Rossiter-Percy grid

PR and advertising campaigns differ like rafting and regatta. Life brings changes in PR more often and in a more significant way.

But planning is necessary. We will explain, how we apply a Rossiter-Percy* method to select PR tools for our clients.

At some point, John R. Rossiter and Larry Percy offered a grid of consumer’s motivation types. According to this grid, motivation to purchase can be positive and negative. Negative motivation appears when a purchase is made to solve a problem, to avoid it or improve a previously imperfect product/situation. For example, headache pills (that is, it has nothing to do with the understanding of ‘negative’ as ‘bad’). Positive motivation takes place when the purchase is made for pleasure, physical or psychological, or for social recognition. For example, sweets. To clarify from the start, these examples are the traditional placing of the categories, but, in fact, a brand manager can relate insurance services to the positive motivation and apparel to the negative one.

Purchase involvement, according to Rossiter-Percy, can also be high and low. High involvement in the purchase decision is when a big risk, economic or psychological, is associated with it. Low involvement purchasing decisions are those when the risk is minimal. Low involvement products are FMCG, high involvement products are expensive, associated with serious health problems, reputation, career, and personal life. And B2B products.

So, we have four situations in which we should choose relevant PR tools.

1. Informational low involvement PR
(low involvement + negative motivation)

If purchasing decision is with low involvement, PR should be ‘low involvement‘ too. Short posts in social networks, pictures, jokes, guerrilla marketing, joining a large topic work well here. And since we are talking about buying ‘a solution to the problem’, it is necessary to show the connection between a problem and its solution to the full (solution in the form of your brand, of course). Communication should be reflected in the pictures, and such promo campaigns as ‘tell me about your problem and get…’, publication of research results like ‘78% of Ukrainians believe that …’ will also work fine.

Example. Edward Bernays tied smoking to the women’s liberation movement at the beginning of the 20th century. They say, a President of American Tobacco, George Washington Hill once complained to Bernays: ‘How do you get women to smoke outside? They smoke at home, but they spend a lot of time at the street. We lose half of the market.’ They had to make women smoke in public. Bernays ordered a consultation from a psychoanalyst (back then it was very fashionable in the advertising industry) and A. A. Brill from the Johns Hopkins University said: ‘For some women, smoking is a symbol of freedom’. And, in1929, a group of pretty young women took out cigarettes and lit them before the cameras of reporters in the Easter Parade in New York. Bernays prepared photographers and journalists, so they knew they were not just cigarettes, they were ‘torches of freedom’. New York Times ran a story titled,’Group of Girls Puff at Cigarettes as a Gesture of Freedom’. Thus, the taboo on public women’s smoking was withdrawn, after which the cigarette manufacturers could support en masse a beneficial situation for them by direct advertising with specific brands and slogans like ‘Believe in yourself’. In this way a simple symbolic thing — a cigarette — ‘was solving’ the problem of gender rights.

2. Informational high involvement
(high involvement + negative motivation)

This is a case when a purchasing decision is thought over for a long time, hard, with the help of recommendations and to solve some problem. For a PR specialist, this means that it is necessary to write a lot. To write articles, long texts with expert explanations. They will be read. Long videos will be watched — a person has the motivation to spend minutes on watching them. Add an ‘Ask-the-Expert’ online feedback form on the website and give explanatory answers to all the questions asked. Create educational centers, organize conferences and make theme-oriented websites. This will work. Since the motivation here is negative, the problem a product solves should be imbedded into the materials. Preferably in such a way that your content could be found with the keywords people use to describe the problem in the search engines.

Example from our experience. One TV channel copied a successful program of another TV channel. Defending its intellectual property rights, the channel won the Primary Court and the Court of Appeal. But the other side decided to go all the way. Although 90% of economic affairs end up in the Court of Appeal, a ‘copycat’ company brought a case to the Supreme Court of Ukraine. We decided that, regardless of the decision of the judicial system, we should show the public, in particular, the legal community, on whose side is the truth. Besides, we knew that judges, like everyone else, listen to their colleagues. We’ve had a month and a half for this. The channel joined FRAPA, an International Format Recognition and Protection Organization. Consultants from Belgium and Sweden got acquainted with a briefcase, looked both video programs, and made an expert opinion: there was a copyright infringement. We organized a legal roundtable discussion at LIHABiznesInform, during which a FRAPA representative connected via Skype and gave an expert review from the international community. 12 Ukrainian lawyers commented on the situation and their opinion was unequivocal: the violation of the intellectual property was obvious. The case was described in all legal periodicals and in a variety of non-legal ones. We created a special project that explained what was happening in a form of questions and answers. A day before the Supreme Court session, a video appeared in the public field: absolutely same dramatic elements of the first and second programs were cut together side-by-side, it was just a channel’s logo that was changing. A one-minute video ended with a joke: a host of the original show and the copied show said: ‘Do not go to other channels.’  There was a huge buzz around the trial. And, on 17 February 2016, the Supreme Court decided in favor of the channel for which we provided a PR support. And received dozens of congratulations from media people, lawyers, and international professional associations.

3. Transformational low involvement PR
(low involvement + positive motivation)

If people buy your product to bring some happiness into life, this is a ‘positive’ motivation. If the engagement is low and there is no problem, ‘info-fast-food’ works perfectly: necessarily branded, light and enjoyable. Native advertorials such as ‘10 most interesting …’  (and your brand among them), tests like ‘Which … are you …’  (and your brand among them) with a possibility to share results in social networks will be effective. For this situation, we collect emotional responses (e.g. from celebrities), prepare fashionable souvenirs for gifts and organize fascinating excursions.

A great example of the transformational low involvement PR is an Oreo Facebook page with its everyday jokes and pictures.

4. Transformational high involvement PR
(high involvement + positive motivation)

In this situation, we also take something entertaining, but little more serious, more significant. A long article, ‘The Art of Breaking Up with Your Boyfriend’ , for an apparel brand, ‘New Way of Self-Improvement’  for the leader of the category, and ‘Things You Didn’t Know About…’  for a new category. An old and undeservedly forgotten technique — an essay contest, ‘I love your brand, because …’ . In this quadrant of the grid, communities around the brand and rewards for the most active participants, referral programs with gifts for referrals, as well as the brand parties work perfectly. Be more positive and interactive.

 Example. Celebrating its 50th anniversary on the Chinese market, Porsche invented a music project: the melody of ‘Happy Birthday to You’ was played in the sounds of the Porsche 911 engines from seven generations. Each generation was responsible for one of the notes. Firstly, video with Porsche Happy Birthday song was played on the biggest portals (Youku, iQiyi, Sina Weibo), and then a Porsche piano was created on the website of the brand, where everyone could play and share their own tune.

Certainly, there will always be uncontrollable, reactive parts in the work of a PR specialist, but the sound planning of its manageable parts is the path to the long-term solid results.

*Strategic Advertising Management 
by Larry Percy, Richard Rosenbaum-Elliott, OUP Oxford, 2012. – 389 p.

photo credit: jpappsdl Hi-Res Music Player (FREE) – Android & iOS apps – Free via photopin (license)