Assignment task: Analyze the Publics
The Worldwide Widget Co. (WWC) has hired Smythe & Smythe Public Relations (S&SPR) to help it organize and carry out a public relations program to introduce a new widget the company has developed.
The S&SPR team has been briefed about a new product. It will revolutionize the widget market. It is half the price of conventional widgets and does the work in half the time. In addition, secret tests show that it lasts twice as long.
The account team is cautioned not to say a word about this to anyone - not even other S&SPR employees or their family members. After a month of work on a dynamite new public relations program that could preempt the market, SS-SPR staffers are invited to a fund raising party for the Newtown Symphony Orchestra. The top echelon of influential Newtown citizens is at the function, where food and wine flow like - food and wine!
An S&SPR junior staffer assigned to the WC account lets the wine flow too freely and, before anyone can do anything about it, he discloses all he knows about the new widget to an editor with the Newtown News. You are president of S&S and hear him blab the final piece of information to the editor. You realize that the Newton News will run with the information and that a story about the new product will likely be published well before the official announce date. You also realize that WWC must be ready to deal with the inevitable questions it will receive from its intercessory and strategic publics.
In approximately 600 words, identify the intercessory and strategic publics you believe will be affected. And discuss the reasons why you think WWC needs to be able to deal with each of them when the news about the new product hits the street.