STC 201 Article - PRSA Silver Anvil Winners PDF

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Professor Weiting Tao...

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STC 201

Supplemental Reading: Review of PRSA’s Silver Anvil Winning Campaigns o To what extent are the Silver Anvil campaigns conducting research before and during campaign implementation?  Over half use complicated primary research, 1/3 used simple, casual research  Less than half reviewed existing studies/secondary research  Most common: surveys, focus groups, in-depth interviews  Less common: communication audits, SWOT analysis, experiments  Two most common targets of research: the situation/problem facing the organization and stakeholders who were impacted by the proposed campaign  Also researched current organization and its abilities to carry out campaign, organization’s competitors, and legal implications of the proposed plan o What types of objective are Silver Anvil campaigns most likely to focus on?  All 420 campaigns had specified themes/focal points  Only 344 included an overreaching goal that included objectives underneath that goal  Only 34 were in response to crisis  More likely to be for publicity/promotional efforts—product/service launch, information awareness, branding/reputation management, celebrating organizational anniversaries, community building, political work—lobbying to elections, investor relations, nonprofit involvement— employee training/recruitment and promotion of conservation efforts  Average of 3.1 objectives  More action/behavior objectives than awareness/educational  Rarely included objectives focused on attitude change o To what extent are Silver Anvil campaigns using measurable objectives to guide their campaign development?  Every objective included a specific intended affect  Over half focused on a single target public  1/3 started with an infinitive  1/3 contained a measureable goal  1/5 specified end dates for the campaign o What campaign strategies were Silver Anvil campaigns most likely to employ?  Most targeted specific audiences  More than half also focused on a campaign for the entire general public

Many award-winning campaigns had a dual-purpose—sought to involve general public + had certain activities/messages designed for a very specific audience  1/3 did not include the media as a targeted audience  When specific audiences were targeted, media were most often the recipients, followed by other businesses, government officials, children and teenagers, women, racial or ethnic minority groups, the elderly, and LGBT community  Two-way asymmetry was the dominant model, then public information, two-way symmetry, press agentry  Most commonly used strategies were coalition building, sponsorship, audience participation activities  Lesser used strategies were highlighting the organization’s past performance and invoking activism  2 most common response strategies were to engage in pre-emptive action before the crisis evolved into a worse situation and corrective the behavior or policies of the organization that created the situation  1/5 of the crises cases used diversionary strategies  Less than 1/10 used a vocal commiseration strategy to connect with the impacted stakeholders  Organizations involved in crises more likely to go on the defense rather than offensive  A lot of event planning  5 most used tactics: news releases, media kits, press conferences, direct mail  Lesser used tactics: brochures and interviews on TV news programs  Virtual tactics (website, microsites, viral videos, blogs) used rarely due to recency o To what extent to Silver Anvil awards evaluate their campaigns?  Most said that objectives were simply met  Small percent said results were better than expected  1/5 claimed results far exceeded objectives  More action and awareness objectives were met than attitude change (acceptance  Dominant method of PR evaluation focused on amount of media impressions gathered by the planners, and a small amount advertising equivalency  Org. were most likely to base their campaign success on audience participation at special events, small number of sale figures, website visits, telephone calls to hotline phone numbers o To what extent do Silver Anvil Award winners incorporate the four elements of stewardship into their campaign planning?  Word stewardship was used very rarely when describing their continued PR programming 

However, orgs. still used stewardship routinely Most common aspect: making organizational decisions after consulting stakeholders  Relationship building and reporting were used more than reciprocity and responsibility o Are there noticeable trends across the 4 decades of Silver Anvil winning campaigns as to how they incorporate the ROPES process?  Strong emergence of research in campaign planning  No statistical difference in the specific types of primary research methods, but secondary and primary research have both become far more important in the last two decades  More recently focused on researching the situation, stakeholders, the organization, its competitors before jumping into campaign planning  Recent campaigns less likely to have an over-arching goal  Less likely to start their objectives properly with an infinitive  Less likely to focus their objectives on a specified stakeholder group based on statistical results that near significance  Objectives are more likely to include measurable goals  Decrease focus on org. past performance, resurgence of coalitions  Less PSA, paid television, radio commercials, newsletters, speeches, brochures  Media kits and virtual tactics on the upswing  Increase usage of evaluation methods  Action methods more popular  Use of word stewardship down, incline of responsible behavior by org. o Are there differences in how Silver Anvil award-winning campaigns managed by public relations agencies incorporate the ROPES process compared to nonagency winning campaigns?  Non-agency campaigns  Casual research  Research impact of the law  Public information  Include organizational performance/activism  Focus on evaluating campaign through awareness and attitude measures  Use word stewardship, relationship building, responsibility  Include paid television commercials, direct mail pieces, newsletters  Overarching goal, showed more PR sophistication in writing objectives (start with infinitive, specified ending deadline, focus on specific public)  PR agency campaigns  Secondary research and primary research  Used more content analysis  

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Research on stakeholders impacted, situation itself, competitors Better measureable dimension to objectives Two-way asymmetrical Sponsorship, audience participation More public service announcements, media kits, organizational websites, microsites, podcasts, special events, shared viral videos Focused more on action measures, used media impressions, sales figures, website visits to demonstrate success Combined measures of advertising equivalency to show impact More likely to consult with specific stakeholder groups...