Public relations (PR) involves managing the communications and relationships of a business to achieve various objectives by generating attention from the media. According to our marketing course textbook, one of these objectives is to build and maintain a positive image of the firm. However, a blog post ‘Brand reputation and why all PR is actually good PR (unless you’re already famous)’ on the ‘Influential Marketing Blog’ (link below) got me thinking about the potential effect of public relations.

Creating brand awareness is an important objective. In the introductory stage of the product life cycle, consumers need to know about the new product, referred to in the mentioned blog post as ‘the challenge of obscurity’. In the maturity/decline stages, consumers often need to be reminded of the product. Especially for companies with a strong vision and core values, maintaining a good reputation is essential.

If any PR really was good PR, wouldn’t marketers have a simpler job? If any kind of attention a company is attracting will be beneficial then companies wouldn’t invest so much time and money in coming up with the right promotion and activities for the company to be associated with.

In 2012, during Hurricane Sandy, the clothes retailer American Apparel sent out emails offering a 20 percent off sale if customers typed “SANDYSALE” in the online checkout “in case you’re bored during the storm.” This sparked a lot of controversy especially on Twitter, with mainly very negative responses. Attempting to promote their products during a tragic natural disaster was extremely inconsiderate and a clear example of when PR can harm the way consumers feel about a company.

Therefore, I think it is important to focus on what consumers are actually saying about a brand rather than simply ensuring it is being talked about.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2012/10/31/american-apparels-hurricane-sandy-sale-brilliant-or-boneheaded/

After reading Ryan’s blog post ‘Tim Hortons Gets Artsy’ about Tim Hortons’ new advert, I agreed that it was quite effective and it got me thinking about how competitive the coffee market is.

The Tim Hortons commercial is essentially a description of their distribution channel, how their coffee gets to the customer, from sourcing the coffee beans to buying a cup of coffee in the store, portrayed in a very artistic way.

Consumers have a variety of options in this market, which means that companies really need to work on differentiating their product/brand somehow. This is backed up by Ryan’s points about Tim Hortons attempting to retain market share by promoting the quality of its coffee. I think that locating in the right areas is also an important factor, as many times consumers will simply get their coffee at the nearest coffee shop if they don’t have strong preferences for a certain company.

It is interesting to contrast this promotion that Tim Hortons uses to the promotional tactics of smaller less known coffee shops. I was reminded of when Andrew McKee, the owner of Great Dane Coffee located in UBC gave us a first-hand perspective on this in our marketing class. He mentioned that the promotion of his shop was mainly by word-of-mouth and if you have a good product, consumers will themselves recommend it to others. This seems to be an example of when social factors affect the consumer decision process, in this case recommendations from family/friends and reference groups.

Therefore, I think even though both of these are coffee shops offering similar products, each of them will decide on their promotion based on their resources and what their customers seem to respond well to.

Tim Hortons coffee cup

Great Dane coffee cup