The Practice Of Marketing Public Relations In Ethiopian Airlines Group

The notion of Marketing Public Relations began to emerge in marketing communicationsrnarena since 1993, when Harris defined it as “it is the process of planning, executing andrnevaluating programs that encourage purchase and consumer satisfaction through crediblerncommunication of information and impressions that identify companies and their productsrnwith the needs, wants, concerns, and interests of consumers” (Harris, 1993:13-14).rnMarketing Public relation, in simple description, is the marketing oriented public relations.rnThe current business firms on the world utilizes the PR in various forms, some in the form ofrnmarketing dominated PR, other as a separate entities, still others as entities equallyrnimportant for a company (Grunig& Grunig , 1998 cited in Geremew, 2017). The currentrnstudy aimed at investigating the practices of Marketing Public Relations (MPR) in EthiopianrnAirlines Group. Guided by interpretivist research paradigm, the researcher deployedrnqualitative approach to answer two basic research questions, “what is the belief of PRrnmanagers and practitioners about MPR?” and “What is the actual practice MPR inrnEthiopian Airline Group?” Document Analysis, key Informant Interview and Focus GrouprnDiscussion were used to collect data for the qualitative study. Simple random sampling wasrnused to select 7 participants of FGD and Purposive sampling technique to involve 3rnmanagers for key informant interview; and relevant PR documents were randomly used torninvestigate the practices of MPR in the company. The finding from all tools revealed thatrnmarketing public relation is practiced in Ethiopian Airlines under the umbrella of Integratedrnmarketing communications. The participants were found to believe the indispensable role ofrnPR in marketing activities of the company. They believe that the changes occurred since IMCrnwas introduced to the company and since they started working with all marketingrncommunication actors, and they also mentioned that their reach of customers were very lessrnwhen they were working in silo before IMC. There were also gaps revealed by the study likernthe place of PR in the organizational structure which affects the practices and absence ofrnPublic relation research in the department. Lack of periodical training to maximize therncapacity of the practitioners in line with the rapid technological advancement and bitterrncompetition in aviation business, lack of human power in PR&CC department, are somernchallenges mentioned. Therefore, continuous evaluation by IMC constituents, facilitatingrnexperience sharing, providing training to the practitioners and solving the shortage of manrnpower were some of the recommendations made.

Get Full Work

Report copyright infringement or plagiarism