July 28 is PR Specialist Day in Russia. It is a professional holiday for those whose activities are aimed at creating and maintaining a positive image of an organization. On the eve of the holiday, Anna Cheredniakova, Deputy Director of the Institute of Media, Social Sciences and Humanities, Head of the Office for Marketing, Branding and Strategic Communications, and Kseniia Zabolotneva, Head of the Public Relations Department of the Office for Marketing, Branding and Strategic Communications of South Ural State University, spoke about the features and prospects of the profession.
– Anna, please tell us who a PR specialist is and how he differs from an advertiser?
– First of all, a PR manager is a public relations specialist responsible for the image of a company, the formation of a favourable image of the company in the face of the general public. Of course, the PR specialist also works with target groups as an advertiser, but his task is, first of all, to draw positive attention to the brand, to the organization and to arouse healthy interest. But if we are talking about an advertiser, then, in addition to the fact that advertising should attract attention and arouse interest, it must go through the following steps in consumer behaviour, and namely: arouse a desire to purchase a product and, finally, lead the consumer to this action so that it is accomplished, because advertising is still closer to the economy, marketing and specific indicators. Although the PR manager also has indicators that can be measured quantitatively. This is, for example, a certain number of people who subscribed to a particular account, left positive comments. That is, PR communications also cause some kind of response from the target audience.
– There are many branches in advertising today: marketing, neuromarketing. What are they and why is it necessary to create these spheres?
– Marketing and neuromarketing are not exactly branches of advertising. It’s actually quite the opposite, marketing is a complex that cannot exist without such components as Price, Place, Product and Promotion (the fourth "p" of marketing). And this promotion contains the whole complex of marketing communications, which includes advertising, PR, sales promotion, direct marketing, personal selling and a huge range of synthetic marketing communications in the form of exhibition and fair activities, event marketing, branding, merchandising and much more. The directions that are gaining popularity in the promotion system and marketing activities today are new ways of measuring consumer behaviour and their response, as well as additional ways of influencing consumer perception with some expected further action. Since today the goods and services market is overflowing with a large number of offers, people live in a competitive information field, which is also saturated with serious content that can withstand strong competition even with entertainment. Today's storytelling and original ways of promoting a product can compete, for example, with interesting TV series in their creativity. Not to mention how outdoor advertising has a very serious effect. Therefore, in this situation it is very important to be able to influence consumer behaviour more precisely.
Of course, neuromarketing is not a completely new direction since it actively entered the practice of application abroad already after 2010, and in domestic practice − after 2015, and today it is becoming more and more popular. It is necessary as it measures the unconscious reactions of a person, in other words, the most genuine reactions, where there is no excessive value judgment. Neuromarketing removes all screens of courtesy and tolerance, because with the help of special devices, most often medical ones, it monitors human reflexes and those associated with the skin-galvanic and circulatory systems, with impulses of brain activity. As for reflexes, this is primarily an eye tracker − a way to track the pupils of the human eye. In a conscious form, we practically do not notice how a large number of fixations occur on a particular object, but special equipment fixes it all. And due to these fixations, we can identify the "zones of the most attention of a person”, in order to further understand what to focus on, what attracts this person more. And, of course, with the help of an electroencephalograph, we can, for example, track in videos where there is the greatest emotional outburst, where there is a decline, thus assessing the level of positive or negative involvement in this process. Moreover, it is actively used in marketing and advertising areas, as all brands say, but no less actively in entertainment. The greater part of the most famous platforms in the world create their series based on neuromarketing research.
– Why is the profession of a PR specialist in demand today?
– First of all, today in the world where there is a large number of digital media, and where any content is available to us at arm's length, or even closer, almost everything a person does in his life needs to be promoted. Therefore, if we want to exist in a fairly successful state, especially in a professional environment, be it a scientific field of activity, entertainment or a market for goods and services of daily demand, everything needs to acquire a specific complete image, moreover, both verbal and pictorial. And this is exactly what PR specialists are able to do, but in combination with advertising specialists since it is not for nothing that the major is called "Advertising and Public Relations". It is already obvious that today it is impossible to get along with one means of marketing communications for effective promotion since it is always a union of creative specialists: art managers, copywriters, marketers, sales specialists. There are also technical directions, and such adherents of meanings are people who are methodologists and the ideological inspirers of many brands, with which they begin.
– What recommendations can you give to beginner PR specialist?
– One of the main recommendations is to have high stress resistance, readiness for constantly leaving your comfort zone and every day facing challenges that you may not be ready for and are unlikely to prepare for by studying at a university or college, because the temporality that exists in the world today is ahead of the curve. You can’t be ready for everything, so the property of the so-called flexibility, "pre-adaptation", according to academician A. Asmolov, is still very important here. All of this is extremely important for a PR specialist. And, in general, sociability, empathy, which many people are deprived of in the modern world. Life with gadgets has a downside: we lose natural live connections, communication, and a PR specialist must communicate in person a lot. This is the possession of speech skills, work with the public, work with beliefs, elements of self-presentation and a sincere belief in what you are doing. In other words, it is impossible to sell, promote a product, in which you do not believe and do not see its positive sides. As David Ogilvie said, "A surgeon can operate on a patient with indifference. A defence attorney can defend a murderer knowing that he is guilty. But the advertiser simply does not have the right to promote a product in which he is not sure."
– Kseniia, please tell us what qualities, in your opinion, a person of this profession should have?
– I believe that the main quality of a PR specialist is determination and perseverance. In this profession you can’t do without situations that require decisive, split-second measures. It is also impossible to do without love for your work. People with whom you are in dialogue must feel comfortable next to you and feel a reliable shoulder, after all, we often interview people who until recently have thought they had a fear of cameras. It is precisely at this moment that we must help them with a smile.
– SUSU has its own PR department. What is it engaged in? What is included in its competence?
– Right, we do have the Public Relations Department. We mainly work with external media. Every day, SUSU receives more than 5 to 10 requests for comment by a scientist, employee, or even just questions for which we ourselves must select an expert. Our task is to find, agree, organize, record and coordinate the entire process of writing a commentary. We also organize the presence of the media at major university events, write briefs, announcements, press releases, post-releases and much more. Of course, our range of work also includes the independent preparation of news within the headings or events. Our staff has an editor and a photographer who can multitask. In general, it is impossible to describe the whole range of our duties in a nutshell, we can only say that we do not sit still and go through a double norm of steps in a day, trying to solve work tasks.