Public relations, Hospitality Programme and more: just what are we talking about exactly?
Public relations, Hospitality Programme, event planning… are these terms a little vague to you? Not to worry, you will soon know them like the back of your hand!
To get started, let’s review some definitions:
- Public relations is a communication strategy used to serve reputation. They include all the types of action that shape the image of a company or brand with its stakeholders.
- The Hospitality Programme in contrast, involves inviting a company’s key players to a major event, in a privileged and unique setting, with the aim of fostering good professional relations.
Consequently, the Hospitality Programme is a means of communicating, while public relations are a communication strategy.
Public relations: the foundation of good reputation!
Commonly referred to as PR in the world of communication, public relations are a strategy defined by a company itself or by a consulting agency specialised incommunication or marketing. The main objective is to influence the opinion which the company’s various audiences (internal as well as external) develop of it. A PR policy affects the image of the brand and the good relations that it needs to maintain with its various targets..
As to the target groups, we have observed that public relations address all the company’s audiences. Those that make up its ecosystem such as consumers, customers, prospects, but also employees, suppliers, shareholders, journalists or elected representatives and public authorities. Obviously, it depends on the objectives set out by the organisers, like any strategy!
Very often, PR is associated with event operations, but wrongly so, since the types of actions implemented remain highly varied. A full-day session with the media, a press (press relations) trip, a construction site visit, sponsorship, an invitation to an exhibition or a Hospitality Programme are all examples of tools that fit into a public relations strategy.
Hospitality Programmes: a privileged setting to meet with audiences!
The term Hospitality Programme refers to a VIP invitation to a prestigious location during a sporting or cultural event with a reception component that is not always included in PR.
Organising a preferential face-to-face with a target group around a rock concert or a final round match of a popular rugby tournament offers multiple advantages. In terms of objectives, the Hospitality offerings can have a powerful commercial sway, and the benefits don’t stop there! In addition to the customer or prospect targets that immediately come to mind, Hospitality is also geared at other players in the company. It also helps you keep up good relations with your partners, express thanks to your employees or win over opinion leaders. Some companies even use it to recruit highly sought-after profiles such as IT sector executives.
Hospitality offers the benefit of bringing a more personal aspect to business relationships and create a unique connection outside a normal work environment. Sharing company culture, an opportunity for people to get to know each other better, uniting around shared values, and enjoying a moment together are just some of the many riches that are difficult to uncover during formal sessions... but not during a friendly evening with a unique atmosphere in the VIP areas (boxes or lounges) at Stade de France for instance!
The two concepts are inseparable, since a Hospitality Programme is part of a public relations strategy, but specific in their own definition. Now you can tell the difference between the two concepts!
Would you like to find out more about the benefits of the Hospitality Programmes? We recommend the article “Hospitality Programme: a lever for developing your reputation”, by Stade de France, a major player in Hospitality services and a specialist in public relations strategies for more than 20 years.
