The Practice of Marketing Public Relations in Ethiopian Airlines Group
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2021-09
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
AAU
Abstract
The notion of Marketing Public Relations began to emerge in marketing communications
arena since 1993, when Harris defined it as “it is the process of planning, executing and
evaluating programs that encourage purchase and consumer satisfaction through credible
communication of information and impressions that identify companies and their products
with the needs, wants, concerns, and interests of consumers” (Harris, 1993:13-14).
Marketing Public relation, in simple description, is the marketing oriented public relations.
The current business firms on the world utilizes the PR in various forms, some in the form of
marketing dominated PR, other as a separate entities, still others as entities equally
important for a company (Grunig& Grunig , 1998 cited in Geremew, 2017). The current
study aimed at investigating the practices of Marketing Public Relations (MPR) in Ethiopian
Airlines Group. Guided by interpretivist research paradigm, the researcher deployed
qualitative approach to answer two basic research questions, “what is the belief of PR
managers and practitioners about MPR?” and “What is the actual practice MPR in
Ethiopian Airline Group?” Document Analysis, key Informant Interview and Focus Group
Discussion were used to collect data for the qualitative study. Simple random sampling was
used to select 7 participants of FGD and Purposive sampling technique to involve 3
managers for key informant interview; and relevant PR documents were randomly used to
investigate the practices of MPR in the company. The finding from all tools revealed that
marketing public relation is practiced in Ethiopian Airlines under the umbrella of Integrated
marketing communications. The participants were found to believe the indispensable role of
PR in marketing activities of the company. They believe that the changes occurred since IMC
was introduced to the company and since they started working with all marketing
communication actors, and they also mentioned that their reach of customers were very less
when they were working in silo before IMC. There were also gaps revealed by the study like
the place of PR in the organizational structure which affects the practices and absence of
Public relation research in the department. Lack of periodical training to maximize the
capacity of the practitioners in line with the rapid technological advancement and bitter
competition in aviation business, lack of human power in PR&CC department, are some
challenges mentioned. Therefore, continuous evaluation by IMC constituents, facilitating
experience sharing, providing training to the practitioners and solving the shortage of man
power were some of the recommendations made.
Description
Keywords
Integrated Marketing Communications, Marketing Public Relations, Marketing Communications, Public Relations