It can be easy to concentrate on the messages being communicated to the consumer, and to do so vey individually however Grunig (Journal of Public Relations Research, 2000) suggests that the best way in achieving ethical PR is through ‘collaboration as a core professional value of public relations.’ He went on to name two ‘axioms of corporate strategy’ defined by Freeman and Gilbert in the 1980’s one of which I feel to be very relevant to PR today, ‘corporate strategy must reflect an understanding of the values of organizational members and stakeholders’. Stakeholders including not only owners, shareholders, staff and suppliers, but customers! That is ethics (and those of the consumer should have great influence here) should fundamentally affect corporate strategy, and it is PR’s job to manage that communication and ensure that a company is able to make such decisions of strategy based on solid communication with consumers.
This can make ethical PR reachable, for by fundamentally affecting the core ethics of an establishment for the good can allow for ethical PR by the removal of conflicting characteristics and practices of the establishment being represented.
So keep talking but start listening, and not only that but responding... laying the foundations for change.
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