Page 506 - Foundations of Marketing

Advertising and Public Relations | Chapter 16 473

Entrepreneurship in Marketing

Pass Christian Soap Co. Experiences the Benefits of Publicity

Pass Christian Soap Company understands the power Lindsey was unable to find many domestic soap products
of publicity. After Good Morning America (GMA) anchor in bath and body shops. She decided to open up Pass
Robin Roberts praised the Pass Christian Soap Company Christian Soap Company as a truly American business.
on the show, sales at the company skyrocketed. Owner Since then, Pass Christian products have caught the
Paula Lindsay claims that the company sold $ 200 , 000 in eye of many different magazines, including Coastal Living
two days. and Southern Breeze. However, its feature on GMA made
Pass Christian Soap Company advertises itself as the the difference. Sales became so intense that Lindsey
“makers of luxurious handmade bath and body prod- hired 13 more staff workers and rented another building
ucts.” Consumers also love it for its “Made in America” to complete orders. With sales remaining strong, Pass
marketing. The idea for the company occurred when Christian Soap Company is optimistic about the future.
d

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content analysis of messages, a readability study, or a readership survey. If an organization
wants to measure the extent to which stakeholders view it as being socially responsible, it can
conduct a social audit.
One approach to measuring the effectiveness of publicity-based public relations is to count
the number of exposures in the media. To determine which releases are published in print
media and how often, an organization can hire a clipping service, a firm that clips and sends
news releases to client companies. To measure the effective-
ness of television coverage, a firm can enclose a card with its
publicity releases requesting that the television station record
its name and the dates when the news item is broadcast
(although station personnel do not always comply). Some
multimedia tracking services exist, but they are quite costly.
Counting the number of media exposures does not reveal
how many people have actually read or heard the company’s
message or what they thought about the message afterward.
However, measuring changes in product awareness, knowl-
edge, and attitudes resulting from the publicity campaign
helps yield this information. To assess these changes, com-
panies must measure these levels before and after public
relations campaigns. Although precise measures are difficult
to obtain, a firm’s marketers should attempt to assess the
impact of public relations efforts on the organization’s sales.
For example, critics’ reviews of films can affect the films’
box office performance. Interestingly, negative reviews
(publicity) harm revenue more than positive reviews help
30
revenue in the early weeks of a film’s release.
Dealing with Unfavorable
Public Relations Pepsi Cola Company

Thus far, we have discussed public relations as a planned
element of the promotion mix. However, companies may
have to deal with unexpected and unfavorable publicity Annual Reports as a Public Relations Tool
resulting from an unsafe product, an accident resulting Annual reports such as this one from PepsiCo serve as public rela-
from product use, controversial actions of employees, or tion tools for a variety of stakeholders.

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