistics, sociological studies of voter turnout and apathy, and characteristics of non-voters in the United States.

• When Hill and Knowlton was engaged to counter the negative publicity directed by AT&T and others at the Open Software Foundation—a nonprofit group formed by leading computer manufacturers, including IBM—the public relations agency hired a media research firm to perform in-depth content analy­sis on 450 news stories to learn exactly which were the most fre­quent and the most damaging negative statements made about the client and its mission. Objectives were drawn specifically to counteract those negative statements.

As we saw, identifying your key publics— those groups that are most likely to seek and process information and to behave in a way that has consequences on your organization—is a fundamental aim of the process we call public relations management.

Two programs planned by public relations students at Rutgers Uni­versity for outside clients supposedly had "all Rutgers students" as the audience. The downtown merchants association wanted a campaign to attract students to their stores; the area's blood bank wanted to increase donations. Both clients assumed that all students at the university would be the target group. Surveys and focus groups conducted by the public relations students indicated otherwise. Upperclassmen were al­ready set in their ways. If they had not previously shopped in the stores near campus, and if they had not previously donated blood, the indica­tions were that it would be very difficult to change their behaviors with a one-shot information campaign.

Instead, the student-run agencies decided to target incoming fresh­men for long-range programs aimed at creating and maintaining be­haviors favorable to the clients' goals. First-year students have not fully formed their attitudes and behaviors. They are more susceptible to per­suasion than upperclass students who already have set patterns. The program prepared for the blood bank, for example, aimed not merely to get the first-year students to donate once, but to pledge a donation ev­ery semester while they are in college—an expected eight times during their career for a total donation of one gallon of blood. (The reward: a special symbol next to their names in the graduation program.)

Once target audiences have been selected, it is important to decide what message each group needs to receive from your organization. Rarely does an information campaign give precisely the same message to each of its publics. That's because careful analysis shows that each public has a different stake in the organization. When Cleveland Scholarship Programs, Inc., an organization that helps disadvantaged inner-city stu­dents attend college, used the occasion of its twentieth anniversary to highlight its contributions to the community, its public relations agency specified three key publics and a slightly different message for each of them:"

Audience  Message

Donors    "We've earned your support."

Educators "Our types of programs work."

News Media "The programs are worthy of news coverage."

Similarly, when the Grafted with Pride in U.S.A. Council—an industry coalition dedicated to promoting American-made apparel and fashions—planned a "campaign associated with the Miss America pageant, it spelled out three different audiences and distinct messages for each

Audience    Message

Retailers      "The Made in U.S.A. label is a valuable selling tool."

Manufacturers "Producing at home is good business."

Consumers  "Made in U.S.A. means quality."

 

Formulating different messages for different publics is worth the extra expense. A sophisticated management team knows it is important to tune in to the needs of each public and make certain that those needs are met.

We have learned to identify key publics and make sure that their information needs are served before we concern ourselves with the so-called general public. It follows, then, that the campaign or program aimed at the most important public is fully funded.

 

One of the tried-and-true public relations devices for creating aware­ness is the essay contest. When the competition for prize money, trips, or scholarships is offered to teachers as a way of getting students in­terested in writing, the campaign gains credibility by becoming a school-sanctioned activity.

At one point in the mid-1980s, both sides in the controversy over cigarette smoking were holding national essay contests. Philip Morris asked students to write essays discussing the effects of advertising bans on "free expression in a free market economy." The company of­fered a $15,000 grand prize, plus smaller awards for the best entry in each state. A coalition called Doctors Ought to Care (DOC) countered with a $1,000 essay contest that asked law students to write on the subject of "Are tobacco company executives criminally liable for the deaths, diseases and fires that their products cause?"

 

If key publics have not been identified in the planning stage, there is a likelihood that "a little money will be spent on this, and a little on that"—an advertisement here, T-shirts there, and probably an all-purpose brochure just because somebody says "we ought to have a brochure." Budgeting must follow the setting of goals and objectives, and it also must follow the identification of key publics. It precedes me­dia selection and message design.

If budgeting is done at the wrong point in the process, it is difficult for public relations people to explain their financial needs to management. If, on the other hand, the "homework" has been done, management can bet­ter understand the request for the dollars needed to accomplish the objec­tives set for the key publics.

An example is the dean of a college who willingly appropriated $5,000 for a dinner to be held for 100 selected alumni. The school's de­velopment staff could demonstrate tha t the $50 per head tab would be well spent. Research and personal contacts had identified each alum­nus as a person likely to support the school with a continuing annual contribution of $100 or more.

 

During the planning of a campaign or program, part of the analysis of each key public should include such questions as:

• Where do members of our key publics get their information?

• Which media do they rely upon to make decisions about what is important and how to behave?

• Which channels provide the two-way communication that en­ables key publics to provide information to our organization about their needs and concerns?

 

Another level of analysisfocuses on the characteristics of each medium and their relationship to the campaign or program:

• Which media allow us to get our point of view across most effectively?

• Which media are best suited to the information requirements of our campaign, such as the presenting of visual images, the need for two-way communication, or the ability to tell a story in depth?

• Which media are most cost-effective for this type of information?

 

Some of the data about media effectiveness can be obtained by checking the various guides, such as Bacon's Publicity Checker, for each type of medium. They list circulation for print media, audience break­downs for broadcast media, and geographic regions where penetration is greatest. Most every state has media guides produced specifically for the local or regional areas. Specialized references such as the annual Media Guide published by Polyconomics, Inc., analyze the audience for each publication in terms of liberal or conservative bias and involve­ment in various social issues.

Focus group interviews are another important tool for discovering here members of key publics get their information and which people are most influential in shaping the opinions of constituent groups Analysis of letters written to an organization sometimes provides an indication of where involved and information-seeking audience members are getting their data, and which members of the community are influencing them through which channels of communication

If the objective is to inform the greatest number of people so that they (I) I know about a program your organization is conducting, and (2) have a positive view of that program, then the news media—television, radio and newspapers—may be the best channel. But if you must convince the leaders of influential but small professional organizations to support an issue, then articles in specialized business or public affairs magazines may better explain the complex issue and convince the leaders to "deliver" the support of the members of their organizations.

Careful analysis often shows that mass media are not sufficient. Direct, face-to-face communication with key individuals may be the necessary channel.

The majority of public relations programs involve the application of tried-and-true devices: plant tours, informational brochures, press brief­ings, speeches, news releases, and audio-visual presentations. Mastering the preparation of standard message formats is, in the long run, more im­portant than coming up with clever gimmicks for capturing the atten­tion of publics and the media.

All that aside, creativity has its place in public relations, and we would be remiss if we failed to acknowledge that many a campaign takes off because somebody comes up with a clever concept on which to pin a solid program. An appropriate example is a Silver Anvil award-winning campaign by a small agency working on behalf of a small firm with a specialized service: laundering baby diapers. In this campaign, "crea­tivity" was not a panacea in itself. It was the frosting on the cake for a public relations idea whose time had come.

Some other examples of creative boosts for public relations cam­paigns:

Ralston Purina used a doggie beauty pageant hosted by Bert Parks to introduce its new Dog Chow for small dogs;

Procter and Gam­ble held a Sing-Off in shower stalls to promote Coast soap, with the fi­nals at Radio City Music Hall hosted by, again, Bert Parks;

to increase sales, the Rockport Shoe Company founded the Rockport Walking In­stitute to study walking and the Rockport Fitness Walking Test to pro­mote the Institute's findings that walking is America's most popular form of cardiovascular exercise;

because transatlantic bookings were down, British Airways arranged a lottery for Americans who booked passage to London, with the winners joining Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at home for tea.

Strategic management

Once again: organizations use strategic management to relate their missions to their environments. They use strategic management to identify oppor­tunities and dangers in the environment; to develop strategies for ex­ploiting the opportunities and minimizing the dangers; and to develop, implement, and evaluate the strategies. Without strategic management, organizations have little choice other than to "live from day to day and to react to current events."

Organizations plan public relations programs strategically, therefore, when they identify the publics that are most likely to limit or enhance their ability to pursue the mission of the organization, and when they design communication programs that help the organization manage its interdependence with these strategic publics.

In contrast to this strategic approach, most organizations carry out the same public relations programs year after year without stopping to determine whether they continue to communicate with the most strate­gic publics. As time passes, however, organizations forget the initial reason for the programs and continue communication programs for publics that no longer are strategic. Public relations then becomes routine and ineffective because it does little to help organizations adapt to dynamic environments.

We will look at each of the stages in the process in more detail. First, however, we contrast the strategic planning process for public relations with the strategic process for marketing. Note that the first three steps in strategic planning for public relations are described as "stages" rather than "steps," because they describe the evolution of publics and issues.