Public Relations Artefacts

Group Document: Bec Hulme, Maxine Dabrowski, Sasha Adato, Amelia Caddy, Alyssa McLeod Public Relations For the purpose of this assessment, our group has decided to review all of our artefacts from a single professional areaís perspective, recontextualising the object in terms of the different viewpoints that the specific area brings to the analysis. This approach not only reinforces Jonathan Rabanís ideas on varying perspective, but also gives us an opportunity to look at each object from a different angle, and deepen our overall knowledge about another professional area. In this instance we have chosen to demonstrate how PR relates to Melbourne artifacts.

In analyzing our artifacts in their relation to the field of public relations, we began by first defining the field of public relations itself. Public Relations was defined by the group as encompassing; communicating and enhancing a company or organizations image to a target audience; predicting the way in which a message will be received and interpreted by the audience; and receiving and interpreting messages which their audience communicates. It has been officially defined as being "the art and social science of analyzing trends, predicting their consequences, counseling organizational leaders, and implementing planned programs of action…” (J. Zhao, Encyclopedia of Business). The field of public relations plays a crucial in establishing a relationship between a business entity and the public. Each of the five artifacts of the group was analysed and regarded in terms of how it related to different aspects of these definitions.

Artefact: Socio linguistics in Pop Music Since language might be considered the best method of communication, and now that globalization exists, the external influences in speech, slang, words, expressions, lyrics and literature has made Australian English experience changes, becoming more stimulated from American English, therefore loosing some original identity.

Youth music in Australia has long been said to involve an aping of American stylistic features including, significantly, accents. These performing accents are created for genre appropriateness in the Pop music industry. According to O’Hanlon in his research for the Australian Journal of Linguistics (2006), “All of the non-Hip Hop artists investigated employed phonological features which are common to North American varieties of English, and which would be absent from their natural speech as Australians�.

There is a strong relationship between PR and the Pop music industry in Australia or anywhere in the world, PR is a perception of public image and attempts to get attention from the public to the artists to create reputation and popularity. A good PR campaign involves a lot of money and publicity to recreate the personality of that artist and appeal to the mass.

For example, Holly Valance, is a Melbourne based model, actress and singer. She started as an actress but decided to pursue a career in the music industry in 2002 and became very popular. Her style is nothing innovative, her lyrics and songs are very predictable and her phonological structure doesn’t relate with Australian linguistics. She is just attractive, looks and sings like Britney Spears, and she has a good PR agent.

PR music campaigns are national, or international, processes that engage many people involved in the recording industry, such as ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association) one of the biggest record companies in Australia, the PR firm and the artist manager. ARIA controls all operations of ranking, recording and sponsoring the music industry in Australia. The ARIA Hall of Fame "honours Australian musicians’ achievements [that] have had a significant impact in Australia or around the world".

Without an organization like ARIA the music industry as it is known today would be very different.

Australian pop singers tend to adopt accents (most often the American accent) in their songs that are different to their Australian accents. This is due to the fact that foreign accents appeal more to the Australian public because there is more familiarization them in the pop world. “It could be risky and not sound as good”.

The “manual” on how to become a pop singer includes private classes on how to sing and sound like a real star. It seems that there is an established check-list for becoming a Pop singer. Musical talent is the last on the list, marketing strategy and PR campaigns come first.

Artefact: ‘West End Riot’ –The Living End These lyrics, taken from ‘West End Riot’ by The Living End, embody the stereotyped views held of residents of Melbourne’s eastern and western suburbs today, despite the song being written in the late 1990’s. These views see the majority of residents in Melbourne’s west as socially disadvantaged, poorly educated, and typically ‘blue-collar’ workers. The eastern suburbs on the other hand, are a place for the well educated, upperclass business owners. These stereotypes are not entirely without justification, indeed in many ways they align closely with aspects of reality. However, are these realities the result of Melbourne’s ‘organic’ development, or have they in part been artificially created by the public relations industry?

The public relations industry deals with the relationship between an organization or entity and its target audience. This includes the projection of a certain image to that audience, and interpreting how this image will consequently be received. It follows then, that defining the target audience is a principal part of the P.R practitioner’s job. L.

Morton’s article, ‘Segmenting by Neighborhoods’, demonstrates how P.R practitioners take projected views of neighbourhoods and cement them into defined “psychographic and sociographic characteristics” by creating 'groups' based upon them to help define target audiences. In doing so the practitioner can more easily predict how projected messages and images will be received and interpreted by the target audience.

This process helps explain how the PR industry communicates with this artefact, which projects the aforementioned views. Artefacts, such as ‘West End Riot’, project generalizations and stereotypes which the PR industry receives and interprets as reflections of reality, despite their origins (for example, 'West End Riot' is based on a reality more than ten years past). The industry reflects these views back onto their targeted audience, the public, through public relations practices, consequently turning the stereotypes into reality and ensuring their subsistence.

'West End Riot' itself explores the idea that stereotypes of Melbourne eastern and western suburbs ten years ago were true, but only because they were self-perpetuating.

As long as these stereotypes are kept alive in the minds of Melbournians, they will continue to affect reality. Public relations, through the practice of 'segmenting by neighborhoods', ensures that this happens. For example, a PR professional will likely tell an organization wishing to project an image of prestige that it will communicate most effectively with eastern suburbs. Consequently, the business will direct its image to that area, re-enforcing the association between the area and 'prestige'.

‘West End Riot’ also projects an association between Melbourne's west and factories. A P.R professional could thus assume the target audience for any kind of industry related business can be grouped into the area of western Melbourne. Efforts aimed at raising awareness of this businesses image would then be focused on the western suburbs. The image becomes self-perpetuating when factories begin moving to the area because of raised awareness of the existence of industrial companies there.

The way in which the public relations industry has received, interpreted, and reacted to stereotypes surrounding Melbourne's neighbourhoods has helped turn the imagined identities of Melbourne’s East and West into reality.

Artefact: Keep Cup The Keep Cup is a plastic reusable coffee cup made to barista size standards. Emphasis is places on the ‘environmentally friendly’ qualities of the cup, for example; buying and using a Keep Cup prevents the future usage of un-recyclable paper coffee cups, which consequentially minimises landfill waste, and the materials the Keep Cup is made out of

are designed to have a long life span, to be reusable and unbreakable, and eventually recyclable.

In Melbourne city, the Keep Cup is for sale at locations such as small vendor stands in prominent café and bar districts.

In relation to PR communications theory, the Keep Cup is attempting to send out a message of being ‘environmentally friendly’ and a sophisticated choice for the modern coffee drinker. However, this message is undermined by what is known as ‘greenwashing’ - the practice of companies disingenuously advertising their products and policies as environmentally friendly. It is disingenuous because a true focus on benefiting the environment would make a product such as the Keep Cup (which in turn stimulates further consumption; coffee, sugar, milk, etc) as necessarily immoral. At the end of the day, the Keep Cup is yet another product being pushed out onto the market, and is designed to create profit for the Keep Cup company.

The Keep Cup is a response to the public ‘green movement’; a heightened awareness of consumer impact on the natural environment. This movement is a sub-culture of Western consumerism, and a product such as the Keep Cup reinforces the ‘green’ market of the movement in Melbourne. It also reinforces the identity that Melbourne city attempts to create for its Melbournians, the identity of an enlightened, sophisticated, and cultured citizen. Hence, it communicates the message that the person using the Keep Cup is the ideal Melbournian – a global citizen.

As a response to this Melbournian identity, the Keep Cup can be classified as an asymmetric medium of communication; this message of the Melbourne brand and the ‘green movement’ responds to consumer concerns (that is why the Keep Cup exists) to a certain extent, and persuades the consumer to accept the Keep Cup’s communicated meaning, and does not respond to other publics involved in issues of environmental concern.

The Keep Cup attempts to engage its buyers on a surface level through its design (you can pick out the colours of each part of the Keep Cup) and through what it represents.

However, the superficial concern for the environment that the Keep Cup communicates (greenwashing) means that the PR behind the product is thoughtless and weak.

Artefact: The Tote The Tote is a renowned music venue, pub and bar located in an inner city suburb of Melbourne known as Collingwood. The venue has been a favourite for many music enthusiasts since the 1980s and is famous for its encouragement and support towards independent and local musical acts as well as other Australian and international bands.

Recently, the Tote was forced to close it's doors due to a change in liquor licensing regulations which made it extremely difficult for the owner, Bruce Milne, to be able to afford the high costs that would be incurred from the new laws. Closing the venue was the only option and resulted from the government being concerned with sustaining a certain view or opinion of Melbourne. The Melbourne government were using their PR

skills in an attempt to preserve a safe image of Melbourne and to manage the ongoing 'crisis' that existed in regards to Melburnians and alcohol consumption and consequently, alcohol abuse. From the government's perspective and also keeping to a PR approach, this was an effort in anticipating the consequences of possible alcohol abuse at licensed venues and acting on those pre-empted consequences to safeguard public interest.

However the public opinion proved to be only disappointment and anger and the government's actions did not build rapport with the community. This became prevalent shortly after the closure of the Tote on 14 January 2010, as a rally of up to 5,000 people from many different backgrounds and fields gathered outside the venue to protest the unfair liquor licensing laws imposed on the Tote. Those involved in the public relations workings behind the preparation of these rallies and protests needed to get their message out rapidly, efficiently and to as larger group of the publicans as possible. These people quickly realised and remembered the potency of new media in conveying and transmitting a communication. Outraged members of the public infiltrated social networking sites, blogs and even radio stations in order to target their key audience and circulate their message with the aim of raising public awareness. This proved to be effective in obtaining feedback from the publicans - their audience - by allowing them to facilitate a two way conversation between the organisers and those willing to participate in the rallies, protests or petitions.

Although this method of using blogs and social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter may appear informal and unorganised it proved to be more engaging and attractive to the public, whereas the government foolishly did not include public opinion in their strategy. The protestors used their communication media to relay a general message to their audience, whereas the government used a contrasting strategy which was probably constructed in close relation to the study of demographics. Prior to and also during the rallies communication tools such as posters, banners and flyers were implemented to impart the public's stance on the resulting unjust closure of one of their favourite bars and music venues in Melbourne. Therefore, in retaliation the public used their PR knowledge and their voices to defend music venues - precious to Melbourne against unreasonable costs or even closure.

Artefact: ‘I Heart Melbourne’ Children’s T-Shirt Sold in an Australiana shop in Swanston St and made in Taiwan, this childrenís T-Shirt is a tourist item brandishing a logo with direct resemblance to the famous ìI heart NYî logo designed in 1977 by famous New York Designer Milton Glazer. Emblazoned, I ëheartí Melbourne, Glazerís classic design has been taken, modified and made relevant to itís Melbourne location.

The artefact is representative of the idea that Melbourne, like the proverbial little brother, aspires to be seen on a world stage as a global city, but nonetheless remains sidelined, trailing ever behind others like New York, London and Paris. The T-shirt design

demonstrates in all itís clichÈd glory the aspirational yet slightly ëcopy-catí mentality that Melbourne branding often projects in itís global marketing or strategic positioning world wide. Although elements of Melbourne, are indeed like New York or other world (particularly European) cities, they remain somewhat smaller, childlike versions of the real thing.

Furthermore, the design element of artefact deals with the acknowledgement of the idea of creativity as an underpinning factor in the economic success of a large city, and thus the subsequent focus placed on creative industries in Melbourne to foster growth and global recognition.

As PR is essentially building goodwill towards a company, individual, cause or product, it could be suggested that this artefact is an object of PR. The motive is there, regardless of its success, to promote Melbourne as not only a metropolis comparable with New York, but a ëdesign cityí, emulating the classic work of Milton Glazer. It is made clear

by John Brumby in his statement in the 2007 Melbourne Design Guide, that cultivating ìgood design is central to enhancing competitiveness in todayís globalised world.î Therefore positive PR becomes an important tactic in Melbourneís global positioning strategy. In effect, the ìI heart Melbourneî t-shirt is a medium (although its success is questionable) through which a positive PR spin can be communicated to not only Melburnians, but on the global stage, where it really counts.

Another point that could be made along the lines of this professional area is the originality of the PR strategy itself. It is clear that Melbourne is ìcommitted to building up a strong and internationally competitive design sector that will also enhance other key industry sectorsî(Brumby 2007) but is this tactic merely based upon other successful cities? Here we can analyse the ìMelbourne as little brotherî approach in relation to PR strategy, that seems to be often ëborrowedí from others like New York, Paris and London. It seems as though the attitude in Melbourne is that, to compete on the world stage, we must try to become like the other world ìdesign citiesî in order to be successful. It is this ëcopy catí mentality that can be seen not only in the artefact, but in numerous other references that the city of Melbourne capitalises on to drag itself up through the ranks to global recognition. Pamie Fung, in her essay, suggests this concept in relation to the city laneways. She writes ì the urban character of Melbourne is defined by a pastiche of picturesque stereotypes and images of multiple versions of Europe.î Melbourne is utilising imagery attached to successful foreign cities, such as New Yorkís ìI heartî logo and the laneways reminiscent of Paris or London in their own strategic positioning. Again, we see Melbourneís aspiration, and its PR strategy of foreign alignment (in both design and physical space) as a ëlittle brotherí mentality.

So to reiterate, this artefact can be related to PR on two major levels. Firstly, it is an object of pure PR itself, using a positive, design centred logo to push the idea of Melbourne as ìdesign city. It also can be analysed in terms of the PR strategy itself,

suggesting that the tactics of the city of Melbourne are simply to utilise imagery already attached to successful global centres due to the ìlong-standing anxieties that, at an international level, Australia is viewed as a primitive backwater incapable of producing its own urban centresî(Fung 2006). In essence, the quintessential PR ëlittle brotherí.