1. Introduction
Public communication is an increasingly fragile yet crucial component of business activity in today’s world. Firstly, since all corporations or organizations have more than just a few stakeholders it is becoming ever so popular to disclose vital information about the functioning of the organization to all stakeholders. Secondly, with the knowledge and awareness of stakeholders increasing it has become vital for any organization to take into account their stakeholders’ mass opinions when designing strategic plans.
Going back a 100 years, with slow and tedious modes of communication, organizations and stakeholders alike did not find it feasible to disclose and discover information on organizations’ plans and objectives. However, with the advent of communication technology, this infeasible task has turned into one of the easiest tasks to accomplish. Stakeholders now generally have more say in the overall strategic planning of an organization and managers face an ever increasing pressure to keep all stakeholders satisfied.
When it comes to public communication campaigns, campaign designers have also benefitted from the advent in communication technology. Where it was cumbersome, economically unfavorable and extremely idealistic some years ago, getting messages across a vast majority of people has become an easy task to achieve. Be it a message from an NGO or the government itself, public communication has improved by leaps and bounds. Technologies such as social media and smart phones have given a completely different and novel meaning to public communication campaigns. 100 or even 50 years back it was almost impossible for an organization to spread the word on eliminating child labor practices from North America all the way to Bangladesh. Today, this seemingly impossible task is as easy as placing online banners on a thousand websites and smart phone applications for everyone to see.
It is a much clichéd proposition that every thing has two sides to it; positive and negative. This clichéd proposition also applies to public communication. Even though the audience is easy to reach, the message can be spread in various ways, and the cost has incredibly stumbled, public communication faces a new set of dilemmas to address. With the audience for a campaign so huge, it is becoming ever so relevant to talk about ethical and moral frameworks for public communication. Advertising lingerie through mobile apps may be a sound decision for North America and Europe but it will leave a whole population offended in the Middle East.
This research aims at devising a framework for public communication campaigns by utilizing already existing literature and keeping in mind the trends and technologies available. Moreover, the research also attempts to implement the devised framework on a specific sector with respect to existing public communication case studies.

2. Best practices framework
Public communication is all around us. When we walk down the road, when we communicate with clients, when we make marketing and advertising campaigns, when we release annual financial statements and even when we watch television. Studios use public communication to market their films, NGOs use it advocate a cause, companies use it to spread word about their products and services and governments use it to garner support. This shows that public communication is an aspect of our everyday and every hour life which has a deep and significant impact. The question here is not how it evolved into such a prevalent phenomenon but rather how all these campaigns are developed. It is crucial to understand the underlying basics of developing effective public communication campaigns. All the parties mentioned above have different objectives, visions, goals and methods but the fundamentals of their public communication campaigns are the same.
Here we have tried to devise those generic factors that must be taken into account when developing a public communications campaign. Obviously, these factors only provide a skeleton and the flesh is added when specific situations are taken into account.
2.1 Objectives
When we hear objectives it sounds like a misused word. However, when it comes to public communication, objectives are the soul and spirit of any communication campaign. Communicating with the desired audience is not an end in itself. Instead, it is a means to an end. The end in this context is the underlying objective an organization wants to achieve through its public communication campaign. A multi-national consumer products company will develop a communications campaign to advertise its newly launched hair conditioner. The end here is not to advertise the conditioner; it is rather to make consumers purchase that conditioner. The overall organizational objectives should play the most important role when designing a communications campaign. A public communications campaign should be designed in a way that it drives the intended audience towards the fulfillment of the overall objective.
2.2 Audience
Defining the target audience is definitely the trickiest component in this framework. Many times target audiences are not the most obvious ones. Some times the target audience may not be available on certain media. All these factors contribute to defining the most relevant and worthwhile audience. A NGO creating awareness about education can not simply start its campaign from Scandinavian or Nordic countries as they are very well educated. To create an effective communication campaign, the NGO will need to identify regions where literacy rates are quite low for starters. Regions such as Central Africa and South Asia might be of interest to them. Therefore, defining an audience means choosing who will and who will not receive your message. This is why immense importance should be given to this component.

2.3 The Message
It is obvious that a detailed descriptive message will give a clear picture of what the campaign is all about, but those kinds of messages are not best suited to public communication campaigns. It is imperative that public communication follows the 3Cs approach that has been developed during the course of this research.
. Clear
. Concise
. Coherent
All messages given to the target audience should be clear and concise. Long descriptive paragraphs and confusing jargon are sure to crumble any communication campaign. People are more attracted to one-liners, bullet points and easy-to-understand terminology. A mobile phone manufacturer may state in its campaign that one of its mobile phone models uses a Li-ion battery. This statement would make sense to a handful of people who are obviously well-versed in mobile technology. A much better way portray the information would be to state that this mobile phone has a very long battery life. This, quite obviously, makes much more sense to a normal person.
Coherence in messages is another key factor. One banner to another banner, one advertisement to another advertisement and one brochure to another brochure, all should give the same message to the audience. Using different words for different media makes sense but care should be taken to assemble those words in a way that the message remains the same.
2.4 Tools & Technologies
This component of the communication framework addresses the problem of how to spread the message. Since there are numerous technologies and methods present now, as discussed in the introduction, it is necessary for campaigners to decide which technology or medium will best suit their needs. Even though using technology is favorable in most instances, it might not be of any use in some. Therefore, carefully evaluating the target audience and the message to be sent are extremely important in determining the medium to be used.
2.5 Resources and Timelines
Every communication campaign is a burden on the financial and economic resources of an organization. This is precisely why extreme care is taken when designing the campaign so as to reach the desired objectives instead of burning up resources for nothing at all. This component deals with allocating resources and developing timelines for the fulfillment of the objectives. Every public communications campaign must have a budget allocation. Campaigners should know before they have even begun their work what they must work with. Budget allocations should not only be in terms of monetary assets but also other assets such as human resources and time. This way, every step will be taken within the boundaries of the budget. When it comes to allocating or developing timelines, specific dates should be developed by the head of the campaign for reaching internal and external objectives. One good way to define timelines is to quantify every objective and tie it to a specific date. So a campaign head will know that he needs to prepare 500 billboards by lets say June 12, 2015. Similarly, external timelines will concentrate on getting a desired response from the target audience within a specified time.
This component is extremely important as public communications campaigns can go from a month to a year to several years. Therefore, it is crucial to devise a specific timeframe in which the campaign must be set up and the desired results achieved. Obviously, this might not be possible for certain campaigns such as NGO campaigns or Research oriented campaigns.
2.6 Monitoring and Evaluation
It is as essential for a campaign to have a monitoring and evaluation system as it is for it to have an objective. Without adequate and efficient monitoring the campaigners can never measure their campaign’s performance and improve from there on. Monitoring can take many shapes, especially with the variety of media available for campaign building. Tracking user statistics, television ratings and even newspaper sales can all be used for monitoring the activity that happens after the campaign is launched.
The second part of this component is evaluation. Evaluating the campaigns results against the set objectives is an integral part of the campaign as it shows the campaigners where they excelled and where they failed. Having measurable objectives tied to specific timelines gives the evaluation another boost by giving campaigners the ability to evaluate numbers against numbers. This form of evaluation is extremely important as it gives a clear picture as to whether the objectives were reached or not. These results become the basis of future campaigns and plans.

3. Best Practices in the NGO/Community Service sector
3.1 See Beyond Race

The See Beyond Race campaign is a clear example of the best practices framework devised earlier being implemented completely. Firstly, the campaign had its objectives set and defined in a clear and concise manner. This was topped up by the fact that the campaign went as far as attaching quantitative figures to their campaign objectives such as achieving a 90% awareness rate. According to the best practices framework, the campaign had its objectives component well covered. The audience component was also very well thought out. Since it was a place-based campaign, See Beyond Race mainly targeted two age groups particularly 15-24 and 25-34 year olds. By selecting these two groups the campaign automatically covered almost 29% of the population which is quite a satisfactory number.

The messages conveyed by the campaign satisfied all three components of the 3Cs approach. They we clear, concise and coherent. Moreover, the tools and technologies used by the campaigners were also very well suited to the target audience. Since the target audience was mostly found in places such as restaurants, gyms and bars. All possible and available media was used to advertise the campaign along with a campaign launch with the Mayor of Whittlesea and other local dignitaries. The two groups were also targeted with local press and advertising on buses and food courts.

The evaluation and monitoring was done on a specific randomly selected sample from the population through telephone interviews. This allowed the campaigners to determine the success and failure of the campaign against their distinct objectives. According to the interviews the campaign failed in only one objective of creating awareness where it achieved only 37%. However, this failure was attributable to the lack of budgeting and timeframe constraints. All in all the campaign successfully achieved its targets and managed to change perceptions within the target group.

The campaign could have achieved its overall awareness target by employing more cost efficient media such as social media and the internet. Since the target audience selected is constantly involved with the internet, placing geo-tagged banners and advertisements on websites or displaying push-notifications on smart phones within the geographic location would have given the campaign another edge. Another component that the campaign could have implemented differently was setting timelines and allocating resources to be used. This obviously led to a much abridged timeline and severe budgetary constraints because of which traditional media became difficult to cater to.

3.2 Earth Hour
Earth Hour’s main objective was to bring national attention to the problem of global warming and encourage solutions throughout the larger society by saving an hour worth of energy which would in turn reduce the negative effect of carbon. The specific objective was to reduce Sidney’s emissions by 5% in a single year by getting community leaders and corporations to participate in Earth Hour. The campaign also aimed to highlight WWF’s role as the ‘leading organization solutions organizations’ on a global scale as well.
The audience intended for this message was the society in general that utilized this energy on a daily basis, which in turn was the greater community in general, including government, corporate, educational and residential communities.
The message itself was simple and infectious in nature as it was action-oriented; to switch off power supplies for an hour to save energy. One reason for its success was that it was a clear, concise and coherent message that empowered the target audience to take action in a single moment that would unify them to take a longer term view of the effects of consuming energy responsibly.
The tools and technologies used for the message included wide spread use of print and live media, ranging from publications to television coverage. This also included celebrity endorsements and WWF spokespeople that would promote the cause. Another important tool was using community events to secure promotion for Earth Hour.
The campaign also encouraged the audience to engage with the cause by tracking their own energy usage habits as well. In terms of resources, a team of 6 people from Red Agency carried out the PR activity on the day of the event that worked in coordination with WWF. The costs were also controlled by using partners that would support the cause by providing discounted services such as the Sidney Theater, thus leveraging resources.

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