Seminar "The mysteries of PR profession behind 11 pictures"

Public relations is currently a fairly new major in the university education system in Vietnam, gathering a community of dynamic, creative students with a critical view not only on communication but also on any activity in life. In the context of global information access as it is today, this feature is both an opportunity and a challenge for students when they step out of the university and participate in real life and work. Recognizing the importance of equipping students with professional knowledge and skills, the Youth Union - Student Association of the Faculty of Journalism and Communication, University of Social Sciences and Humanities (Hanoi) organized this seminar. Attending the seminar were not only lecturers, students, and graduate students in journalism and PR inside and outside the faculty, but this talk also attracted many people who have been working in the field of PR and are interested in this field.

Classroom overview

Through 11 pictures and specific illustrations, Mr. Nguyen Dinh Thanh pointed out the nature of communication and reminded media workers of the principles of conduct both on social networks and in reality:

“I want to borrow the image of the god Hermes to talk about the nature of communication. As you have learned, communication is when one person sends out information and another person receives the information. In between are the encoded information and the noise factor. And the god Hermes here plays the role of the communication channel. So the nature of communication is to pay attention to the object: one side sends out information and the other side receives information. And this information is easily misunderstood because this god can go fast, go slow, or the weather can be too hot and people don't want to listen, that is the noise factor. When you search online for "Communication models", there are many results and every model will have the elements of the person sending out information, the person receiving the information, the channel, the noise factor. In short, I want to draw your attention to the object: the person sending out information and the person receiving the information.

The second image is the image of Cupid. This god has a bow and arrows and shoots two types of arrows: a silver arrow that makes people fall in love and a bronze arrow that makes people hate each other. Through this, I want to say that a communication campaign must always pay attention to its communication channel and the effects it creates. Just like the god of love can create hate or love. By the way, I also want to give my definition of PR in a nutshell. That is: "PR is the art of using communication tools to make the recipient of information react in the direction and level that the information sender desires." Information is always created to make people have a certain reaction: either to make people love or to make people hate. So through the image of Cupid, we can see that doing PR must always create some effect, there is no such thing as general, purposeless PR. PR is an art because not everyone can do it, PR people need talent and hard work. Just like everyone can sing a few lines, but not everyone can be a singer.

Next is a picture of one of the greatest military leaders in human history – the man who conquered 1/3 of the known world at that time – Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great was a man who was well prepared in terms of skills and techniques to become the ruler of the world. His father once said: “Macedonia is too small for you.” And since he was a child, his father brought Aristotle home to teach him. This picture depicts Alexander the Great entering Jerusalem. He used the same tactics as Genghis Khan, which was to kill all the people of each city he entered. However, he always let some people escape so that these people would be scared and run away to announce the strength of his army. That was a way of communication. But in this case, it was different. Perhaps, when he was educated, somehow he admired the thousands of years of Jewish culture, so he made a different decision than usual: After conquering Jerusalem, he knelt before the High Priest of the Jews and said: “During the days of the siege, I always saw an angel welcoming me in, and that was you.” The High Priest accepted that and all the Jews in Jerusalem were conquered by Alexander the Great in that way. That is what I want to tell you through this picture.”

Besides, he commented that the ability to handle crises of Vietnamese enterprises today is still limited. Using the image of the sword of Damocles, he pointed out: above the head of each enterprise there is always a sword hanging (like above the head of a king), crisis can come at any time. At any time when not paying attention, the sword can fall on the head.

Nowadays, with the advancement of information technology and the Internet, the emergence and strong development of social networks have changed the way people receive information. Each person, through the keyboard of electronic devices, can become an information transmitter. And many of them cannot control the information they transmit, leading to many cases of legal liability. Therefore, those working in the media in this era must always hone their skills, be alert to information sources, and act tactfully.

He emphasized: “PR and communication must honor human values, must come from the essence. All the tricks somewhere are failed PR cases because they do not take care of the relationship between people. I oppose black PR. We need to move towards GOOD PR, caring about the interests not only of businesses but also of customers. That is the yin and yang philosophy in PR. PR people must balance the interests of their businesses and those of customers for sustainable development. Otherwise, businesses will face crisis. In particular, now can be considered the era of PR and Marketing 3.0, for people. Consumers care about the money they spend not only bringing them happiness but also happiness or at least not causing harm to society, protecting nature, the environment and sustainable development.”

Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Thi Thanh Huyen (Head of PR-Advertising Department, Faculty of Journalism and Communication) presented flowers to Mr. Nguyen Dinh Thanh.

In this seminar, Mr. Thanh also shared his perspective on an issue based on three aspects according to the P – F – K triangle. P is Politics (relationships between people), F is Finance (economic issues, finance), K is Knowledge (technical issues, technology). When PR for a project, we need to pay attention to the P factor: how social impact and human-to-human relationships are handled in this project, F is the economic impact of the project. In the case of a real estate project, F is the financial potential of the investor. K is the technology, engineering, feasibility, and professionalism of the project. Based on that, we can come up with different PR angles.

The discussion ended at 4:30 p.m. the same day.

This discussion was published by the Youth Union - Student Association of the Faculty of Journalism and Communication, University of Social Sciences and Humanities (VNU Hanoi) and was authorized by Mr. Nguyen Dinh Thanh. If you exploit information from this document, please cite the source fully.