How to use Public Relations when consumers get jittery

Mark Winkel Senior Consultant Prisma Public Relations Jakarta

As we wind-up 2002, with its share of disasters and disappointments, we must be anxious about new potholes as the drivers of the economy -- consumers -- look ready to take their foot off the accelerator.

The big question becomes: How do I keep consumers opening up their pocketbooks in 2003? whether to buy a car, a cup of coffee, or a computer.

For many marketers, pumping money into an ad campaign may be the easiest solution in the quest for sales. However, these more jittery times call for a better approach.

That approach, which works in good times and even better in bad times, is to invest in building your brand with consumers. Just consider the consumer's mind-set: With fewer rupiah allocated for discretionary spending, consumers are looking to get more for their money from products or services they know and trust. They are looking for reasons to remain loyal. By building your brand, you are giving them those reasons.

These reasons -- which generally are more complex and sophisticated than a discounted price, a bundled offer, or other sales-oriented or promotion-oriented proposition -- are the concepts that strategic public relations excels at communicating. These concepts build value into the brand, not into the product.

In a tighter economy, of course, companies also want to get as much bang for their bucks. Unfortunately, the few that use public relations in preference to advertising often look for the wrong impact.

Advertising-oriented executives look at sales as the measure of public relations. However, there are just too many variables -- pricing, availability/distribution, customer relations -- in the sales proposition to try to single out the impact of public relations.

As a 20-year veteran of the public relations business, I believe clients should be linking our services with premium- pricing. It's not "how many more units did PR sell for me?" but "how much more could I charge because of public relations?"

Public relations-led brand building develops consumer goodwill and a preference to pay more for one product over another. This is the realm of consumer PR, where we are kings over advertising. Granted, a big ad can make a big (expensive) splash (as can a properly executed event), but it's public relations that creates the enduring impression. Our ability to engage the consumer in a much longer and therefore deeper dialog is what develops goodwill; and in the case of media coverage, the dialogue is endorsed by an independent third party.

Surveys bear out the importance of developing that trust in consumers. A recent study by a major credit card company found that quality, not cost, is the overriding factor when women in the Asia-Pacific region buy gifts. And a study published in PRWeek Asia found that consumers make purchase decisions based on how companies manage crises, on their experience with the company's products and services, and on the financial performance of the company.

In these jittery times, it is vital for companies to understand that purchase decisions are based on a wide variety of impressions and information that must at the core differentiate their products and services from the competition in a way that is relevant to the consumer. The sheer variety of inputs also means that messages must be managed, and attributes such as leadership and quality must be defined and defended.

In Indonesia and other Asian countries, many marketing managers -- as well as more senior executives -- are at heart traders, who understand only the sales part of the consumers purchase decision equation. Try to list premium brands from Asia (other than the likes of Toyota and Sony of Japan, where the value mentality/model is different) and you will be hard pushed to come up with more than a handful of names. The recent efforts of LG and Samsung to brand themselves only highlight the paucity of global Asian brands.

The interesting twist on this whole situation is that these same marketers and traders are the ones who seem most susceptible to the premium pitch from the luxury goods manufacturers. While they buy the premium products for themselves -- whether it is the Louis Vuitton bag, the Mont Blanc pen, or a shiny new BMW -- they still do not spend on public relations to build their own business and products into brands that command a premium from consumers.

In looking ahead to the new year, the challenge is for companies to engage their customers in ways they have never before. They have to build consumer goodwill through cohesive, targeted public relations activities. In the end, these efforts are the ones that will keep consumers coming back for more in 2003.