Often we get asked what is it that we do – exactly. It is difficult to answer that in a elevator speech, but the best I have come up with is “We manage political affairs by understanding and shaping political environments. Ozean does this through research, data, message development, and media.”
So, public affairs? Not exactly. but kinda.
So, public relations? Not exactly, but kinda.
So, you do politics? Yes.
What is Public Relations?
Public Relations or PR is the practice of managing an organization’s reputation and building relationships with its publics. In theory, it is much broader than garnering press coverage, but in most smaller PR shops, they believe managing a organization’s reputation is primary done through the media.
What is Public Affairs?
Public Affairs is one hand a subset of public relations in that is target audiences are generally those involved in crafting public policy and on the other hand at times broader than public relations in that it works to build relationships with more than just media reporters such as lawmakers and regulators. Cynically, Public Affairs is what political operatives are called when laws won’t allow governments to hire public relations firms.What is Political Affairs?
Political affairs is the practice of influencing government policy and legislation via all legal means. At times this can be inside the building and at other times outside the building.
This means, depending on the situation, political affairs professionals could be identifying and targeting not only political elites but also public opinion. Our activities could also be an attempt to bring indirect pressure on the process.
We do this through:
Research: Can take the form of surveys, focus groups, and generating data sets or studies and reports to be used in the process. In addition, properly identifying all stakeholders can be a crucial and painstaking process.
Data: This can be part of research or can be part of building and augmenting data sets to reach digital audiences. Very often data services are intertwined with Research services.
Message Development: developing persuasive messaging in today’s hyper-partisan and polarized political environment is much more delicate – often being nuanced to each identified stakeholder.
Media: creating and executing media plans – whether paid or earning – whether in a traditional media or digital media – is in a sense putting it all together.
Shaping Political Environments
In a sense this at the heart of what Ozean does – shaping political environments, and it includes things that don’t always fall neatly into research, data, message development, or media. We use all our knowledge to understand the political process and decide what levers to pull or sometimes more importantly not pull to win.
After deliberate research, Ozean identifies the stakeholders and conceives different tactics to manage a clients activities and messaging to win. At times, those activities don’t fall neatly into the services commonly thought of performed by public relations or public affairs officials. These political operations could be before the voting, during the voting, or after the voting because frankly we believe that politics never stops.
At times, we wear all the hats, but depending upon the scope and size of the project and because we understand all facets of the process, Ozean may act at the organization that assembles the team and coordinates efforts.
Political Affairs
So now you know the difference between political affairs, public affairs, and public relations. All three fields play important roles in helping organizations achieve their goals, but they have distinct approaches and target different audiences.
