Public Relations - Potential & Prospects
About the Author:
The book “Public Relations - Potential & Prospects” is written by Mr. Alauddin Masood. The author is a former Director General PR, Senate of Pakistan. He has over 35 years of experience in the PR profession. Mr. Masood is author of three books, including two on PR, a few booklets, some stories and over 200 articles.
Review:
This book is must for all those, who want to increase the productivity, enhance the image of their respective organizations and quite helpful for those who are seeking their career in this industry. The book is easy to understand and clearly defines the basics and whole mechanism of Public Relations’ profession. Author remained quite successful in elaborating his views and keeping the attention of the readers till the end. Good examples contributed in the book automatically answer all questions arises in one’s mind. The book is an excellent integration of international and local experiences of the PR field.
PR has been distinguished well from other discipline e.g. advertising, marketing, sales promotion, propaganda and publicity. Author described the concept, historical perspective of PR and changes in trends over the ages.
Need and importance of the field have been described in such a way that can maintain political stability in society by informing government initiatives to common masses. The role of all the concerns of an organization and impact of their opinion on the businesses are mentioned. Dos & Don’ts of the profession are discussed and required qualities of Public Relations officers are highlighted.
The book not only briefs you about the origin and development of PR in Pakistan, but also informs you about governments’ PR strategies. How the governments’ should maintain harmony and uplift the image of the country in front of international communities to grab foreign investment are the blessings of this industry. The author used research pieces with survey results for accurate stats and figures. He emphasized that “An organization should not only be efficient, it should also look efficient to survive.”
Few common errors made by PR practitioners are also placed in the book. Ideal time to start PR campaigns and duties of PROs have been discussed. Planning PR programmes is another challenging issue in our country due to high illiteracy rate. Description of PR planning model is shown and the tools that can turn negative image into positive are focused.
In order to achieve optimum goals, before starting any PR campaign, concerns of respective organizations must be defined. Development plans, selection of appropriate media, budgeting, assessment of results are important aspects of any PR programme but unfortunately, PR agents of our country sometimes skips one or more.
Author shared his experience in crises management and elaborated skills required to achieve success. PR through corporate sponsorship has gained popularity all over the world and continuously contributing for human welfare. Forms of corporate sponsorship and sensitive areas that could turn prestige into adversity have shown with true examples. In addition to this, objectives and types of Advertising are elaborated in particular.
Author has quiet optimistic views about the PR industry in Pakistan and glad on the advent of latest technologies that made this profession much easier and popular ever before. Ethical and code of conducts contributed in the book are worth reading. Last part clearly covers the weak areas of PR industry of our country and initiatives are described for the development of this arena.
Most interesting Aspect:
This book is based upon true experiences of the author. The French, British and American code of conduct for this profession can be considered as the most interesting part of this book. That follows comments and arouses need of similar kind of regulatory authority in our country too. It is quiet interesting and in a way, our bad luck that our country does not have separate rules and regulations in regard with this industry.
Conclusion: Unfortunately, in our country, Public Relations has been restricted only to appearances of company news in print and Clippings in Electronic Media. All the efforts are being made just to gain more and more of space in newspapers and time on TV channels, no matter that piece of information is valuable for the general public or not. The PR practitioners should keep all the ethical issues in their mind and should not perform any aid, which is not good for public.
After reading this book, I will try to start a few PR campaigns, keeping all the ethical issue in my mind. Public-Private partnerships are popular all over the world now. In order to achieve a prominent position in society, I will follow the guidelines given in this book. I hope I will be able to work for human welfare as the author of this book did through effective PR programmes.