Public relations aim is to earn both understanding and support with the goal of influencing opinion and behavior. It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics (Chartered institute of public relations 2016). However, according to Habermas ‘Public relations invades the process of ‘public opinion’ by systematically creating news events or exploiting events that attract attention’ (Habermas 1989:193-194). Both conflicting perspectives contain certain truths, truths that will appear in this comparison between the following two public relations campaigns of 2015.
#Missingtype was the online hashtag for the National Health Service (NHS) campaign of the same name that ran over National Blood week (June 2015)(NHS 2015). The campaign was introduced to communicate to the public the low bloodstock on the NHS and therefore convince new donors to come forward. Their main communication strategy involved engaging UK brands including Waterstones, Odeon and The Mirror and have them remove the A’s, B’s and O’s from the entirety of their branding both online and physically for one day. Interestingly there were no explanations provided of why these specific letters were removed from their branding by the companies themselves, rather on the website and social media pages of National Blood Week. This was an especially innovative way to communicate their campaign because it lead to huge interaction on social media; almost 500,000 people engaged with the campaign on Facebook and 26,000 uses of #nationalbloodweek and #missingtype on twitter. As a result of the campaign 30,000 new blood donors registered.
The NHS forms part of the UK’s Liberal Welfare state system: The government plays a key role in the protection and well being of its citizens. The NHS holds considerable power as a part state-owned part privatized organization operating independently from government. However, with this campaign the NHS requires companies to validate and promote the cause to gain new donors as will be explained further down.
The Belgian World Wildlife Fund (WWF) campaign (2015) with the hashtag #uitsterendefamilie (#Dyingfamily) was designed to promote people whose last name or ‘Family’ was ‘going extinct’ to save ‘the family’ of just 3,200 wild tigers from extinction by donating (WWF 2015). Emotionally connecting the two ‘families’ to evoke empathy for their cause, the campaign saw huge success in Belgium. Raising in two weeks the same donations they would usually raise in a year and within one hour of the campaigns release #WWF was Belgians number one trending topic on twitter, finally reaching one third of Belgians on social media by the campaigns close. WWF was so successful because of celebrity endorsements; Many Belgian celebrities tweeted selfies with special campaign t-shirts and the ambassadors for the campaign, although having fewer than 100K followers collectively, Myriam Leroy and Linde Merckpoel had plenty of national TV and Radio interviews alongside news reports and adverts in order to reinforce the narrative of the campaign.
Both campaigns reached high levels of social media interaction for different reasons. Although both had an end goal of raising awareness and therefore donations to the cause, neither took similar courses to get there, their vastly different approaches worked and for good reason. Both campaigns created discourse; #Missingtype created a conversation of questions across social media which in turn increased the awareness of the cause. WWF’s #Dyingfamily drew on high levels of interactions and emotional connection to the cause leading to empathy and donations. The campaign played on ‘technologies of the self’ (Foucault, 1988: 66-68) allowing individuals to ‘transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection and immobility’ and receive redemption through charity, this transformation is available by donating to the cause, therefore the campaign embodied cultural capitalism. Their discourse was created through sharing on social media, radio and TV coverage as well as celebrity endorsements that pushed the campaign to become a part of Belgian pop-culture for the short period of time it was active. The celebrities in the WWF campaign had TV and radio answers scripted for their responses by PR practitioners in order to influence people and the wider publics opinion on; the campaign, WWF and the celebrities involved (Famous Grey 2015).
Habermas’ public sphere (Habermas 1989) is a notion about how society operates, how ideas are formed and distributed through a network and how we as society operate. Social media therefore could very much be considered the 21st century’s public sphere, away from the 19th and early 20th century ‘coffee shop’ where realistically only the bourgeois could partake in societal and political discussions (Papacharissi 2009).
Web 2.0 (O’Reily 2010) allows for Social media to operate as the new public sphere, the ‘Virtual Sphere’ (Papacharissi 2009) as it is known, is where discussions regarding societal and political problems occur in the 21st Centruy: Politicians, celebrities, journalists all engage with the Virtual sphere and discussions, even with the public themselves. We are able, because our ideas are distributed through the network that is social media, to discuss with each other on the global scale societal and political issues, free from government control. The public sphere, now more than ever, if considered as social media, is for everyone, where we all have an equal standing. Access to social media is global, and a campaign can reach more people online with a lower budget than it ever could offline, in the physical world (W. Lance Bennet, A Segerberg 2011).
The NHS campaign relied heavily on big name organizations and the Public ‘Virtual’ sphere for its success, as this is where its discourse occurred. Using a hashtag on social media for their campaign allowed for the discussion to be promoted, and others to join in the discussion giving various talking points. This form of discussion and promotion known as ‘Clicktivism’ (Clicktivist 2016) worked well for the campaign since it was low cost to promote and gained the national awareness needed for new donors to come forward. The question as to why the NHS campaign chose to rely so heavily on social media, and the goodwill of companies is due to the finances behind the campaign and power of the NHS. As a financially restricted organization the NHS required social media because of its wide scope of reach to audiences, but as a powerful institution of the United Kingdom, at the heart of political talk, companies use the NHS to provide positive PR for themselves. The relationship is mutually beneficial to both parties but this is only possible since the campaign is not politically driven. Furthermore by supporting the NHS and inherently the welfare state, the companies align themselves with the same liberal ideology the country is driven by.
However, because of corporate involvement in the campaign both offline and online in the Virtual sphere (Papacharissi 2009) it can be argued ‘the modern public sphere is plagued by forces of commercialization and compromised by corporate conglomerates’ (Papacharissi 2009). The support they provide in actuality turns the public sphere into a ‘Vehicle for capitalist Hegemony and ideological reproduction’ (Papacharissi 2009). Thus, as well as the businesses aligning themselves with the ideology of the UK’s Government, the Government is indirectly, through the NHS and their campaign aligning themselves with corporate conglomerates and their capitalist ideology, supporting a free-market, neo-liberal state.
Regarding finances again, WWF on the other hand, as a global organization had both a large budget and number of resources to call upon for their campaign, hence why they were able to make it such an interactive campaign with TV and radio promotion and celebrity endorsements across the country. While the NHS campaign did rely on the creation of discourse through curiosity and corporations own public relation agendas, WWF’s focus on empathy and emotional connection by with their target audiences required interactivity to exist and furthermore succeed.
Regarding how social media improves activism, societal and political discussions online as part of the public sphere lead people to act. In the case of WWF whose central element to their campaign being the family name finder and donation website, online activism helped the campaigns cause by both raising funds and promoting it as a topic of discussion and debate. Even with a campaign such as the NHS #missingtype where a person has to psychically donate blood, online activism clearly works at promoting people to act, with 30,000 new donors joining off the back of this online based campaign, at the heart of the Virtual sphere. It is clear these two campaigns have shown how Clicktivism can be used to ‘attract attention’ (Habermas 1989) ‘Influence opinion […] create goodwill’ (Chartered Institute of Public Relations 2016) as well as reach such numbers of people that would otherwise be unreachable for campaigns with low budgets had social media be so prevalent in todays society.
Both strategies of communications reinforce knowledge and dominant discourse relevant to the campaign and organization. As a parastatal state-owned organization the NHS as a UK institution is powerful but with a negative public reputation consisting of a combinations of healthcare reforms, large budget cuts and decreased trust in the then current coalition government (PR Week). WWF is a powerful global organization with reach into many countries, working close with governments and organizations to save animals and wildlife worldwide. Both reinforce global hegemonic values and liberal ideology, whilst WWF also embodies cultural capitalism.
The NHS is used as a political tool for governments because it is itself a wider societal problem discussed in the public sphere and in government as a result of the fiscal crisis of the welfare state (Reuven, S 2000). This crisis has occurred because of the increase in population and longevity of older citizens. Known as the dependency ratio; (Reuvan, S 2000) people under the age of 20 and over 65 are highly dependent on the welfare state, this combined with the previously mentioned budget cuts and healthcare reforms is proving for it to be no longer financial viable to rely solely on the state to provide healthcare. Therefore discourse moves away from the government supporting our welfare state and towards the NHS requiring Brand power and cultural capital to support their work and reputation. This discourse has changed little since the start of the crisis and reflects the hegemony of present political discussions and the power/knowledge relationship shared between the government and people of the UK.
On the grounds that the NHS is parastatal there could be some governmental influence on the campaign ‘Missingtype’ to reinforce a hegemony (Gramsci 1971). Governmental Power held mainly by politicians are able to shape the ‘flows of knowledge’ regarding National Health so that ‘certain persons may be in a particularly strong position to define what is true, while others may be excluded from discussion.’ (Schneider 2013). ‘Excluded from discussion’ is particularly interesting because Schneider does not account for a public sphere and his comment regards power to be locked with certain people or groups of people. This is both a truth and untruth; power depends on the people and situation together, knowledge is merely as aspect of the dynamics of power between who is involved. Power is situational; social media allows for power to be given to individuals who do not posses power outside of social media, it gives power to the masses as a collective and can remove it from people in power, often turning them into mockery. Because of this dynamic social media reinforces cultural capitalism and liberal ideology as the hegemonic ideology.
In terms of Discourse theory, the hegemonic social rules that the NHS is validated to talk on the subject of blood donation is because of their institutional power, historical reputation and persistent association with government. You have the institutional hierarchy; with government and then smaller institutions focused on certain public issues such as the NHS for health. The brands the campaign associate with are recognized as reinforcing the messages of the campaign, and promoting the NHS, but do not take a political stance as the campaign and NHS as an institution does not take one. Companies involved in the campaign validate the campaign because they are an aspect of consumer culture and therefore support cultural capitalism. ‘People identify with those they trust. They trust those with whom they identify. They also trust those who enact and advocate narratives that they accept and enact.’ (Heath 2000). Heaths perspective could easily relate to companies and brands and details why brands were needed to be involved in promoting the NHS campaign. People trusted the brands that were involved because of their own Public relations and therefore can relate to the brands through their identity. With the brands advocating the hegemonic discourse people would trust the campaign, accept and enact upon their knowledge. Whereas the public would not trust the government directly since Power, as a central idea of political discourse, often carries negative connotations of domination, therefore big brands, unassociated with politics can convey favored hegemonic values more successful to the people.
‘Charity degrades and demoralizes’ (Zizek, RSA, YouTube 2010) because it creates no real difference in society and prevents the charitable from understanding there is no difference created, it desensitizes them from the poverty charity keeps in existence. The WWF campaign embodies cultural capitalism; by donating money you are buying into the ethics that you are helping ‘mother earth’ and fulfilling ethical duties and are not simply the consumerist. This charity that is so well encouraged in our cultural capitalist system is what gives global capitalism a ‘human face’ and forms the basic constituent of our economy. The NHS campaign on the other hand raises questions of what ‘Charity’ is. The NHS is a system that both relies on and replenishes itself, the giving of blood is less ‘charity’ and more ‘trade’ in the sense that unlike medicines different varieties of blood cannot be created at affordable cost to the institution, blood has to be donated. The trade is that you donate to save others, and when you need something that requires donation you receive it donated by others. The welfare state allows for the NHS to call on individuals to support the system and this is what the Missingtype campaign is. Rather than buying into the ethics that you are helping ‘mother earth’ as is the case with WWF, donors are giving away something more valuable than money on a personal level, a part of them and their time to donate.
Zizek claims ‘It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property’ (Zizek, RSA, YouTube 2010). I find this quote is most evidenced as true when you consider how it is private companies that deforest habitats for the tigers and governments that allow for deforestation. However the WWF campaign requests that Belgians, far from the habitat of the tigers, use their private property to allow WWF to alleviate the ‘horrible evils’ caused from the institutions of private property. That said they themselves are the results of our own global needs and requirements in our culture and global economy. Belgians themselves, whether giving to WWF or not are complicit in the evils Zizek refers to, they buy products that are produced as a result of deforestation: Belgium imports 49% of their cocoa beans from the worlds third largest cocoa bean producer – Indonesia (CBI 2015). Indonesia is also home to the critically endangered Sumatran Tiger (WWF 2017), a species benefiting from the work of the World Wildlife Fund. . So whilst WWF are campaigning to protect the tigers and prevent deforestation, charitable donations give the illusion individuals are helping but in fact keep the status quo the same ‘We are repairing with the right hand what we destroy with the left’ (Zizek, RSA, Youtube 2010) and the cycle continues. A contributing factor to this strange dynamic could be the discourse of post-colonial and developed world guilt across Western Europe that flared up post WW2, the colonialism being representative of ‘institutions of private property’ and deforestation the evils.
In contrast yet again, the NHS has to be viewed separately because of the differences in donations as previously discussed. With blood transfusions the donation can directly save a life, the blood unlike monetary donations does not support a company, pay for marketing or other campaigns. Secondly, when someone needs blood it is a health concern and not caused because of the institution of private property. The NHS campaign is in stark opposition to the charity and acts Zizek refers to; Zizek talks about charity being only monetary or brief aid, in which they ‘live a little better but in the same situation which produced them’ (Zizek, RSA, YouTube 2010) or how consumerists buy, in the consumerist act a redemption from being only the consumerist, believing they are buying into something bigger, something charitable. Missingtype promotes charity that is more than buying redemption, as discussed it is more similar to a trade, a trade that genuinely helps people who need blood transfusions to survive.
The tigers however will only ‘live a little bit better but in the same situation which produced them’ (Zizek, RSA, YouTube 2010), the status quo stays the same; the tigers are vulnerable, their home is still being deforested and the population will continue to decrease unless something major is done to completely transform our attitudes towards deforestation, our reliance on land and wood and our entire global economy and attitudes.
As a whole, both the World Wildlife Fund #Dyingfamily and the NHS #Missingtype campaigns approached their campaigns from differing angles, this was because of their independent financial and political positions; the NHS having high influence but low finances due to the fiscal crisis of the welfare state and WWF both rich in political and financial clout. Both through use of the virtual sphere and either celebrity endorsement or corporation support; Established mutual understanding between themselves and the publics, attracted attention to ‘news’ beneficial to their cause and influenced public opinion on their specifically targeted issues. The two campaigns considered themselves huge successes in their respected countries, with NHS emphasising the crisis of the welfare state and trade elements of donating blood, whilst WWF used empathy and the guilt of the developed world to gain monetary donations for their cause. Ethical implications of the two campaigns resolve around how the NHS #missingtype could be considered both too close to government influence and how it is becoming too close to corporation influence with big brand support needed. WWF however, it could be argued, are merely keeping the status quo, doing nothing permanent or sufficient in order to make real change for the future of the tigers and deforestation as a whole. As a closing remark, are clearly successful PR campaigns, however, each one has the same result: we will all live a little better but in the same situation which produced us (Zizek, RSA, YouTube 2010).