Unlike marketing, which tries to match a product or service with a certain demographics desire, PR focuses more on the relationship with that demographic and their perception towards a given product. In politics for example, the demographic is the voting population in the United States, and the product is the political candidate running for election. Public relations dramatically influence how we perceive any candidate, regardless of what their policies are.

Part of the reason that political public relations have such a powerful effect on us is because of a lack of correct information or simply because some people are uneducated about certain topics. It is all too easy for a business or even a political candidate to persuade someone who is uneducated and doesn’t have any preconceived notions. Take for example, a whiteboard: If a whiteboard is blank, you can immediately start writing a new message. In contrast, what if the whiteboard already had messages written on it that covered its entire surface? You would have to first erase the old messages and then start writing the new. This is essentially what political campaigns do with us; if we are uninformed, then they have nothing to erase; they can instantly start writing a new message in our minds to change the perception we have of a particular candidate. In order to prevent this, it is our job to study-up, to be informed and educate ourselves on topics of interest, whether those topics are political or something else. Otherwise we are just blank white boards, waiting for someone to come and write our message.

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If a political campaign is skilled in public relations, they will almost always accomplish exactly what they set out to do; change public perception to help their candidate. However, sometimes their plan backfires and they end up doing more harm than good. We all have seen times when a political campaign has put their metaphorical foot in their mouth and ended up losing their candidate an election. Promoting a message that looks unprofessional and sloppy, makes your campaign look exactly the same way; unprofessional and sloppy. It is of the utmost importance for every political campaign to make sure they perform public relations correctly. The same is true for any business, if your PR backfires, it could spell the end of your business.

So many campaigns are won and lost in the quiet, coffee aroma-filled offices of political strategists at 3am when they are hammering out a new campaign strategy. The way they ‘spin’ a certain political issue and how they change the perception of the general population ultimately decides who wins and who loses an election. The same can be said for almost any business. PR is the deciding factor that causes a customer to use products or services from you instead of your competitor. To gain the business of a new customer, you need to have good PR; you need to get them to trust you and feel an emotional connection that is substantially larger than anything they’ve felt towards another company.