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:"