Chapter 12: Global Advertising and Public Relations

Brief history of advertising and public relations worldwide:

Laypeople in the United States oftentimes associate advertising and public relations solely as Western if not U.S in origin and corporate in purpose that is representing primarily wealthy abd powerful corporations. They associate both advertising and public relations as manipulative in their role, function, and intent.

Western in Origin?
Campbell and Fabos note that advertising has existed in the Middle East since 3000 B.C. mainly this is sown when Babylomian shop owners began hanging signs outside their stores. Adding to this, they associated adv with Egyptian criers. However, Mallinson notes that U.S public relations was exported to post- World War II in Europe, so adv PR flourished after this period.
Advertising if not global in its commonality of strategies and tactics and in the availability of like media worldwide. Effective advertising today must operate in a multicultural world that is unforgiving of market’s cultural insensitivity to and lack of understanding of cultures other than their own.

Corporate in Purpose?
Public relation has not been restricted to primarily supporting corporations that sell products and services. Indeed, while both advertising and public relations historically have been widely used by corporations. U.S governmental and nongovernmental organizations have long used advertising, as well as public relations. Political campaigning and agendas throughout the world, both in democratic and totalitarian countries, have included both advertising and public relations techniques.
Some scholars argue that a set of principles must be developed to overcome the problem of a possible imbalance in power between clients of public relations practitioners and the publics with whom they communicate.
Manipulative in their Role, Function, and Design?
Manipulation is a pejorative word, but there is little question that advertising both consumer advertising to sell products and services, and public relations oriented institutional advertising to sell ideas or to garner support for an organization is most commonly persuasive to sell in nature. The role, function, and design of public relations, however, are more complex.
Democratic in Tradition?
Both advertising and public relations are highly democratic in tradition, the former because advertising by its nature suggest the availability of consumer choice, that is a marketplace democracy and the ultimate consumer determination of the relative benefits of these choices and the latter because of an inherent supposition of the importance and value of public opinion within democratic forms of government.
Environmental challenges, population growth, poverty and hunger, war
Kennedy notes not only new and increasingly critical environmental challenges but also a corresponding increase in the world’s population. He observes “ from the viewpoint of environmentalist ---the earth is under a twofold attack from human beings-the excessive demands and wasteful habits of affluent populations of developed countries, and the billions of new mouths born in the developing countries world who (very naturally) aspire to increase their own consumption levels”(p. 33). Nevertheless, advertising and public relations practitioners can help address social problems that will occur through practitioner’s expertise. In India, we have an advertising billboard reminding “a baby boom is the nation’s doom”.
Past versus Future
Traditional Societies
Modern Societies
Pluralism: beliefs are consensual and communication.
This society is highly pluralist: beliefs are up for gabs and communication is used to create shared constructions or consensus
Egalitarianism: society is hierarchical rather than egalitarian
Egalitarianism: unequal social power

Advertising and public relations are hardly a panacea for the social and global problems in the 21st c., but both can be used effectively to ameliorate some of the problems that we face. However, powerfully persuasive and informative processes advertising and public relations affect people of the world in many ways. Still, both advertising and public relations should operate collaboratively with social, political, economic, and global organizations according to democratic principles and in tune with traditional value of a given society.