PR gives Red Bull wings

During one of my PR modules, we had to do an assignment on companies and their public relations work.
I decided to write about Red Bull, because PR is for Red Bull what salt is for the sea; without PR Red Bull would not be like it is seen all over the world today.

Red Bull is an Austrian energy drink that was launched in 1984 and has been developed into the global market leader in this area. The company doesn’t solely offer its energy drink, but has also initiated a music academy, currently owns two teams in the formula one circus, an acrobatic aeroplanes club called “The Flying Bulls” and besides it is organising a variety of extreme sports events.

From the very beginning of Red Bull, the company decided not to put too much money and effort into advertising to promote its product. Instead, it has constantly attempted to transform its energy drink into a lifestyle symbol by using public relations methods.

Red Bull uses a small quantity of traditional public relations tools like press releases and press conferences, but not everything else is as conventional (for PR in Austria). Most of the traditional PR strategies have been turned upside down in the way that Red Bull decided as it launched the product not to give its energy drink to every retailer available, but to especially smaller ones.
Further, it thoroughly selects the bars and clubs were the product could be provided, to be sure to offer this drink in the suitable environment, where many people need an extra kick of energy.

Nowadays not the sale of the product itself seems to be the most important part of the company’s tasks, but consolidating the brand in the public’s brains by appearing at nearly every event that has to do with action and power. Red Bull always wants to be sure that their merchandising articles become highly desired goods and therefore are often stolen, which possibly makes the ‘thieves’ feel even more connected to Red Bull.

In Red Bull’s opinion, a company can’t get hold of its consumers, if it’s not able to connect with its employees. Red Bull generates loyalty through giving the staff the impression of belonging to an exclusive club.
Red Bull’s strategy to get its potential consumers’ attention and to give them the impression of exclusivity is to make it a little bit difficult for them to get in touch with the product and everything connected with it. Additionally, the company is always keen on connecting some mystery with its energy drink, because, like Kevin Roberts expresses it in his book “Lovemarks: The future beyond loyal brands.”, mystery opens up emotion and is a key part of creating loyalty beyond reason.

The staff of Red Bull is said to be truly believing in its product and stands loyally behind it. This attitude and enthusiasm has an intoxicating affect on the consumers of the product.
The Red Bull company achieves allegiance because of including each member of staff totally on board level (Wipperfürth describes it in his book “Brand hijack: Marketing without marketing").

I personally got the impression that Red Bull is not simply a company to work for, but a mission to live for.

Red Bull is one of the few Austrian companies that use the full spectrum of public relations tools for their company. Hence I’m asking myself, why so many Austrian companies refuse to tap the full potential of PR?

PRpedia

Prpedia was initialised within the campaign “PR kann mehr” (“PR can do more”) and looks similar to the biggest online encyclopaedia.
The lexicon is divided in different sections: ethics, crisis-PR, media, online relations, PR disciplines, PR tools and theory.
When I first visited this site I expected to find hundreds of articles concerning PR. In fact, there are just 101 articles in PRpedia at the present. Regarding this, I guess the PR campaign failed to promote one of its own tools.
Since everyone is invited to write some information into this lexicon, I don’t understand why no one does.
Where are the PR professionals who set a high value on the development of this profession in Austria?

Austrian PR job market

I was just reading the job section in an Austrian newspaper. Of all those hundreds of job offers, I found just two vacancies for public relations. However, it was not clear that those two companies were searching for PR practitioners. They circumscribed it as places for communications officers who have to practice primarily media relations and additionally organising campaigns.

I am asking myself how the trend PR can grow bigger in Austria when a big part of the public tries to deny the existence of a profession called public relations.
Of course, Austria is a little bit sensitive concerning PR because it has something to do with propaganda and National Socialism.
I think the campaign “PR kann mehr” (“PR can do more”) could be used to take the fear from this profession.

PR can do more - The mission

One of the reasons the PR campaign for PR was initialised is that about 75% of decision makers in Austria’s economy, politics and culture solely think of media relations as the main task of PR. The wrong perception of PR should be corrected with the aid of the PR campaign “PR kann mehr” (“PR can do more”).

The initiators of the campaign want to highlight the numerous other tasks of PR and their possible importance to economics, politics and culture.
On their homepage interviews with PR professionals are published to give practical examples of the PR business today in Austria.

The encyclopaedia “PRpedia” should help to explain relevant PR terms and will be available for everyone. Additionally, everybody who wants to share his or her knowledge about a particular field in PR can publish in "PRpedia".

My personal opinion concerning this PR campaign is that I really like the idea behind it. What would be more suitable to promote PR than PR itself? However, I think there could be done more within this campaign. I guess just publishing interviews with PR professionals won’t be very useful.

It is not explained on the campaign homepage if there are more things done to enhance the reputation of PR. I would suggest initialising seminars for decision makers in the areas of politics, economy and culture to show them personally the potential of public relations.

PR can do more

In public, PR still has a bad reputation and most of the people I know, cannot tell what PR exactly is or does.
Regarding this fact the PRVA decided in October 2005 to start a PR campaign to make PR more popular in Austria. Together with the “Section Advertising and Market Communication Vienna”, they decided on the slogan “PR kann mehr”, which means, “PR can do more”. The two groups decided on this slogan, because PR is mostly regarded just as media relations.
“PR kann mehr” wants to show how companies can benefit from PR and its various tools like lobbying, corporate social responsibility, online relations and much more.
An important part of this campaign is PRpedia, an encyclopaedia similar to Wikipedia, which explains different tools and terms from the PR business.

PR has become bigger and bigger in the last few years in Austria and in 2006 the profession nearly reached a total market volume of 1 Billion Euros in its entire history.

The PRVA

Talking and thinking about PR in Austria surely brings you across the PRVA. This regulatory institution for public relations in Austria was founded in 1998.

I’d say that this could mark the beginning of PR becoming a trend in Austria.

The 40 founding members decided to act regarding the “Code of Athens”, which was initialised by the CERP in 1965.

The main purpose of this organisation is to provide guidelines for the profession of public relations and to discuss issues concerning PR and its environment.

If you’re interested in the different topics the PRVA is discussing (amongst others trends in the field of public relations) you should take a look at the homepage.

PR becomes a trend in Austria

As most of you know by now, I am from Austria, which is a very small, but highly developed country. The countries economy and culture is often very innovative and “trendy”.

Regrettably, Austria has not yet fully recognised the various possibilities of PR. Last year the PRVA (the Austrian regulatory PR institute) started a PR campaign to enhance the reputation of PR as it is now.

In this web log, I want to talk about the prementioned campaign and how a small nation tries to catch up with PR that seems to be one of the biggest trends in the world of commerce and industry as well as in the world of arts and culture.