Chapter 8

Defining publics
LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After reading this chapter you will be able to:

■ recognize the importance of defining an organization’s ‘publics’;
■ explain who these publics may be;
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■ understand the theory and practice behind reaching an organization’s
publics.

Publics
Public relations departments are rarely concerned with the ‘general
public’ per se, but with a range of communities made up of individuals
or groups with some particular interest or some other connection. The
mosaic of many different ethnic, racial, religious, geographic, political,
occupational, social and special interest groupings that would be
included make the concept of ‘general public’ of little value in PR
(Cutlip et al., 1994).
The term publics is a very meaningful expression and one peculiar to
public relations. ‘Publics’ is part of the jargon of PR, an invented word
not often found in an orthodox dictionary (it can, however, be found on
the Marketing Dictionary website – www.themarketingdictionary.com).
Publics are groups that are deliberately targeted and are those ‘people,
internally and externally, with whom an organization communicates’
(Jefkins and Yadin, 1998). In simple terms, the mission of the public rela-
tions function is to build working relationships with all of an organiza-
tion’s publics (Center and Jackson, 2003).
The identification of the ‘publics’ of public relations is fundamental to
the planning of a PR programme, for unless the publics are defined it is

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 Defining publics 115

impossible to select the media that will best convey our messages to
them. It may be necessary to list all possible publics in order to decide
priorities if and when constraints of budget, manpower and other
resources may have to be applied. The problems and, therefore, the
potential publics will vary from one organization to another, and indeed
it may change within an individual organization over time. To establish
priorities and the media with which to communicate with them, we
must first distinguish all the publics we would like to communicate with
in an ideal world free of constraints. Some organizations will have such
a diversity of minority group publics that it would be costly to try to
reach them all. Others will have majority group publics who can be
reached simultaneously through the mass media, especially if there is
considerable role playing by overlapping groups.

Role playing
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Individuals can play many roles. A man or woman may be a city office
worker, a partner, a parent, a motorist, a golfer, a gardener and an
amateur photographer who enjoys motoring holidays abroad. Such a
person may read a certain newspaper, listen to his car radio and watch
television, and is easily reached by the mass market media. Now, sup-
posing an organization such as a bank, building society, travel agent,
rose grower, camera dealer or car ferry operator wanted to reach some
of the publics represented by this person’s different roles. It could do so
very easily because such players of several roles enjoy the same popu-
lar media. This would not necessarily be the case if people with more
specialized interests had to be reached. For example, those who drove
performance cars, played in golf championships, grew orchids or
enjoyed making home movies.
The example of a bank and its publics may help explain the role play-
ing of its potential customers and the means of reaching them through
the existing mass media. The bank’s commercial objective may be to
lend money to people who require finance for the purchase of houses,
home improvements and extensions, motor cars, photographic equip-
ment or holidays at home or abroad. The public relations’ objective may
be to educate relevant publics (in some measurable way) about the
bank’s services. The role-playing aspect is important because it will
show that many of the bank’s prospects or publics are in fact the same
people playing out different roles at different times. They can be reached
simultaneously through the same media with the same public relations’
effort.
Understanding the nature of publics helps the public relations manager
or consultant to determine the feasibility of reaching them economically

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 116 Public Relations

within a tight budget. Mass media may be the answer in certain cases but,
in order to reach a specialized minority, it may be necessary to create the
media to reach certain audiences. This media may include slides, audio-
or videotapes, CD-ROMs, house journals, educational literature, private
exhibitions, seminars or internal (intranet) websites.

Basic publics
No list of publics is likely to suit every organization. Indeed, part of
the organizational analysis (see Chapter 6) is defining the company’s
unique profile. The basic publics that apply to most commercial organi-
zations may be generalized as follows:

1. The community.
2. Potential employees.
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3. Employees.
4. Suppliers of goods and services.
5. Financial markets.
6. Distributors.
7. Customers.
8. Opinion leaders or formers.
9. Other publics.

Public relations’ publics can be seen as spreading through the entire

organization, taking in aspects of the operation – for example, produc-
tion and finance – not normally associated with the marketing function.
According to the nature of the business, the nine basic publics can be
subdivided or extended. Each of these groupings is considered below.

The community

In broad terms, the community consists of the organization’s neigh-

bours within which the organization operates. They may live or work
close to the company’s factory, office, store, distribution warehouse,
research laboratory or wherever the organization is in contact and/or
influences and/or is influenced by those around it. Some complex
organizations will have many premises of different kinds, and have
relations with, and various different effects on, a number of disparate
communities. An example of this is an airport, where some members of
the community will suffer from aircraft noise, others from road conges-
tion. On the positive side, some will benefit from improved transportation

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