CGD 318 Week 5 Assignment – Final Paper

Final Paper

CGD318: Public Relations Practices & Promotional Writing

Whether the organization is non-profit or for-profit public relations are extremely important. Having to spend substantial amounts of time researching and effectively communicating with an organization’s leaders so they can communicate appropriately to the public is what it takes for public relations professionals. The public relations professionals must use promotional writing to persuade the public to act a certain way depending on the organization’s mission and task at hand (Seitel, 2015). These writing skills need to be superb in order to clearly and concisely get information relayed to the public in the most direct way. To effective establish and maintain a brand public relations is vital to an organization. Public influence of an organization along with its success or failure is determined by the efforts and research of the public relations professionals.

Starting off their task by thinking of the direction they are going to with before they begin the project. They must be creative compiling old with new ideas to make the project as appealing as possible to reach out to the target audience during the thinking process. Once all these ideas are complied then the public relations writer can begin with the rough draft process. With this process the writer needs to put these ideas on paper to get a visual of what they are trying to sale to that particular audience. After the rough draft the pitch needs to be simplified so the target audience gets the right understanding. It is vital that the writers ensure the message is geared to the proper audience and persuades the audience in their favor.

Nike a well-known organization for its brand, catchy logo and products that has over years built a powerful organization. They have built this powerful organization by using up-to-date and popular strategies to reach target audiences in the United States or foreign countries. Selling multiple items like apparel, footwear, sports equipment and memorabilia meeting the supply and demand of their customers. The organization used public relations to create and strengthen its brand providing customers with quality products keeping them coming back for more.

With the assistance of their phenomenal public relations team Nike continues to establish many means to communicate to their audience constructing great products for the Nike organization to continuously produce. Using strategies like commercial, magazines, newspaper ads, social media websites or even blogs the public relations team for Nike always persuades their target audience to purchase items from their organization. Providing products for different ages, gender specific in different regions it seems as if they always have the correct method of persuasion to draw attention to merchandise old/new to offer to the public.

Nike uses their sponsored athletes to aide promoting merchandise, which has been beneficial for them over the years without letting them down. This method has persuaded the public hugely impacting the sale of merchandise by the company, because people seeing athletes wearing the same merchandise they too will want to purchase those items. Reason being is because many people see these athletes as role models they look up to and inspire to be like. Another tactic Nike uses is sponsoring athletic events, sports teams, and camps along with their athletes. This too attracts fans that see the Nike symbol everywhere, which tremendously helps their sells rise while they continue to profit and make more products.

Staying up to speed with the ever changing of social media sites the public relation professionals of Nike have managed to adapt reaching customers because the organization continues making huge profits from the products they produce whether new or old. Twitter the most used social media site the organization uses as a tool to reach out around the world. Allowing the organization to notify the public quickly in the event that Nike creates new products, services, and applications. Some reporters use Twitter to collect information and provide real-time updates on news events (Seitel, 2015). Using hash tags on twitter to post new merchandise or ideas enables widespread of the post to followers just by the fact they are associated with the topic.

Facebook is the third choice following blogs and Twitter for public relations professionals that use social media on a regular basis (Seitel, 2015). Grasping the attention of audiences by creating group pages Nike uses Facebook for a fan base, to get likes, and subscribers. Posting photographs, and inspirational videos normally featuring athletes, is how the organization attracts people, accumulate shares and likes within their community pages. Not used as much by public relations professionals because it requires broadcasting videos YouTube is another social media platform. Using YouTube to get ideas for complex pieces or responding to crisis management persuading their target audience on what they stand for and making an apology on behalf of the organization.

Over the recent years Nike has faced some crises, some of which were addressed and handled by their public relation professionals others weren’t. A particular crisis that was face some years ago was labor conditions of sweatshops in foreign countries. Another one was cross-cultural crisis where the markings on the back of some Nike Airs were thought to be offensive by Muslims. Lastly there was a lot of turmoil caused by the Colin Kaepernick “Just Do It” campaign, which brought negative attention to the organization. Kaepernick was a former National Football League (NFL) quarterback who would kneel or sit during the national anthem before the games. This was in protest to racial injustice that was taking place in the United States. His goal was to be the voice of African Americans who were being beaten and killed by police.

Spreading across the NFL like wildfire not only individual players but teams also took a knee in support of the cause of Colin Kaepernick’s protest. During the season President Trump suggested to the commissioner of the NFL to fire any player who wouldn’t stand during the anthem. In light of the controversy no team would sign Colin Kaepeernick once he became a free agent after the season was over. Not letting this deter them Nike continued to have him as part of their campaign. The company’s stock and profit rose significantly once the word spreaded. There was plenty who were not happy with Nike’s decision and a lot of them turned their back on the company but it would not affect the company financially.

Nike’s public relations campaign differs from a non-profit organization like the American Red Cross. Although Nike is for-profit and American Red Cross is non-profit they also have similarities. For-profit organizations are constructed to earn profits from its goods, services, or business practices they offer to consumers. Nike would be the example of a for-profit organization due to their services and selling of merchandise to customers worldwide while making profits from it. Working extremely hard worldwide to advertise and persuade people to buy their products to increase revenue is the primary goal of Nike’s public relations campaigns.

Constructed for purposes to not gain profit from the public and staffed by volunteers to provide goods and services free of charge to people in need. American Red Cross, a non-profit organization who is mainly staffed with volunteers with all donations, products, and services provided free to those who are in need. Campaigns in charge of the two types of organizations are also very similar from what most may believe. They both strive to be the best providing support and working hard to do so. Regardless of the number of tasks they have on their hands the public relations professionals main goal and priority one is to persuade the audience to support their organization in order to be successful. They both also have their goals, which represent success for their organizations, for-profit sees success in revenue and non-profit sees success in volunteer hours and donations.

Any organization whether a non-profit or for-profit, public relations is and always will be vital. These professionals need to be on the A game to provide their organization with the best products possible to be successful. Nike’s public relations professionals have shown to be successful year after year which is evident by the tons of profits from providing consumers with their quality products and services. Utilizing in depth research, attention to detail, and excellent writing can make a great public relations professional along with making or breaking an organization. In this line of work every public release counts..

References

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Gibson, K. (September 25, 2018). Colin Kaepernick is Nike’s $6 billion man. In CBS NEWS. Retrieved February 9, 2019, from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/colin-kaepernick-nike-6-billion-man/.

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McDonald, S. (September 29, 2018). 3 Controversies That Have Surfaced After Nike’s Colin Kaepernick Ad. In Footwear News. Retrieved February 9, 2019, from https://footwearnews.com/2018/focus/opinion-analysis/nike-colin-kaepernick-ad-controversy-1202686262/.

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