COMM11110 – Antipodean Animal Agency

Antipodean Animal Agency is a non-profit charity organisation that strives to save, protect and rehabilitate the native wildlife of Australia (WIRES, 2015). Antipodean Animal Agency has over 27 different locations with over 2500 locations and they have been proudly running for 31 years.

Our Key Message:

As a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation organisation it is our daily mission to ensure the safety and protection of the native wildlife of Australia no matter how easy, difficult, big or small they may be.

(Eagles Nest Wildlife Hospital Inc., 2013).

 

The main aspect of wildlife conservation that Antipodean Animal Agency aims to portray is their goal that they will strive to protect and save as much as they can of the native wildlife of Australia. This is done through their thousands of volunteers helping every day to rehabilitate the wildlife, the public looking out and bringing in injured animals to be cared for rather than left to die, and donators helping sponsor every day to provide food and health necessities for the injured animals. When writing any public relations campaign one must take into account the target audience that they are aiming their view or opinion towards. When looking at the different areas of target audiences and in comparison to a wildlife conservation group, the main target audience would be Australians aged eighteen and above. This particular target audience is the best as Antipodean Animal Agency is an Australian wildlife organization that only those aged eighteen and above can sponsor too. There is no particular target audience as anyone can help sponsor, participate and donate no matter how old.

 

References

WIRES, n.d., WIRES, Viewed 19th April 2016, http://www.wires.org.au/

Eagles Nest Wildlife Hospital Inc, 2013, The truth about our survival, viewed 4th May 2016, https://eaglesnestwildlifehospital.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/the-truth-about-our-survival/

COMM11110 – Torches of Freedom

The concept of what public relations does is quite often confused with the concept of what advertising is. Public relations is the deliberate building and sustainment of a relationship between an employed worker of the particular organisation and those of the targeted public or other organisations. Advertising however is a paid service or the use of a paid space to get a message out to a mass audience of targeted people (Kerslake, 2016).

 (Chakraborty, 2014)

It can be proven that the Torches of Freedom was a public relations campaign in comparison to an advertisement as Edward Bernays was employed by an American Tobacco Company to persuade women into believing that smoking was ‘cool’ (Christensen, 2012). Around the time era of 1929 women who smoked were frowned upon as it was only something that man were to do (Christensen, 2012). Edward Bernays used his voice and relationships with the public to help the American Tobacco Company to change the public’s belief on the idea that women shouldn’t smoke. Putting this in comparison to purchasing a paid space to advertise their perspective shows that the use of a public relations campaign was used.

Nowadays for larger corporations such as tobacco companies they tend to use advertising more so than just public relations campaigns. If a tobacco company was to try to convince a large target audience today they would focus heavily on a key message and use advertising heavily through the use of technology such as television advertisements and Facebook advertisements.

 

References

Rakhi Chakraborty, 2014, Tourches of freedom: how the worlds first PR campaign came to be, viewed 8th May 2016, http://yourstory.com/2014/08/torches-of-freedom/

Wendy Christensen, 2012, Torches of freedom: Women and smoking propaganda, viewed 9th May 2016, https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/02/27/torches-of-freedom-women-and-smoking-propaganda/

 

COMM11110 – Planning for a Public Relations Campaign

Planning is the preparation of tasks and activities to achieve a particular goal or set of goals (Time-Management-Guide.com, 2002). Planning is critical in the Public Relations field as it helps to ensure that all employees involved are happy with the final product or outlook and helps to view how the company could grow as a whole (M. Liton, 2010). There are many steps that need to be looked at before planning a public relations campaign to ensure the overall goal is achievable.

A video was made by Alan Taylor to explain what a PR campaign is and how it all works, the URL is as follows; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ySvwdASLUE.

There are eight basic elements that need to be included when planning a public relations campaign, these eight elements include;

1. Situation
2. Objectives
3. Audience
4. Strategy
5. Tactics
6. Calendar/Timetable
7. Budget
8. Measurement

 

The following attached image gives a brief explanation about what the eight basic elements are and how they take part in being a big role of planning (L.Veodisch, 2015).

 

There is no exact time of how far in advance one must start planning for a public relations campaign as the time varies depending on the environmental context and when the key messages are most effective to be released to the target audience (D. Wilcox, 2013). However logically it is best to start a public relations campaign as soon as possible to allow maximum time to research and prepare. It is critical to have a clear picture of the steps ahead to ensure that a clear timeline of where the campaign is at the current time and where you plan on it being clearly.

 

References

Time-Management-Guide.com, 2002, What is planning and why you need to plan, viewed 29th April 2016, http://www.time-management-guide.com/planning.html

Melissa Liton, 2010, The importance of planning, viewed 1st May 2016, http://www.communiquepr.com/blog/?p=1921

Wilcox, D, Cameron, G, Reber, B, & Shin, J 2013, Think Public Relations, 2nd Edn, Pearson Education Inc, New Jersey.

Lars Voedisch, 2015, Planning managing PR Campaigns Precious Communications, viewed 2nd May 2016, http://www.slideshare.net/LarsV/planning-managing-pr-campaigns-p-recious-march-2015

DigitPro, 2012, The PR campaign plan, viewed 17th May 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ySvwdASLUE

COMM11110 – WIRES

There are hundreds of non for profit organizations operating in Australia that aim to help rescue and rehabilitate the native wildlife of Australia through volunteers and donations, one of these includes WIRES (WIRES, n.d.). With any organization like a wildlife group there comes many logistical issues that need to be looked into and assessed. These logistical issues can have a major effect on the public relations sector of the organization if not dealt with correctly.

Logistical Issues:

The most important logistical issues faced for wildlife organisations like WIRES for example are as follows;

• Being able to get volunteers the correct resources needed to help nurture the animals
  • Bandages, Pouches, Food, Cages

• Volunteers being able to get out to rural areas to collect the injured animals
  • Prepared to drive that far

• How will volunteers transport them
  • Having suitable/multiple cars to carry certain animals such as emu’s, kangaroos, wallabies etc.

• Seeking vet assistance
  • Able to get to the destination of a vet during working hours

• Providing the correct training for carers
  • Limited trained carers to look after qualified animals

• Legislations
  • Having a license that limits a certain amount of species for one carer to be able to look after

These logistical issues however can be used as an advantage for WIRES’ public relations to make the company look good in the public’s eye (Wilcox, 2013). Even though they do not always have all of the resources that they need and they do not always have enough carers who are trained for specific animals they still pull together and save and rehabilitate thousands of native wildlife a year. These minor logistical issues however help to enforce the public to donate to WIRES which helps the organization to be able to provide the training and required equipment for the volunteers.

References

WIRES, n.d., WIRES, Viewed 19th April 2016, http://www.wires.org.au/

Wilcox, D, Cameron, G, Reber, B, & Shin, J 2013, Think Public Relations, 2nd Edn, Pearson Education Inc, New Jersey.

COMM11110- BPA Crisis

In March 2016 it was announced that multiple companies who produced canned goods had Bisphenol A (BPA) present in their products (Allen, 2016). There were multiple environmental and cancer foundations such as the Breast Cancer Foundation who all worked together and tested these multiple canned products for the presence of BPA (Allen, 2016). Out of the 192 canned products that were tested a total of 129 contained the organic synthetic compound that is BPA (Allen, 2016).

Multiple organisations have their own research on the idea of whether BPA is actually harmful however a final answer has still not been decided. It has been tested that Bisphenol A (BPA) has negative effects on the brain, behaviour and the prostate glands in fetuses, infants and young children (Brennan, 2015). This is due to the fact that their bones and organs are still developing and growing (NIEHS, n.d.).

Campbell was just one of the many companies that had BPA found in their canned products. Immediately after the campaign was released in March 2016, Campbell promised to have BPA removed from all of their products by March 2017. Along with Campbell there was a lot of other companies such as; Del Monte, Whole Foods, Walmart and Albertsons who were proved to have BPA in their products (Allen, 2016). Campbell released an article documenting and explaining their goal to make all of their packaging BPA free for good (Allen, 2016). Personally, I believe the decision of changing their packaging to BPA free will help the company on an overall especially for their target audience of mothers and fathers with young children and infants (GirliegirlAmy, 2015). However this PR crisis will have a minor negative effect on the company’s image as people may believe that it is still harmful and will choose other products over it, resulting in a profit loss(Wilcox, 2013).

References

Allen, K 2016, Brands managers act quickly after BPA shows up in cans, viewed 8th April 2016, http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/Brands_managers_act_quickly_after_BPA_shows_up_in_20464.aspx

Brennan, D 2015, How environmental exposure may affect your child, viewed 9th April 2016, http://www.webmd.com/children/environmental-exposure-head2toe/bpa

National Institutue of Environmental Health Services, n.d., Bisphenol A (BPA), viewed 10th April 2016, https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/sya-bpa/

Wilcox, D, Cameron, G, Reber, B, & Shin, J 2013, Think Public Relations, 2nd Edn, Pearson Education Inc, New Jersey.

GirlieGirlAmy, 2015, What is BPA and how can you avoid it?, viewed 17th April 2016, http://girliegirlarmy.com/wellness-2/20150527/what-is-bpa-and-how-can-you-avoid-it/