What we are fighting for

According to the book ‘Public Relations Cases’ by Hendrix and Hayes, there are two types of objectives that are used in Public Relations programmes. The first of them are called ‘output objectives’, which include the work that was produced and distributed, for example the number of press releases that have been sent or presentations that took place. The second is ‘impact objectives’, which can be further divided into three groups, informational, attitudinal, and behavioural.

All of them are significant from a public relations point of view, but it does depend on what the aim of the campaign is, making some of them more important than the others. Sean Kidney, chairman and co-founder of the Climate Bonds Initiative pointed out during his lecture at the University of Westminster, that when Public Relations officers communicate about climate change issues or any other NGO’s cases the attitudinal objectives, which aim to modify the way the audience feels about the issue are not sufficient. In these cases the most desired outcome is behaviour change. 

Public relations practitioners when fighting for a better environment should not only aim to make people think that recycling is good and necessary, they have to try and convince the public to start recycling. It is not good enough that society knows that they should not waste food, the campaign has to stop people from throwing food away and teach them how to use leftovers. This is one of the crucial things that public relations officers working for NGO’s and charities have to remember. Of course, every case and issue is different, but by making people think about something, we’re not necessarily changing the world.