Going Beyond TSL in Campaign Planning

by Ronald Jabal

Even among professional practitioners of Public Relations (PR), research is frowned upon. Many claim, they don't have budget for research while some argue it is not necessarily needed - after all they claim to know their audiences well enough. Research, for them, will only validate what they already know and is considered a mere expense.

Hence, many practice what I call, the TSL-approach in PR i.e. Tingin Sa Langit approach. When asked to do a PR campaign, they will look up in the sky and hopefully find some answers there. Funny isn't it? Unfortunately, it is not far from the truth.

One only has to look at the current PR plans of a number of corporations to validate this assertion. Instantly, you will see media relations and publicity activities dominating most of the plans. In fact, not a few equate PR with media relations despite knowing there is more to PR than media relations and publicity.

Given the apparent penchant of some PR practitioners to use publicity to promote their respective corporations, one is left to wonder whether they are truly reaching their intended/target audiences.

Do their firms' audiences read newspapers, watch TV and listen to radio where these PR practitioners place their publicity materials? If the audiences were able to see/read/hear the messages, how do PR practitioners know whether their intended messages were the ones read/understood by their audiences?

How many were reached by the publicity activities? Did the publicity work really reach the intended audiences or were they read by other audiences that could be not important to the PR's firm?

These are just some of the tons of questions that PR practitioners need to answer and defend when they continue to practice the TSL approach. Hence, there is a need for some science in how PR practitioners develop and implement campaign plans. There is a need for Research in the way PR practitioners practice PR.

Given the changed consumer environment, what with the existence of more media channels now, the impatient audiences, and the increasing number of competing messages, the PR practitioners cannot afford not to do research in their campaigns.

The PR's ultimate goal now is to standout from the clutter!

Now more than ever, there is a need to conduct careful audience profiling: from demo, psycho to media consumption with this mantra: SEGMENT SEGMENT SEGMENT!

Now more than ever, strategic channel mix that is tailorfitted to meager resources needs to be developed - "PR is not a one sided love affair". Current environment calls for the adoption of multi-channel and multi-platform approaches.

Now more than ever, the PR needs to prove its worth through evidenced-based evaluation of its performances - "Don't just Count, Find out!".

It is no longer enough to merely count clippings, compile slant profiles and conduct advertising-equivalency-ratio. In the period of "value for money" and "ROI", the PR needs to prove that its investments are worth every penny by showing numbers: number of people who consumed the PR efforts; whether their publics understood the message; and if these audiences perform the behavior being pushed by the message.

While knowledge and awareness are important, attitudinal and behavioral changes should be the measure of success.

Today more than ever, there is no longer a place for TSL. A research-based approach in PR planning and campaigns should be the order of the day.