Word-of-Mouth in Public Relations, Essay Example

Abstraction

The field of Public Relations is intrinsically a varied one. With multiple objectives in sight, an equally diverse set of tools and strategies is employed to achieve the desired results, and modern communication technologies are continually broadening the scope of opportunities in the industry. With better technology comes more accurate data regarding cause and effect. It is therefore all the more fascinating that, as the implementation of PR becomes increasingly fine-tuned, we find that perhaps the most ancient of all PR techniques still carries the greatest impact: word-of-mouth (WOM). It is this aspect of PR I see as truly compelling and potentially most influential, an attitude (perhaps unnecessarily) supported by the latest research.

Overview of the Field

There can be few businesses as inherently multifaceted as that of Public Relations. The name itself conjures an impossibly broad canvas of activity, goals, agendas and targets, all of which are subject to an immeasurable level degree. PR may be as complex and far-reaching an endeavor as a national instilling of a needed patriotism to support a global military action, and it is often as minimal as a campaign to sit on a local school board. Fundamentally, wherever there is a reason to attempt to influence opinion in any direction at all, PR is set in motion.

Advertising is the most readily grasped discipline in the PR canon in the public consciousness at large, if not the one first identified with it. It is tangible and it is direct. This is PR at its most straightforward, wherein the target of the activity understands the intent of it and is accepting of the approach. Whether the objective is to sell basketballs or tracts of land, the equation is relatively modest: learn what appeals to the target, offer the product with that appeal in mind, and connect the dots.

Even this seemingly linear process, however, relies upon the key component in all PR: communication. Channels must be open before any message of any kind can be conveyed, and this element is the single commonality in all PR disciplines. Employers wish to inculcate a widespread corporate philosophy,  a nonprofit requires a better educated public in order to generate financial support, a pop star has an image problem demanding a fast reversal: all of these are PR issues and all of them are wholly dependent upon, optimally, the best means of communicating available.

As is common knowledge, the rise of the Internet has had a literally incalculable effect on how PR functions in all its myriad forms. The Net is about three primary things: communication, the speed of it, and the immense information now accessible to anyone with a computer. It is in a  sense the quintessential PR medium, a means by which both previously unthinkable gains and  heretofore impossible mistakes can occur. The Internet and its ancillary communicative tools are now, in essence, the atmosphere in which PR breathes and lives.

The Power of Word-of-Mouth

Thus is it all the more remarkable that WOM loses none of its traditional power. On the contrary, studies continually reveal that this single aspect of the industry is rising in sway, notably brought to light in the Hong/Yang article cited below.

This aspect is to me the most intriguing and challenging concept and strategy within the PR arsenal. There is no method of PR as time-honored and as old-fashioned, yet cutting-edge technological advances only serve to highlight how primal and potent a means of PR it is. More precisely, communication and presentation innovations actually underscore and support the WOM currents; they act as high-tech handmaidens to a largely immutable and unvarying behavioral force. People, first and foremost, insist upon sharing their viewpoints and opinions with other people. How they do this, and how quickly it is done, remains extraneous to the crucial intercourse itself.

The difficulty lies, not unexpectedly, in attempting to analyze and forecast such a universal and diffuse activity. So do I now turn to the article selected as a telling report on the state of WOM within the Public Relations superstructure.

Support and Documentation

In Effects of Reputation, Relational-Satisfaction, and Customer-Company Identification on Positive Word-ofMouth Intentions (Hong, Yang, 2009), the authors diligently collect and treat extensive data on WOM. In true scholarly fashion they begin with a comprehensive assessment of the impact of WOM as it has been perceived since it was first regarded as worthy of study, in the 1950’s. This approach of the article confirms its raison d’etre; by acknowledging the import of WOM as initially brought to light in earlier days, it reaffirms both the maintained impact of WOM and the need to delve more deeply into its processes.

That word-of-mouth is an important, if not crucial, PR stratagem is reinforced with citations from leading authorities in the field. “The power of WOM communication comes from the fact that people consider personal sources of information to be more trustworthy than any other sources.” This declaration from K.B. Murray in a 1991 Journal of Marketing article acts much as a keystone for the entire Hong/Yang treatment. WOM is the classic ‘grapevine’, the often obscure but enormously influential means by which opinion is shaped, and Hong and Yang clearly devote the rest of their work to it because of this irrefutable importance in any study of PR.

Focusing upon WOM, then, as the backbone of PR it is, Hong and Yang seek to pin down a more precise definition by contrasting ideological expressions from leaders in the field, with an emphasis on isolating positive intentions within WOM practitioners. What is the keynote here, in generating positivity? Their sources invariably, and in some didactic language indeed, refer to trust issues, and Hong and Yang then set off to employ ‘reputation quotient’ formulae in assessing the current state of WOM. Parenthetically, they make it clear that no real empirical evidence yet ties reputation to positive WOM intentions, but are seemingly willing to accept the correlation as inevitable.

From here the authors embark upon a truly dizzying course of citations and shifting meanings, briefly touching upon issues of social identity, valued persona, organizational behaviors, and a good deal more. The core of the article selects Starbucks Coffee Company and Apple, Inc. as objects of specific study and, employing complex conceptual models, analyzes the relational and reputation factors as feeding into the corporate identities of each, which in turn add up to the positive WOM intentions generated. Both companies, as predicted, fare well in these equations.

The remainder of the article is devoted to percentile breakdowns of the college-age study participants, culminating in a truly impressive table of distinct reactive measurements. Qualitative criteria range from ‘Get my friends/family to buy’ (a WOM positive intentions variable) to ‘feels like a personal insult’ (a customer-company identification factor). The article concludes with a segment on the implications of this study on Public Relations, determining, not unexpectedly, that companies with favorable reputations are more likely to enjoy better WOM.

Conclusion

It would be an unfair disparagement to criticize the Hong/Yang research as ‘too scholarly’. They set out to analyze a subject and did so exhaustively, with literally dozens of sources turned to. Nonetheless, there was a point in the article, and not long into it, when I perceived that a greater emphasis on data may undermine the result sought. Any aspect of Public Relations must encompass and acknowledge limitations of research in so behavioral, if not mercurial, a field. Collecting data in such a realm is much like charting currents in violently stormy seas; public perception is a notoriously changeable thing, and Apple’s esteemed status may drop radically upon the release of one poor product next month.

What matters in PR is a deeper understanding of what sets favorable WOM in motion to begin with: trust, liking, and an impetus to carry on a good word. It is really that basic and I personally find it extraordinary that so much work had to go into validating so elementary an aspect of human behavior. The article is sound by all scholarly precepts, but its relentlessly formulaic and mathematical modes are off-putting and, ultimately, unnecessary.

Reference

Hong, Soo Yeon and Yang, Sung-Un (2009). Effects of Reputation, Relational Satisfaction, and Customer-Company Identification on Positive Word-of-Mouth Intentions, Journal of Public Relations Research, 21: 4, 381 – 403.