Staying in a positive light is getting harder. Besides the aforementioned bad press, traditional media is dying out. There are less reporters reporting on business in traditional media. This makes it much harder to get positive stories into the press. In addition, companies need to deal with new media on the Internet that allows people to post whatever they want. Companies must now worry about blogs like this one and take action to fight negative press. This greater need for public relations and media monitoring is surely to continue even when the economy improves. Doing business in the capitalist economy is bound to change very soon.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Good News
This article discusses how firms have started to spend more money on public relations as a whole. Spending rose 4% in 2008 and 3% in 2009. Much of this has come in the wake of the global recession. Companies have faced negative press in the wake of government bail-outs and huge company bonuses. This negative press could easily bring down a company. In a capitalist economy, only companies that can stay popular and sell products will survive. Those who cannot will be forced to leave the market.
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3 comments:
Chris, you make lots of great points and I really enjoy the article. To your last line I would add, not only is it bound to change, but it is changing right before our very eyes. Most of the press that we hear about corporations is bad press (at least in my experience) and companies as you mention must find new ways to get "good press". In the wake of the bad press that these big execs. received, companies surely have already begun to find new ways to make good press and distinguish themselves from dihonest corporations.
While the internet has given PR a big boost for companies, the Domino’s Pizza mini incident that was posted online, as stated in the article, didn’t help them any. Domino’s did respond to the negative things that consumers were saying about the taste of the pizza in order to attract more customers. With all the fierce competition between big named pizza companies, Domino’s has changed a few of their key ingredients to create a better tasting pizza so they can sell more of their product.
I really enjoyed this article especially because I am also a Journalism major however as is the nature of the beast, I will boldly say that most news outlets, no matter the medium or affiliation always attempt to thrive on bad news rather than positive news. Thus I understand the necessity for companies to spend large amounts on PR rather than advertising however as David points out, there are sometimes uncontrollable factors that cause firms to require PR assistance. I personally believe that companies should focus more on their products and services because when I read that Public Relations firms or companies are being employed at a more rapid rate, I picture more and more companies making mistakes thus requiring damage control.
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