Grayling Scotland director on public sector campaigns
Director of Grayling Scotland Billy Partridge sounded his thoughts on the relationship between public information campaigns and the communication channels that the public sector will now need to adopt.
Echoing a recent piece on The Drum website, Partridge said that online digital and PR would be complementary and cost effective routes for public sector messages.
Partridge said that public information campaigns would often rely on heavy advertising support due to their target markets being frequently broad and best reached through mass media, but added that with the lack of budget, this strategy is likely to change.
“The internet already plays a key role as the advertising industry now tends to integrate mainstream media campaigns with online components anyway. These days most campaigns have a digital element – for example, Talk to Frank exists online and a recent Scottish Government-backed TV ad campaign aimed at preventing suicides in Scotland promoted the Choose Life website and has consistent PR support, too,” he continued.
“Asking a PR strategy to deliver the same mainstream reach as a series of mass media adverts is not really applying horses for courses. PR can create editorial debate in a way advertising rarely achieves unless a creative is particularly controversial – PR can develop meaningful consumer conversations and affect consumer behaviour but it requires editorial validity to get there. As public information campaigns have a natural topicality, there is certainly a massive opportunity for PR to deliver long term consumer engagement with an issue.”
Discussing how he believed this would work, he added that the digital element of the communications would require ‘even closer scrutiny.’
“The first step may be for campaigns to start online rather than end there. Talk to Frank is a good example: it has credibility online and is supported with appropriate advertising. It’s a good model. The difference in the new economic climate is that a PR agency might be required to inform the development of an online campaign to ensure it retains editorial validity – something that has less relevance when you’re purchasing media space for an advert in support of a concept,” he continued.
“A further consideration is less sexy but equally important: control. So many public sector organisations are highly politicised and appreciating the political context of a public information campaign will be crucial, particularly if PR content is leading the overall campaign. The risk of drawing attention away from the key message would need to be managed and having a public affairs component to your offering is likely to be highly valued as a result.”
Last week, the Cabinet Office confirmed to The Drum that the Government had no plans to alter the spending freeze on marketing budgets following the spending review announcements made by Chancellor George Osborne.