So What is PR?

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I am a technology and product person by background. I have always enjoyed understanding how things work, how products are built and how ideas become real businesses. But I was also curious about Public Relations.

That curiosity led me to spend a year studying PR at the University of Washington. At the time, I was not sure when or how I would use it. I simply wanted to learn something outside my usual world of technology and product development.

I have always believed that learning should never stop. Not everything you study will have an immediate use, but that does not mean it will not become valuable later.

Fast-forward through my career, and that year became surprisingly useful. Whether I was launching products, working with journalists, building companies, managing a crisis or explaining a complicated idea in simple language, I kept returning to what I had learned about PR.

Today, I understand that even the best product needs the right story. It needs people to understand why it matters, trust the company behind it and hopefully talk about it.

My goal is to have my own PR agency one day. So, to everyone already in the business, watch out!

But before getting ahead of myself, let us start with the most basic question.

What is Public Relations?

Public Relations, usually called PR, is how a person, company or organisation builds and manages its relationship with the public.

The Public Relations Society of America defines PR as “a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.”

That is the professional definition. My simpler definition would be:

PR is what people hear about you, what they think about you and whether they trust you.

It is the story you tell, the experience you deliver and what other people say about you when you are not in the room.

Who is “the public”?

The public is not one group. Depending on your business, it may include:

• Customers
• Employees
• Journalists
• Investors
• Government authorities
• Business partners
• Influencers
• Industry experts
• Local communities
• Potential employees

Each audience cares about something different.

A customer wants to know whether your product is good and worth the price. An employee wants to understand the company’s direction. A journalist wants accurate and useful information. An investor wants confidence in the future of the business.

Good PR understands these differences and communicates with each group in a relevant way.

What does PR actually do?

PR helps a company decide what it wants to be known for, who needs to hear its story and how that story should be communicated.

PR may include:

• Media interviews
• Press releases
• Events
• Product launches
• Speeches
• Opinion articles
• Podcasts
• Social media
• Influencer relations
• Community programmes
• Internal communication
• Crisis management

Imagine that you have developed a new smartphone.

Advertising is paying to tell people that it has the best camera.

Marketing is identifying the customers most likely to buy it and creating offers that encourage them to do so.

PR is giving respected technology journalists the opportunity to test the phone, arranging interviews with the engineers who developed it and explaining how the product solves a real customer problem.

Jean-Louis Gassée, a former Apple executive, explained the difference well:

“Advertising is saying you’re good. PR is getting someone else to say you’re good.”

That is where much of PR’s value comes from. People expect brands to praise their own products. Independent recommendations, media reviews and real customer experiences often carry more credibility.

Why do you need PR?

Every company has a reputation, whether it manages it or not.

People form opinions based on what they read, what they see online, how employees speak about the company and how the business responds when something goes wrong.

If you do not tell your story, someone else may tell it for you.

You need PR to:

• Build awareness
• Earn credibility
• Explain what makes you different
• Create trust
• Support a product launch
• Attract customers, talent, investors and partners
• Position company leaders as experts
• Respond to inaccurate information
• Prepare for a crisis
• Protect your reputation

A good product is always the starting point. However, people still need to discover it, understand it and trust it.

PR helps make that happen.

When do you need PR?

The best time to invest in PR is before you urgently need it.

Many companies suddenly look for PR support when they are launching a product, raising money or dealing with a crisis. By that point, they may have no established relationships with journalists, customers or other important audiences.

PR should be ongoing, but it becomes particularly important when:

• Launching a company, product or service
• Entering a new market
• Announcing an investment or partnership
• Appointing a senior executive
• Organising an event
• Publishing original research
• Changing the company’s identity
• Managing customer complaints
• Responding to negative coverage
• Handling a product recall or crisis

PR is not a switch you turn on when you want positive publicity. Trust is built gradually through consistent communication and responsible action.

Where does PR happen?

PR happens wherever people talk about your business.

That includes newspapers, magazines, television, websites, podcasts, LinkedIn, social media, conferences, retail stores, community events and conversations between customers.

It also happens in search results and, increasingly, in answers produced by AI platforms.

What journalists, customers and experts publish about a company becomes part of its digital history. It may continue appearing when people search for the brand years later.

This makes good PR more valuable, but it also makes poor PR more difficult to forget.

How do you do PR well?

Start with a clear objective.

“We want publicity” is not a proper objective.

“We want young professionals in the UAE to see our brand as an affordable and reliable choice” is much clearer.

The basic process is:

1. Decide what you want to achieve.
2. Identify the audience.
3. Understand what matters to that audience.
4. Develop a simple and honest message.
5. Find a real story or proof point.
6. Choose the right media and channels.
7. Use a credible spokesperson.
8. Listen to the reaction.
9. Measure what changed.

Most importantly, you need something worth talking about.

The fact that your company has changed its logo may be important to you, but it may not interest anyone else. A useful new product, original research, job creation, market expansion or an unusual customer story is far more likely to attract attention.

Best PR practices

Good PR is built on trust. Trust takes time to earn and can disappear very quickly.

Tell the truth. Never knowingly give the public or a journalist false information.

Keep it simple. If people cannot understand your message, they will not remember it.

Know your audience. Do not send the same story to every journalist, platform and customer.

Be useful. Offer facts, access, expertise or an interesting human story.

Respond quickly. A correct answer delivered too late may no longer help.

Use real people. Customers, employees, founders and experts make stories more believable.

Prepare your spokesperson. They should understand the subject and be ready for difficult questions without sounding scripted.

Build relationships early. Do not contact journalists only when you need coverage.

Admit mistakes. If the company is wrong, say so and explain what will change.

Match communication with action. PR cannot permanently hide a poor product or irresponsible behaviour.

Barbara Hunter, the pioneering founder of HUNTER PR, offered advice that captures the human side of communication:

“Be kind, be humble, be accountable, and tell the truth.”

These are good PR principles, but they are also good business and leadership principles.

A great consumer PR example: Dove Real Beauty

One of the strongest consumer PR examples is Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty.

Beauty advertising had traditionally relied on professional models and narrow ideas about what women should look like. In 2004, Dove chose a different direction. It featured real women with different ages, appearances and body types.

The campaign was connected to research about how women viewed their own beauty. Instead of simply saying that Dove soap was better, the company started a much bigger public conversation about confidence, body image and unrealistic beauty standards.

According to Unilever’s review of the campaign, Dove broke with industry conventions by featuring real women rather than models, creating a message that connected with audiences around the world.

The campaign worked because it was:

• Relevant to Dove’s customers
• Connected to a genuine social issue
• Emotionally engaging
• Easy to understand
• Consistent with the brand
• Strong enough to create conversation beyond paid advertising

People did not only see an advertisement. They discussed the meaning of beauty, shared their own experiences and connected Dove with a wider purpose.

That is strong consumer PR. It takes a product and gives people a meaningful reason to talk about the brand.

It is worth noting that the campaign also received criticism over the years. No major campaign will please everyone. Good PR does not mean avoiding all criticism. It means starting a relevant conversation that is credible, useful and connected to the brand.

A bad consumer PR example: Pepsi and Kendall Jenner

In 2017, Pepsi released an advertisement featuring Kendall Jenner joining a public protest. In the final scene, she handed a can of Pepsi to a police officer, which appeared to resolve the tension.

The company intended to promote unity, but many viewers believed the advertisement made serious protest movements and tensions between communities and police look simple and commercial.

The reaction was immediate. People felt Pepsi had borrowed the images and emotions of real social movements to sell a soft drink without understanding the seriousness of the issue.

Pepsi quickly withdrew the advertisement and admitted the mistake in an official statement:

“Clearly we missed the mark, and we apologize.”

This is an example of poor consumer PR because the campaign:

• Used a serious social issue without enough understanding
• Put the product at the centre of a sensitive public conversation
• Made a complicated issue appear unrealistically simple
• Failed to anticipate how affected communities might react
• Chose visibility without establishing credibility

Pepsi did one thing correctly after the mistake. It responded quickly, removed the content and apologised instead of spending weeks defending it.

The lesson is that a brand should not join every popular conversation. Before taking a position on a social issue, it must ask whether it has the credibility, understanding and actions to support that message.

How do you measure PR?

PR should not be measured only by the number of press releases sent or articles published.

Ask better questions:

• Did we reach the right audience?
• Did people understand our message?
• Was the coverage positive, negative or neutral?
• Did people search for the brand?
• Did website visits increase?
• Did customers talk about the campaign?
• Did we receive stronger business enquiries?
• Did trust or awareness improve?
• Did the PR activity support a business objective?

PR can support sales, but it is not the same as a sales campaign. Its greatest value is often created over time through recognition, credibility and trust.

So, what is PR?

PR is not about making a bad product look good. It is not about hiding mistakes, manipulating journalists or paying people to praise you.

Good PR means understanding your audience, communicating something valuable and building relationships based on trust.

My technology and product background taught me how important it is to build something useful. Studying PR taught me that building it is only part of the job. You must also explain it, give people a reason to care and earn their confidence.

I never expected that one year of studying PR would become so useful throughout my career. It was another reminder that learning is never wasted, even when its value is not immediately clear.

And perhaps one day, I will put all those lessons into my own PR agency.

As I said, watch out.

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