"Communicating Beyond Borders" Photo Review

On April 20, 2012, the Center for Global Public Relations hosted its second annual global research conference, "Communicating Beyond Borders: Building Relationships Among Corporations, NGO's and Governments" at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Marco Herrera, President & CEO of Grupo Public, served as keynote speaker. A global panel presented on the unique practices of public relations in Western Europe, Russia, the Middle East and Latin America. Nadine Billgen was recipient of the Top Paper Award for her submission, "More American Than American? A Textual Analysis of the U.S. Websites of American and Foreign Carmakers."

For more photos of this event and our Teaching International PR Colloquium, please visit our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/CenterGPR

A big thanks to Tetsuro Otsuka for his photography skills!

Resource Revolution: Implications for global PR practitioners

Global PR practitioners must be savvy about the global challenges, where environment, geopolitics and economy are intertwined. Therefore, I think this recent report by McKinsey is a must-read. It describes the heavy increase in energy, food, water and materials needs and lists some opportunities to improve resource productivity. Here are three major challenges in the resource landscape identified by the report. I see many interesting implications for global PR practitioners.

• The new middle class. More than 3 billion people will join the middle class in the next 20 years. Coming from China, India, Brazil, Nigeria and other developing countries, they will boost demand for energy, mobility, urban infrastructures and food, and their consumption patterns will be more and more sophisticated. Global PR practitioners will play a key role in understanding and satisfying these new consumers as well as managing stakeholder relationships in those countries and, finally, helping the vibrant local brands from those countries become powerful in the domestic and international market.
• Resource supply inelasticity. While demand will be rising, new sources of supply are difficult to find, expensive and often controversial. Therefore, since supply is inelastic, even small changes in the demand may result in large price fluctuations. Global PR managers should act as the eyes and the ears of their organizations, scanning the environment and trying to understand the signals of changes in resource demand and their impact. If they will be able to provide smart insights on this fast-changing environmental, geopolitical and economic landscape, they will be likely to shape the future strategies of their organizations. This task is even more challenging, given the complex interdependence of the value chains and national economies.
• Innovation to increase resource productivity. In order to face the increased resource demand, a big innovation wave is needed. PR people should participate to innovation teams as they are able to foster creative communication, facilitate team dynamics and bring stakeholder insight. Moreover, since the path to innovation follows more and more often an open innovation approach and it involves several stakeholders, PR should be on board and have a say. Finally, innovations must be spread and socialised and PR practitioners can act as change leaders.

To sum up, a global PR leader should develop the following skills:

- deep stakeholder insight into developing countries

- environmental, geopolitical and economic understanding

- system thinking

- open innovation facilitation

- change leadership

By Marcello Coppa

Managing partner, Anteprima LAB, Italy

Global Affiliate, The Center for Global Public Relations

What type of global organization would you like to work for?

I am now looking for a job for after graduation. I am thinking I would like to enter a Japanese company that is expanding its business to the oversea. On the other hand, I am also looking for the foreign companies’ branch in Japan.

While I am searching both types of global companies, I realized I would like to contribute the global company which has a global campaign. For example, Toyota and Honda are Japanese-based global companies with a lot of subsidiary in the world, but they do not often do the global campaigns. Instead, each region has own marketing and PR strategy. Even if I work in those kinds of the companies in Japan, I think I might not have many chances to join each region’s campaign.

However, some global companies have global campaigns. For example, Nike has a global campaign. When I was in Japan I saw a lot of commercial film which was made by Nike’s headquarters. They use same slogan and athlete in the world. I would like to work in those kinds of companies.

By the way, have you ever seen commercial film or foreign movies? I think, unfortunately, the American do not have many opportunities to see that than other countries. The U.S. is always leading other countries and also the Hollywood often remakes foreign movies for American.

If you watch the foreign movies, you might get new inspirations and might be contribute your knowledge.

By Tetsuro Otsuksa
Associate Manager

US Takes On Its First Global Marketing Campaign

The US takes on its first global marketing campaign to increase tourism and hopefully create new jobs.

The Corporation for Travel Promotion has rebranded under a new name: Brand USA. With a $200 million budget, Brand USA aims to convey the message that “The United States of awesome possibilities welcomes everyone.” It’s consumer website, DiscoverAmerica.com, features videos, photos, travel tips, and a US logo comprised of multicolored dots.

Stephen J Cloobeck, chairman of Brand USA, said, “Brand USA has arrived, and it’s not just a tourism brand.” He goes on to say, “It is a 21st Century global brand that will help reposition our great nation in the market for travel, and drive economic activity, including billions of new spending, tens of thousands of new outsource-proof jobs and much needed-tax revenue, to spur powerful growth throughout all corners of the United States.”

Even though Brand USA promotes a message of awesome and boundless possibilities, many Americans still voice dissatisfaction through Occupy Wall Street protests and other demonstrations around the country. The US also ranks number one in holding the best national reputation worldwide, but that could be heavily influenced by the worsening economic and political trouble across Europe.

This is a HUGE PR undertaking; a country for a client, an industry as the product, and the world as the market. Hill and Knowlton, which is the agency handling the campaign’s pr, definitely have a full plate.

Will Brand USA be the answer to Americans’ prayers? Will Americans feel a greater sense of pride and patriotism and reinvest in our country? Will international citizens have a greater desire to experience the “awesome possibilities” the US has to offer?

See the video introducing Brand USA here:
http://www.brandrepublic.com/news/1102710/America-gives-itself-brand-refresh/

By Kate Brissenden
Associate Manager

Ethics and International Public Relations

For public relations practitioners working in International Public Relations, practicing ethical behavior is vital. The success of practicing ethical behavior can be measured by how trusted an organization, company, etc. is. Trust must be present in order to establish strong, long-lasting relationships with publics. When working internationally, trust may be harder to achieve due to the amount unfamiliarity and skeptics involved.

The presence of ethics in public relations is often times questioned. Public Relations practitioners should strive to prove the existence of ethics in this field.

In the IPRA’s “Code of Conduct”, the following are areas in which public relations practitioners should be aware of: observance, integrity, dialogue, transparency, conflict, confidentiality, accuracy, falsehood, deception, disclosure, profit, remuneration, inducement, influence, competitors, poaching, employment and colleagues. This “Code of Conduct” can be found at http://www.ipra.org/detail.asp?articleid=31

September was PRSA’s ethics awareness month. Here is an interesting post from PRSA’s blog relating to International Public Relations and ethics: http://prsay.prsa.org/index.php/2011/09/21/global-ethics-standar-for-public-relations/

Do you think it is possible to achieve an International Public Relations code of ethics?


By Sammie Jo Dellinger
Associate Manager

Global Non Profit Organizations

In a world gone global, it is important to consider non-profit organizations. Non-profit organizations are taking the stage and demonstrating how important global involvement and support is for those countries less fortunate. Public relations professionals who focus in crisis and non-profit communications understand how these issues are of extreme importance. There are thousands of non-profit organizations that provide utilities for the less fortunate; one organization that stood out amongst the rest is Global Water.

From their website http://www.globalwater.org/, it details the specific descriptions of the organization and the services they provide;

“Global Water is a volunteer-based organization, so we’re able to send more of your donations directly into our water/sanitation/hygiene facility projects to support rural communities and rural schools. These projects include: surface water supply and distribution systems, rain harvesting supply systems, water-well drilling activities, hand pump installations and repair, water treatment equipment, latrines, school hand-washing stations, community laundry-washing and bathing facilities, watershed reforestation, and health & hygiene education.”

As public relations professionals we must consider all aspects of communications, especially global involvement.

You can view their website at http://www.globalwater.org/ and view the inspiring contribution that Global Water provides.
This picture from the Global Water website, shows a recently drilled well in southern Kenya for the villagers of Maasai.
















This picture from the Global Water website, shows a recently drilled well in southern Kenya for the villagers of Maasai.

By Anna Craver
Associate Manager

Should public relations practitioners be social media savvy?

With the continuing growth of social media globally, the idea of a PR practitioner being expected to be familiar with social media is not farfetched. A relevant question may even be when this will no longer be an expectation, but a requirement.

Many in the field of PR are aware of the advantages of using social media as a tool. Facebook alone has over 400 million worldwide users. Other social media sites include Twitter, Google+, Bebo, Linkedin, etc. With social media connecting such a large amount of people from around the world, it is a given that global PR practitioners should take advantage of the sites’ networking capabilities.

With all of the different social media sites available, and constant changes in how to navigate some sites, one could see the challenge in being familiar with every site. But with the unlimited advantages of using social media as a tool, the expectation of PR practitioners to use it is here to stay.

An interesting article relating to this is, “How PR Pros Are Using Social Media for Real Results,” located at http://mashable.com/2010/03/16/public-relations-social-media-results/

By Sammie Jo Dellinger
Associate Manager

How should global public relations deal with new media and technology?

As global technology continues to evolve, how important is it for PR practitioners to stay up to date with new media and technology? For the most part, understanding and using these tools are basic skills for practitioners. However, there are those who may feel the technological evolution is too fast, as we progress from one social network to the next. This becomes even more complicated when we think about using these tools on a global scale.

I read an interesting article discussing Facebook users around the world. Obviously, the country with the most Facebook users is the US. Surprisingly, Indonesia is the country with the second largest number of Facebook users. There are a lot of differences among Internet users in different countries. China has the largest internet population, and Japan and Korea ranked high. I have heard that smart phones work as an Internet infrastructure, so there are a lot of Facebook users in Indonesia.

However, new media changes are not only based on the amount of users, but also on the regulations and culture. For example, there are a lot of regulations in China. And also many new social networks have popped up in Japan and Korea, specific to these countries and their cultures.

As I mentioned, it’s very important to keep up new media and technology, but if we consider the cultural value at the same time, it can make things very complicated. It is virtually impossible to keep up with every country's individual social networks as a practitioner.

Even though there are a lot of differences, there are a lot of common understandings.
We laugh when we are enjoying and cry when we are sad. These are universal behaviors.

I think the area of global PR is the place where we can consider universal PR activities based on new media and technologies without culture or each country’s regulatory conditions. Then, we should break them down to each country’s PR based on cultural values.

By Tetsuro Otsuka
Associate Manager