The difference between public relations and marketing lies essentially in its purpose: while marketing seeks to satisfy the economic needs of the company in the market, public relations pursue the confluence of interests of the organization in its environment and, as a consequence, optimal results in terms of public perception. Despite this distinction, the link between public relations and marketing has sparked broad theoretical debates, essentially reactive, from the relational postulates. While, from the perspective of public relations, the managerial character of public relations is emphasized as a directive function and the academic and professional difference between one discipline and another is deepened, from the postulates of marketing, it is naturally assumed that Public relations is a more integrated technique in the P of Marketing Mix promotion. The integrated management model "Marketing Public Relations" (Kitchen and Moss, 1995 and Papasolomou and Melanthiou, 2012), aimed at increasing efficiency in organizational management through the combination of public relations techniques and marketing techniques synergistically (Hutton, 1996 and Haywood, 1998), has been surpassed in recent years by new models, mainly corporate, focused on the systematic incorporation of specific public relations techniques along with those of merchandising and retail, under strategic postulates. Under this approach, through a qualitative methodological design, based on the concept of intra-method methodological triangulation that combines the case study method (2019 Mother's Day Campaign at the Spanish distribution company El Corte Inglés) and the use of secondary data sources (both bibliographic documents and documents of the organization under study), this article aims to analyze this emerging reality to conclude with the proposal of a comprehensive management model based on the concept of "Public Relations-Merchandising". The results derived from the study allow us to identify an integrated corporate model for managing public perception (and business reputation) and sales through the strategic use of commercial space and retail (merchandising). In this way, a new management model emerges, the “Public Relations Merchandising” model that pivots on four basic variables:
- Issuer: companies are organizations and, as such, public relations can contribute to the development of their mission in society, mainly related to the generation of economic objectives derived from the sales process).
- Recipient: understanding the client as a stakeholder implies that the company acquires a commitment to corporate behavior that necessarily responds to the expectations and interests of its buyers and consumers. These should be conceived as a key piece that underpins the organizational life and around which the company must build and develop (Pulido, 2017).
- Context and message: the enormous growth of competition and the dizzying evolution of the purchasing process forces organizations to manage the shopping experience from relational postulates. The convergence of public relations and merchandising techniques drive a constant dialogue with customers through the profitability of the commercial space.
It is possible to conclude that the integrated management of public relations applied to merchandising entails achieving a balance with the public, which, in turn, results in optimal levels of perception of the points of sale, the products and suppliers themselves, and even to buyers and consumers.
From Public Relations to Strategic Communication in Sweden: The Emergence of a Transboundary Field of Knowledge
