Developing A Public Relations Plan, Part 1

Christopher D. Votaw

Public Relations-BUS300

Dr. Daniel C. Frost

August 29, 2021

Disney’s Credibility and Lower-Paid Immigrants.

It is frustrating to close the business because of a looming pandemic indiscriminately preying on innocent lives of citizens. Still, it is heartbreaking to lay off workers on the pretext of financial constraints and substitute them with cheaper, ‘unconstitutional’ alternatives. From a capitalist perspective, it is easier to say ‘profit maximization’ or prioritization of shareholder interests, but what about humanity. What has happened to the world? Disney had a choice, and the choice should have encompassed, among other alternatives like shift rotations, the option of pay cuts or reduced subsidies, health benefits.

Arguably, results matter to the individual organization’s credibility, but the means are significant too. The reputation and integrity of organizations amidst increasing inquest into corporate social responsibility is essential because, among other functions, it dictates the loyalty of consumers (Rinrattanakorn 3). Credibility originates from an organization’s history or words and actions; this explains the need for a comprehensive public relations plan to help restore Disney’s tarnished image owing to questionable, unethical practices.

Mission and Vision Statement

Disney’s mission statement confers the desire to entertain, inform, and inspire individuals using unparalleled narrations, reflecting iconic brands, creativity, and innovation into becoming the world’s premier entertainment company. The company’s primary purpose centers on the dynamic and progressive development of the entertainment industry. Disney’s mission statement seeks change stimulation characterized by improving lives, communities, entertainment, and expectations. The company, according to the mission statement, values the people most. It runs a vast array of people empowerment and life-changing programs. For example, the company’s philanthropic initiative to children creates happiness and smiles alongside patient programs. The lingering question is, what could force such a credible and ethical organization into business malpractice?

Facts of the Event.

According to a report published in the New York Times, Disney’s lawsuit claims the theme park company laid off and colluded in replacing U.S workers with immigrants (Preston 1). A testimony provided by one of the outgoing workers, Leo Perrero, confirmed his layoff from the technology job in Florida. Leo’s replacement, whom he trained as a temporary immigrant from India. Despite good performance ratings, the entertainment company was unwilling to re-hire him alongside other 250 tech workers. According to Preston (1), Disney worked jointly with HCL and Cognizant, which provided foreign replacement workers. The companies used temporary H-1B visas. Ms. Moore, one of the victims, laid off, claimed ‘the company laid off the workers to save a buck.’

The Origin of Negative Publicity

Disney’s actions constitute business malpractice because they compromise the ‘American dream. Besides, the actions violate several human resource management laws. Despite a 10-year experience and the ability to train incoming employees, the company denied her a job. The joint supplantation of American workers with H-1B employees is unconstitutional. Their actions violate the Equal employment opportunity laws established by the Civil rights act cap 1964. According to the guidelines, companies need to employ discrimination. Thus Disney has the burden of proof; punitive damages. Besides, Disney stands to incur an additional financial loss in terms of settlement and fines. In addition to violation of ethical standards, the company violated the equal pay act of 1963. Despite their immigration status, the recruits deserved better. This situation creates negative publicity because of the greed, opportunism, and blackmail evident in the company’s detestable actions.

Specific goals and Justification for selection

This campaign seeks to achieve three primary goals; managing the damaged reputational image of the company using by fostering relationships, restoring public support, overcoming general misunderstanding, displacing prejudice informing the public on the company’s devotion to integrity. The campaign’s goals include maintaining the existing strategic relationship of the company with the public, consumers, partners, employees, and key stakeholders. A company’s brand image confers honesty, significance, and relevancy (Dorado 2). Secondly, it influences sales and growth of the company

Steps to Achieve the goals

The steps detail situational analysis, establishing objectives related to the campaign’s outcome, identifying the target audience. Identification helps in designing key messages and selecting ideal media. Next, create a timetable, allocate activities to realistic budgets, and a final evaluation of the campaign. In situational analysis, the campaign seeks to understand the situation necessitating the PR campaign, according to Rinrattanakorn (3). The study provides clear and precise information related to the determination and implementation of strategic objectives. Establishing the goals helps in the creation of desirable realistic views. Objectives give the direction of planning and evaluation. This campaign will use different mediums and modes of informative presentations to address a vast target audience: the nonpublic, latent publics, aware publics, and active publics.

After general considerations, the campaign will devise a persuasive and exciting message communicating the themes and objective of the project in line with the Domino theory of the effect of communication, awareness, interest, desires, and action. The timetable will provide a guideline into the series of activities, the relations to different stakeholders and departments. As Rinrattanakorn (Rinrattanakorn, 3) deliberates, the schedule offers a deadline with various activities, the decision to run the campaign, an ideal sequence of activities, and critical steps. After the activities, the campaign will create a budget by defining resources, determining superior quantities, and evaluating the pros and cons of different mediums. Finally, the project will evaluate the deliverables to ascertain success or failure.

Ethical core values

The principles include the protection and advancement of accurate and truthful information. Secondly, the practitioner should foster open communication for rational decision-making. Thirdly, protect and business secrets. Additionally, enhance healthy and affair competition amongst different individuals, avoid conflict of interest and prioritize public trust.

Affected internal and external stakeholders

Stakeholder classification concerning the effort entails primary and secondary. Internal or primary stakeholders include those involved in the execution of this campaign, for instance, specific employees, management, and business owners. In contrast, external stakeholders include customers, current and potential investors, business competitors, the media, alongside social, economic, and political influence.

Evaluation plan and assessment strategies of the outcomes.

The evaluation plan comprises three levels of measurement (Rinrattanakorn 3). The first level entails assessing the efficacy of messages, distribution, and media placements, for example, customer feedback and shares. The second phase of the evaluation plan will include measuring the messages’ audience awareness, comprehension, and retention rate. For example, the campaign will conduct online reviews using questionnaires to gather customer opinions of the event, the efficacy of the proposed strategy, and their prevalence. Finally, at the advanced level, the campaign will evaluate changes in attitudes, opinions, and behavior based on sales or the number of customer turnouts before, during, and after the campaign.

Conclusion

Persuasively, customers are more loyal to ethical organizations. Disney’s actions are detestable yet forgivable because sometimes, we all make irrational decisions. The public relations campaign discussed in this research seeks restoration of the organization’s once unquestionable reputation. The campaign aims to eliminate negative publicity using a six-step sequential strategy following ethical core values and the associated effect on key stakeholders. Finally, using a three-step approach, the campaign will evaluate the success of the PR project and provide additional recommendations in support of Disney’s brand image.

Work Cited

1. Preston, J. (2016). “Lawsuits Claim Disney Colluded to Replace U.S. Workers with Immigrants.” The New York Times. Lawsuits Claim Disney Colluded to Replace U.S. Workers With Immigrants – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

2. Dorado, P. R. A. (2020) “Final Project: Spotify Front Row Campaign Dorado PR&A–Alessandra Fusar Poli, Hajar Kamel, Jonathan Chavez, Xiang Hu Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California PR 508: Public Relations Fundamentals and Strategy Professor Stephen Jones.”. https://jonathanechavez.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Spotify-Front-Row-Campaign.pdf

3. Rinrattanakorn, Pariya. (2012) “Public relations campaign.” Sripatum University. https://www.academia.edu/download/58724975/Artikel_AK21503_Kuliah_2.pdf

The post Developing A Public Relations Plan, Part 1 Christopher D. Votaw Public Relations-BUS300 appeared first on PapersSpot.