When the world first progressed in discovering world issues, it took sometime for the news to travel, it took sometime because it did not have social media at its disposal and the evolution of media hadn’t yet taken place. It wasn’t until Johannes Gutenberg’s 15th century invention of the movable type printing press, books were painstakingly handwritten, thus, no two copies were the same. From this forth print media became possible and print press made the mass production of mass media possible. This form of media is extremely cost effective and it still used to today by news brands as well as public relations as the art of writing, thus, has become a skill to acquire towards the success of those in the field of communications.
“A brand is no longer what we tell the customer it is — it is what customers tell each other it is.” — Scott Cook
The rise of social media and other forms of media that are owned by few companies who run what is seen and what is not, made progress of discovering world issues much faster and now no matter what happens and where its almost found immediately, as diverse concerns arise in the world affecting one another at an increase rate and since import and export are shared internationally, new alliances formed through politics for the purpose of fostering relationships but also allow countries to share resources that allow the development of certain products not only possible but available to people in the country who not have them unless an alliance was formed with that specific country (for example countries that have oil reserves, exported to certain countries creating trade alliances). Why is this important to know and understand? As the world of business grows the complexity that come from diverse cultures who the world shares resources with can be felt by factory shut downs and protest that stimulate the ripple effect of a less integrated international consumer relations as the world continues to expend and become more diverse.
“Consumer relations is the process in which an organization creates and maintains a positive relationship with their consumers. Although the act of buying and selling in the past did entail building relationships with customers and suppliers, it was not as detailed or complex as it is today” (Haire, n.a). This definition represents how the world is becoming more integrated as diverse issues are starting to affect the world just as equally as at one point it could be difficult for anyone to escape since businesses are attempting to settle into diverse cultures and countries the issues that tend to happen in one country are easily heard in other. In the 21st century, this is one big integrated world, connected by social media and the net, with companies operating around the globe. And companies even the largest and most powerful must be sensitive to the notion that when you err in some far off place, the word travels round the world in seconds.
The rise of media in every form possible made the ability for the world to connect much easier but it also made the issues and downfalls of any business more amplified. “In Korea, giant Samsung Electronics met a similar fate after suffering a corporate crisis when batteries in its best-selling cell phones exploded. In 2017, when the company began recovering from the crisis, it suffered an internal political scandal for offering bribes to the country’s President. Ultimately, Samsung’s co CEO stepped down and the heir to the Samsung business empire was sentenced to five years in jail” (Seitel, 2019). More recently, companies have broadened the consumer relations function to encompass such activities as developing guidelines to evaluate services and products for management, developing consumer programs that meet consumer needs and increase sales, developing field-training programs, evaluating service approaches, and evaluating company effectiveness in demonstrating concern for customers.
“Our attitude towards others determines their attitude towards us.” — Earl Nightingale
That is where integrated marketing communication comes in handy as it bridges the gap between where marketing and advertising is today and allows Public Relations the use of unbiased, objective, third-party endorsement to relay information about that organization’s products and practices. With so many media outlets bombarding consumers daily, most organizations realize that public relations can play an expanded role in marketing. As the world shares in the joys it also shares in the downfall of a company since by that time there would have been a lot of people who would have used that certain companies services and products. Customer relation is becoming its own separate department for a lot of businesses as complaints of certain companies become unavoidable when they haven’t done enough to foster the appropriate relationship with consumer, thus, the action of a single mishap could backfire on a company completely depending on what it is. Integrating marketing communications allow the understand of how news travels from one place to another but also how to avoid any mishap that could happen in another country with the release of a service or a new product. For this reason also when the downfall happens of a country it is immediately heard in another country making it difficult to enter the market.
In conclusion the value of third-party endorsement is the primary reason smart organizations value product publicity. Third-party endorsement, as noted, refers to the tacit support given a product by an “objective” third-party observer — a blog, newspaper, magazine, tweet, or broadcast — which mentions the product as “news.” and since advertising often is perceived as self-serving. People know that the advertiser not only created the message but also paid for it. Publicity, on the other hand, generally carries no such stigma for this reason publicity appears to be news and is more trustworthy than advertising that is paid for by a clearly nonobjective sponsor. In order for consumers to understand different concerns and how they are based on culture and language the use of PR can allow for a better integrated marketing communication and and create the ability to have an international consumer relations through the tactics of gathering intel before entering the county. Public Relations allows all of that to be possible as it creates a channel of communication that others cannot ignore setting a tone for business to understand what it means to enter the specific culture.
References:
Haire, L. (n.a). What is consumer relations? — Definition, Examples & Issues. Study. Retrieved from https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-consumer-relations-definition-examples-issues.html#:~:text=Consumer%20relations%20is%20the%20process,complex%20as%20it%20is%20today.
Seitel, P, F. (2019). The practice of public relations (14th edition). Publisher Pearson. Retrieved from VitalSource.com
