Thoughts on Audience Targets and Ill-Advised PR Rules #MaristSM16

Below is my response to blog posts by Jannelle and Steve for Week 4's Discussion - Group 2

 

This week our readings focused, essentially, on knowing your audience.  Knowing one's audience has been something drilled into me, not just for this program but in other things I have done in my life.  While the concept of knowing one's audience was familiar to me, the way to go about doing so, from a social media or public relations perspective, was new to me.

 

Kerpen (2015) had an area in this week's readings that directly focused on how to reach the target audience with a series of statements aimed directly at the reader.  To create my own question in the same vein, and relate it to this week, I would say "just because you are a woman does not mean you do not want to watch the Superbowl."  The point was this,"No, you likely want to hear from companies and organizations based on your specific stated needs and interests" (Kerpen, 2015, p. 33).  He also makes a great point stating,"In the long run, the organizations that will win are the organizations that engage in positive, useful communications with their customers and prospects" (p. 41)

Scott also spent time, in his old rules vs. new rules format, on the same issue regarding an audience.  In the past, marketing and public relations focused on reaching the most amount of people to encourage them to buy a specific product or service.  Scott (2015) said, "Readers of my blog and those who have seen my talks know that I am very critical of the old return on investment (ROI) approach to measuring marketing and public relations success, an approach still popular today" (p. 183).  Though each approached the subject matter in different ways, both Kerpen and Scott know that the old way of marketing and public relations just does not work as it used to.  People expect a more personal approach not just in social media interaction but in marketing and public relations as well.

Question 1: Do you think P&G successfully identified and engaged its target audience with #ThankYouMom?

 

You know, I was just thinking about the #ThankYouMom campaign last week.  I do not remember if it was because of one of the blog posts I read or something in our class Facebook group.  So I am glad that we have the opportunity to revisit this campaign.  Even though I have learned that the commercials still make me cry.  (haha!)

 

I definitely think P&G successfully identified and engaged its target audience.  I remember from discussions last year that there was concern because in some families it was not necessarily the mother who took care of the child or brought the child to skating practice or whatever.  But I think re-watching the ad, though it featured mothers and their children, it made me think of my parents, both my mom and my dad.  Emotionally I was tied to the mother-child relationship and that might have been the original target audience for P&G.  But here is something kind of funny.  That ad was aired during the Olympics in 2014.  I do not remember seeing the ad much after the Olympics were over.  So my thought is, was the target audience actually very specific to parents of athletes or the athletes themselves as opposed to it being a general parent/child relationship?  If that is the case, P&G was very strategic to have such a specific audience in mind, but still be able to relate to non-athletic families, like myself, who thought more about thanking my parents for other things, like supporting me during my graduate school journey.
 

Question 2:  Expanding on Scott's example of leaders still using old rules of PR, write about one rule by leaders in your workplace that you believe is ill-advised in this new world of social media marketing. How would you go about explaining to leaders why a new approach is critical?

As I started my blog post, I used a quote from Scott (2015) speaking about the Return on Investment (ROI) way of marketing.  I think often at the higher education level a lot is placed on the number of students accepted at a school and how many students that school graduates a year.  While those numbers are impressive, I think a focus needs to change in terms of what the education establishment itself does as opposed to statistics on accepted and graduated students.  Being an employee and alumni of Marist College has had great benefits, not just in terms of what is offered (like free education) but also the pride of being a #RedFoxForLife.  Social media allows those who have pride in their place of education and employment to share that pride not just with those in their personal network but around the world, where ever their social ties reach.  Yes, having money come in from new students is a good thing.  But being able to see the reach of Marist outside of the campus environment and through social media is a much larger benefit, I think.  And it is one we should definitely expand upon.



Kerpen, D. (2015). Likeable social media. (2nd ed.). United States: McGraw Hill Education.

Scott, D. M. (2015). The new rules of marketing and PR. (5th ed.). Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.