The public relations practitioner worth their onion (pardon the cliché) must be proficient in what psychologists call coattail riding, or psychosocial hijacking. This is in keeping with the opportunistic tendency of PR.
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Barring the essential communication skill of riding the coattails, brand custodians will be hard-pressed to satisfy the varied and often conflicting interests of their organisation’s stakeholders. But hey, that’s just one means through which PR conjures magic. There are several others, as you will find out momentarily.
If indeed “the mass media do not tell us what to think – but tell us what to think about,” then public relations has the toolkit to stimulate and modulate what stakeholders anticipate. Expectation setting or management is a corporate tactic that reduces uncertainty by narrowing the gap between what audiences imagine will happen and what will eventually happen.
Stakeholders, in this context, are individuals and groups with either positive or negative interest in, influence on, or are impacted by the organisation or project. Our concern in this treatise is stakeholders, not audiences or the publics. The delineation is necessary because expectation setting is a cost center that demands judicious use of resources.
Agenda-Setting Finds Expression in Expectation
This theory dates back to the work by mass communication researchers Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw in 1972. They argued that members of the “audience not only learn about public issues through the media, they also learn how much importance to attach to an issue or topic from the emphasis the mass media place upon it.” You would be spot on replacing “audience,” “public issues,” and “mass media” with stakeholders, tactical objectives, and public relations.
Leveraging the same influence that this theory confers on the media, PR could control what appeals to audiences while harmonising expectations. You can now appreciate why media relations is a critical component of PR. Whereas the media concerns itself with setting the agenda for public discourse, PR focuses on expectation-setting.
Meanwhile, the need for coherent messaging makes moderating and managing stakeholder sentiment imperative. When expectations run amok, public relations defaults to staccato communication, with chaos replacing clarity.
PR doesn’t have the luxury or latitude of the legacy media in setting the public agenda without consulting the public. Given that expectation setting is more or less an act of alignment, PR must first ascertain the bases on which to predicate a project that factors in all interests. Even if the campaign lands as one-size-fits-all, stakeholders whose expectations got subsumed would find consolation in the ab initio consultation.
Carrying Stakeholders Along Saves the Day
While expectation setting is essentially about owning the narrative, it isn’t done in a vacuum. It begins with a genuine interaction with stakeholders. This is where their concerns and pain points are understood, clarifying questions are asked, and expectations are confirmed before solutions are proposed. The interaction ensures that the right people understand the right message at the right time.
In complex campaigns, active listening often surfaces risks and misalignment before they become escalations. It is through collaboration that you help stakeholders understand the campaign’s purpose and potential challenges. Be clear about what the PR project can deliver from the start and set realistic timelines and benchmarks.
The resultant feeling of being part of a team working towards a shared goal creates an ownership mindset, making a ride-or-die out of stakeholders, whichever way the campaign goes. The lines of communication must therefore be kept open throughout this process to ensure that stakeholders feel involved and valued.
One Man’s Meat is Another’s Poison
Public relations is all about making everyone, especially stakeholders, feel good about the brand. Such universal goodwill is almost utopian in the light of this first-century BC Latin postulation of the Roman poet and philosopher, Lucretius: “Quod ali cibus est aliis fuat acre venenum.” Its English translation is: “What is food for one man may be bitter poison to others.”
Preferences, needs, and reactions vary greatly among even people with shared interests. What helps or pleases one person can harm or upset the other. This often leads to friction. A company’s move or product that provoked an angry tweet or bad review from a client may be welcomed by other stakeholders. As the Igbo would say, “Osondi Owendi.” Yet, discounting the “Owendi” folks is risky, as their ululation can assume unimaginable dimensions.
In PR, escalation is where a minor issue, negative comment, or localised complaint grows in severity, reach, or media attention to become a full-blown crisis. Continuing with the above-cited instance, escalation happens if that tweet or bad review on Reddit gets the attention of social media influencers, online forums, or mainstream journalists.
This would not have been the case if there wasn’t a gap between what was anticipated and what got delivered. Expectations must therefore be aligned at the get-go in order for stakeholders – such as customers, the public, or the media – to not feel misled or taken advantage of. By defining the boundaries of a situation early, you avert assumptions from warping it.
Strategies for Balancing Stakeholders’ Expectations
1. Identify: The goal of each stakeholder must first be understood with a view to ascertaining common ground and areas of potential conflict. The earlier stakeholders are engaged in decision-making, the more realistic their expectations become. This requires a deep-dive conversation with partners, customers, internal teams, and any other concerned parties to grasp what they hope to achieve with the PR project. Communication is critical here because silence will be interpreted as agreement or concealment – both create expectation gaps.
2. Segment: Different groups have different concerns. Investors care about financial returns, employees about job security and work-life balance, communities about empowerment and environmental sustainability. Through this mapping, you get to tailor messaging and what you promise to each group’s actual interests rather than broadcasting a single narrative.
3 Prioritise: After identifying the various stakeholders and their interests, put them on a scale of preference. With expectations not expected to pull the same weight, stakeholder needs should be weighed against the overall impact of the project and the organisation’s values. The prioritisation should also be determined by the potential risks and benefits of meeting or not meeting each expectation.
4. Align: Creating alignment or strategic compromise among stakeholders is a delicate task that requires diplomacy and creativity. Find ways to integrate the goals of different stakeholders into a unified campaign strategy. This might involve compromise or finding innovative solutions that cater to multiple interests simultaneously.
5. Under-Promise but Over-Deliver: PR teams must be careful of what the Brits call “damp squib” – that’s hype that doesn’t live up to its promise. Instead, the baseline should be set slightly below what they can confidently achieve. Adhering to the “under-promise and over-deliver” principle leads to a pleasant surprise rather than disappointment. Gently recalibrate vaunting expectations by explaining possible limitations and challenges. This ensures that stakeholders remain supportive even when the campaign faces inevitable hurdles.
6. Mind the Information Gap: Regular updates and transparent reporting on progress can also help keep expectations in check. Stakeholders fill information vacuums with assumptions. Proactively share what you don’t know yet, along with when you’ll have answers. “We don’t have the data yet, but we’ll report by Friday” sets a better expectation than silence.
7. Feedback Loops: Stakeholders won’t realise that their expectations are being set when there is a structured rendezvous, such as surveys, town halls, open houses, or regular briefings. Here, stakeholders can voice whether expectations are being met. This gives an early indication of misalignment for course correction before it’s too late.
Trust as the Ultimate Reward for Expectation Setting
Trust and credibility are conferred on organisations when people can reliably predict their behaviour and reflexes. This currency of PR is the perception that expectation setting impresses on people. Every fulfilled expectation and experience becomes a data point that says “this company does what it says.” Over time, the pattern cascades into what social scientists call competence trust — that’s the conviction that the brand is capable and consistent!
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Ugochukwu, the Communications Manager at Rhiagano, can be reached via ugo.ugwuanyi@rhiagano.com
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