The Public Relations Handbook

It’s hard to be an effective advocate and participant in the world of public relations when simple, common messaging is so toxic and the communicators so venomous. George Orwell wrote almost seventy-five years ago that “the English language is in a bad way.” Well, he should see it now. Our civil discourse is no longer civil. We speak to incite, not inform. We don’t debate; we denounce. Too many of us are too angry to listen, learn, or—God forbid—lead. We should be appalled at the rampant harshness that pervades public discourse—particularly on the political and policy side of public relations.

The greatest threat to America’s future isn’t Chinese expansion or a nuclear Iran. The real threat … is us. Our greatest strength historically—that “We the People” share a common goal, idea, and even a national dream—is now a glaring weakness, as we stretch and fray the ties that once bound us together.

Welcome to the Era of Indignation.

As Alexander Hamilton taught the fledgling nation though the Federalist Papers 220 years ago, democracy is designed for debate. The essence of politics is division because issues of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness matter. We forget that Hamilton, Madison, and even Jefferson weren’t always so civil, and it’s hard to imagine today how a vice president would ever challenge a treasury secretary to a duel, but our Founding Fathers were engaged in the birth of a free and independent nation back then, not battling over food stamps or foreign aid. It isn’t just healthy, it is essential to argue and disagree on pressing issues with those who see the world differently than you do. That’s at the core of what makes America, America. The problem is that we are now weaponizing words.

We resent those who label us, even as we do it unthinkingly to others. The Left is “stupid.” The Right is “evil.” We’ve become a nation of insult comics, but there’s nothing funny about what we say, or what we mean. Ask people how they feel, and they’ll tell you “forgotten” and “ignored.” We resent elites who have a platform, so we seek to tear it down. The mission of too many practitioners is to use words to elicit emotional pain, the same pain that has been building up for so long inside the people they wish to influence.

Today, too many Americans view those who disagree with them as enemies rather than mere opponents—as genuine threats to what we individually hold most dear. Everyone wants to “be understood,” but no one wants to “try to understand.” The pithy put-down is preferred to information, explanation, and education. Thank you, Twitter.

But the challenge to the effective art of public relations is even more dire, as we are increasingly unable to agree on common meanings for common words.

For example, I asked a focus group of Democrats and Republicans in Orlando, “Is America exceptional?” Almost all of the Republicans said yes, along with half of the Democrats. Good news, right? A starting point! Agreeing on “exceptional” means that we have at least something in common.

Wrong. We think we agree, but we don’t.

Your responsibility as public relations practitioners, and my job as a pollster, is to dig deeper, to understand what “exceptional” really means. Otherwise, it’s just a word—an empty vessel. As it turns out, the same word means very different things to very different people.

To Republicans, “exceptional” is a full-throated rallying cry, delivered with a fist in the air. It means that we are the best—that shining city on a hill, a beacon of hope. The greatest nation in the world; an example for other nations to follow.

To Democrats, “exceptional” does not mean that we are greater compared to other places, because lots of other places (and people) are also great. It means there are things about America that they love—freedom, opportunity, individual rights—that make America great, but not necessarily great-er. The difference between the definitions—and the implications that difference carries—is vast.

As the PR industry has come to realize the hard way, common words no longer have common meaning—even when we think they do. To paraphrase (or mangle) Churchill, we really are two different Americas, divided by a common language. We can’t agree on common words. We can’t agree on common goals. It feels like a divorce proceeding, where both spouses are fighting over who gets to keep the house … which, in this case, just happens to be a nation that we all share. The difference is, neither side is moving out. We’re going to have to find a way to make it work. Together.

So what does this all mean to the world of public relations?

Too many Americans have only two approaches when someone disagrees with them: either offend them or unfriend them. All too often, thanks to social media, it’s offend and then unfriend.

For PR executives, social media has become a booming profit center, with endless vehicles to spread their endless messages. But social media separates us from the very real consequences of our words. It desensitizes us. De-humanizes us. No one stops to consider how the person on the other end of the app might feel. We say things to people online that would risk a slap across the face in the real world. And in the absence of that risk, we become reckless.

Worse still, this phenomenon of carefully curated newsfeeds is creating echo chambers everywhere that are silos—bunkers—impenetrable to reason and empty of empathy. Think about it: How do you educate your audience to your client or their point of view if no one is listening? How do you change minds that are already made up? No less a figure than Mark Zuckerberg has acknowledged the challenge, yet even he is unclear about how to respond to it.

We are living through yet another Me Generation moment. The intellectual curiosity that once propelled the country has been replaced by a myopic perspective. The problem: social media has democratized and diffused communication at exactly the same moment as we demand to be heard. Google Analytics shows that we are ever more likely to use “I” and “me,” rather than “we” or “us.” So, is it any surprise that we are losing sight of how to talk to each other?

In today’s hypersensitive world, experts are often dismissed and facts have evolved from stubborn to subjective. Any fact introduced by the “other side” is hand-waved away as biased, misleading, or self-serving. The ad hominem attack reigns supreme. Even something as simple as counting people at a presidential inauguration is now open for debate, despite clear photo evidence.

But if we can’t even agree on facts or photos, how can we ever have a productive public discussion? When does this merry-go-round stop? It stops when we truly, finally, start listening to each other. When we “do the hard thing,” as John Kennedy said, and when we “lower our voices … that we might learn from one another,” in the words of his rival Richard Nixon. If they can find common ground, anyone can.

I’m best known for live digital research, where participants use a handheld remote device to express their agreement or disagreement with a speaker on a word-by-word basis. We measure reactions on a 0 (awful) to 100 (perfection) scale. Anything over a 70 is good, and over an 80 is great. It works splendidly for presidential debates, State of the Union Addresses, town halls, live interviews, and more.

In my ongoing research to understand the craft of message dissemination, one of the most impactful statements was from Nebraska senator Ben Sasse in 2017:

We have a risk of getting to a place where we don’t have shared public facts. A republic will not work if we don’t have shared facts. I’m the third most conservative guy in the Senate by voting record, but I sit in [Democrat] Patrick Moynihan’s desk on the floor of the US Senate on purpose. Because he’s the author of that famous quote that you’re entitled to your own opinions, but you’re not entitled to your own facts. The only way the republic can work is if we come together and we defend each other’s rights to say things that we differ about, we defend each other’s rights to publish journalism and pieces and things that we then want to argue about.

By the end of his statement, the dial score was 94 out of 100 among Democrats and 90 out of 100 among Republicans. That represents the top 1 percent of all communication. It scored so well because of the example it set: a Republican senator commending a luminary Democratic senator on a principle that all Americans should share. It’s a beacon of light for an America darkened by division and distrust. Senator Sasse is one of the few elected officials who talks like this—and perhaps the only one talking about it as well.

But the problem remains with our fact-less future: If we can’t agree on something so simple, how can we agree on anything at all?

And thanks to unbridled cynicism among opinion makers and shapers in the media and academia, the craft of public relations has been reduced to pithy “sound bites” created by “spinmeisters” and uttered by “gun-for-hire flacks.”

The problem with that narrative is that it is simply not true. From the icy-cold “bucket challenge” that raised over $160 million for ALS, to the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements that upended casting rooms and boardrooms across America, to Black Lives Matter and its transformation of American society, the art and science of public relations has had a bigger and more positive impact on how we work and live than the journalists who write about it and the academics who criticize it.

It’s just not as simple as who, what, where, when, and why. Effective public relations is built on communication that is both credible and impactful. Corporations and organizations have learned the hard way that they can’t just say something and have it believed. Conversely, many organizational leaders and the causes they champion have suffered because what they say has no relevance or believability.

With that in mind, let’s take a microscope to the most important public relations effort of our time: surviving and overcoming COVID-19. The language behind the coronavirus pandemic (always call it a pandemic—it’s seen as more significant and serious) is a perfect case study of applying the power of words to influence public behavior constructively.

Thanks to an innovative way to apply polling to message development, we were able to prove the theory that simply changing the way America’s political and public health leaders talk about the pandemic could profoundly inspire the behavior changes needed to help eliminate COVID-19. Using the right words at the right time could restore public trust, improve compliance with public health safety protocols (yes, call them protocols), prevent deaths, and ultimately get our lives and our economy (in that order) back to normal.

To be clear, polarizing, combative rhetoric is what brought our nation to where it was during the pandemic. And until someone applies the skills and talents of public relations to develop the right messaging, we simply will not close the divides that have erupted across every possible demographic and attitudinal fault line. But just as language has driven our divide, so a new lexicon may be our most valuable tool. Our research in December 2020 offered four critical insights about how our leaders could have improved the way they talked about the pandemic and how, in turn, America could have taken the steps required to eliminate COVID-19 in the United States so much faster and earlier—sparing hundreds of thousands of lives.

Here is what we learned and wrote just days before vaccines became available:

First, we need to balance our language between health and the economy. To no one’s surprise, Republican voters are much more skeptical of the virus and its impact than Democratic voters or the broader public. Republicans are also much more hostile about the need for additional “lockdowns” (please call them “stay-at-home protocols”) and their significant impact on the economy. Only 12 percent of Democratic voters prioritize the national economy over the health and safety of the nation, compared to 51 percent of Republican voters.

We have been stuck debating this false dichotomy between fighting the virus or supporting the economy since the pandemic began. It is a false choice that has failed to serve the interests of either side. We must protect not only our physical, but also our economic well-being. We need to continually balance our language between the economy and health. While health is more persuasive, ignoring economic anxiety ignores the voices of roughly 40 percent of Americans for whom this is their primary concern—in some cases a crippling one. Messages should emphasize that following public health protocols will help to avoid severe limits and restrictions, and that will speed up the return to a healthy, inclusive economy.

Second, it’s time for politicians (and politics) to step aside. Political leaders have been dominating the airwaves and the briefing rooms. Yet, despite their best efforts, the words and phrases they’ve embraced are missing the mark, failing to motivate millions of Americans who still do not realize their lives and the lives of their families are in jeopardy.

The problem is not just what they say but who they are. If you’re an elected official, you are immediately tainted. Everyone is watching and listening for some partisan bias. Don’t taint the research and science by sharing it through a partisan lens.

Americans trust recommendations from medical and public health officials above everyone else specifically because their opinions are shaped by science, not politics. Thirty-five percent of respondents believe COVID decisions should come from the nation’s highest-ranking medical and public health officials, followed by 28 percent who want their state officials to make those decisions. Whenever we can inject local control into the conversation—and mean it—it will bolster our efforts. People simply have more faith in public health experts delivering localized solutions.

Conversely, only 20 percent said they trust elected officials. It would be far better for all of us if they stood in the background and let the experts do their jobs both publicly and privately. And if they must speak, everything they say should be fact based and decidedly neutral, with absolutely no hint of politics.

As for healthcare CEOs, they’ve made the media rounds championing their corporate successes. It would be far better for them, their shareholders, and all of us if they took a back seat and let their chief scientists and researchers speak for them. The CEOs are seen as about profit. The scientists and researchers they employ are about us.

Third, voters are interested in supporting leaders for acting on COVID. Only 7 percent of swing voters and 11 percent of Republican voters say they would be less likely to vote for a member of Congress who encouraged people to take steps to stop the spread of COVID-19 (on November 27, 2020, shortly before this was written, the US had just confirmed its two hundred thousandth case). Elected leaders must come to together to pass legislation and make funding available to support our nation’s efforts to eradicate COVID-19, realizing it will be an electoral boon, not a bust, across the political spectrum.

Fourth, we need to give people a reason to comply with public health protocols beyond the fact that it’s good for them. We need to make COVID-19 tangible by individualizing, personalizing, and humanizing the “pandemic” (“coronavirus” does exactly the opposite). Before talking about reopening the economy and schools, start by emphasizing the shared goal of “returning to normal.” That’s what Americans really want. The economy is about others. Returning to normal is about us.

We also need to speak to the consequences of failure. For example, Democrats (40 percent) and Republicans (35 percent) agree that COVID-19 is highly infectious, and both are compelled by the statement that one infection can quickly grow into an outbreak that could shutter a neighborhood, a community, or an entire city. Everyone wants “a safe and sensible path forward.” And while not everyone agrees that proper behavior is a “national duty,” the red and blue states share a belief in and commitment to “personal responsibility.”

Elected leaders also must follow the guidance that they promote or risk undermining those efforts. Governors, mayors, and other elected officials are not following their own advice by choosing to dine indoors or travel during Thanksgiving. This hypocrisy is fodder for pandemic skeptics. Eliminating COVID-19 will take sacrifices—remaining distant from family, avoiding activities we enjoy and that are central to our lives—from all of us. To ask this of the American public means that everyone must take personal responsibility. “Do as I say but not as I do” will perpetuate the pandemic and cost lives.

We all have a part to play in eliminating COVID-19, but we will not work together until we have language that brings us together. If we can all incorporate these simple tips, whether we are talking on the nightly news, posting on social media, or meeting a friend for a socially distanced coffee, we will each be doing our part to eliminate COVID-19 and return to normal.

As you can see from this chart of COVID words to use and lose, every public relations effort requires its own lexicon. For COVID-19, it was essential that health and safety lead the messaging because that was the most important public priority, not the speed of treatments or the eventual vaccine. Similarly, any reference to or empowerment of the government would immediately draw a negative reaction from Republicans and conservatives. That explains why “government lockdowns” was so unpopular a term and why it was necessary to promote “public health” agencies rather than “government” agencies. It’s not just knowing what words to use. It’s also knowing what words to lose.

COVID WORDS TO USE & LOSE

Words to USE	Words to LOSE
the pandemic	the coronavirus
eliminate/eradicate the virus	defeat/crush/knock out the virus
social distancing	physical distancing
an effective/safe vaccine	a vaccine developed quickly
protocols	orders/imperatives/decrees
face masks	facial coverings
essential workers	frontline workers
personal responsibility	national duty
a stay-at-home order	a government lockdown/shutdown
public health agencies	government health agencies

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The first half of this chapter focused on the interconnected worlds of public relations, policy, and politics, and the myriad challenges facing PR executives trying to navigate the stormy seas of an unmoored population. But an equally powerful challenge to the PR community originates from the business and corporate world, as more and more people reject the morality of profits over people and the vast incomes of the economic elite.

The causes of public frustration are numerous:

■CEOs declaring million-dollar bonuses days after laying off thousands of workers

■Discrimination (age, gender, ethnicity, etc.) in hiring practices that takes a lawsuit to address

■Pages and pages of contracts loaded with hidden fees and/or fine print that no one reads or understands

■Businesses making promises that they have no intention of keeping

■Businesses hiding product errors or glitches from unsuspecting consumers

And thanks to the unholy alliance between camera cell phones and social media, a problem between a single customer and a huge company that would have been covered up a decade ago is now seen by millions almost overnight.

For these reasons, we have spent the last two decades developing a lexicon to help companies navigate the new anti-business environment, minimizing reputational threats and maximizing PR opportunities. Most PR executives do not open their bag of tricks until retirement, but that denies students of public relations the opportunity to see how the profession really operates. The chart below is real. It includes the “21 Words for the 21st Century,” a collection of the most impactful words and phrases for almost any business situation.

The Language of Good Business
Imagine	Peace of mind
Cleaner, safer, healthier	More efficient and effective
Genuine accountability	A problem solver
Real results/Real solutions	Inclusion
Our mission/My commitment	Our first responsibility
Mutual respect	You decide/You deserve
I hear you/I get it	Building a better future
The consequences	You’re in control
Together, we can	Fact-based
No fine print/No exceptions, no excuses	Fierce integrity
A meaningful, measurable track record of success

Of these phrases, there are nine that are particularly powerful and universally accepted:

1.“Imagine.” The most powerful word in the English language, it communicates endless possibilities. It is also one of the few words that communicates a vision in the minds of everyone who hears it. Ask people to imagine life at perfection and they have as many different visions as there are people—and all of them are accurate because all of them are self-generated. Great PR is both visual and emotional.

2.“Cleaner, safer, healthier.” Most companies boast about their “sustainable” practices. The problem with that is that it communicates status quo—that the rivers and streams and open spaces will still be around decades from now. But when you tell people that you want “cleanER, safER, healthiER” communities, that says you want to make things bettER.

3.Inclusion. This is probably the most controversial recommendation because it represents the single biggest change in language. Every company has a diversity program, but what people truly want is “inclusion.” Diversity tells people that someone like them will be represented, but inclusion tells people that everyone is included. Diversity also suggests that there will be winners (the underserved) and losers (white males). With inclusion, everyone wins.

4.“Fact-based.” With all the accusations about fake news and the political and ideological chasm that has developed, there is a real hunger for the truth. The scientific community has embraced “evidence” as its North Star, but the problem with that term is that it’s legalese—evidence for the prosecution and evidence for the defense. A fact stands above evidence. A fact … is a fact.

5.“Peace of Mind.” Most businesses talk about how their products and services give you a sense of “security.” But that just means that there’s a threat out there from which they are protecting you. If you talk about “peace of mind,” that means there are no threats, that you can close your eyes, relax, and not worry.

6.“A problem solver.” PR executives are learning that the single most important attribute to pitch on behalf of their CEO clients is “a problem solver.” It’s exactly the opposite of the typical politician, and it’s about changing circumstances for the better both individually and collectively. Like the word “imagine,” being a problem solver is in the eyes of the beholder—which makes it a universal principle.

7.“Together, we can.” Ever since Bono created the One campaign, it has been assumed that people want to get behind a single idea, purpose, or cause. The exact opposite is true. The problem with “one” is that people think they have to submerge their personality and/or principles behind a single effort. The reality is that we want to join and unite while still protecting our individuality. That’s why “together” is a preferred public relations term.

8.“No exceptions, no excuses.” The majority of public relations work occurs because clients don’t do as they say or as they should. A PR person is then hired to clean up the mess. But when a CEO issues a blanket statement with a “no exceptions, no excuses” declaration, that’s the surest way to say “I mean it. I really mean it.”

9.“Mutual respect.” This is the phrase workers most want to hear from their boss and their supervisors. Too often, those in power talk about “tolerance,” yet that is considered too minimal by too many people. Similarly, being “valued” sounds too much like you’re putting a price tag on the heads of your employees.

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This chapter has been about the use of public opinion and language in public relations. There is one more essential aspect of PR to explore: the role of the pollster. The work of a good pollster and wordsmith is essential for good public relations. After all, if you don’t know what the public thinks, it’s pretty hard to promote the three essential attributes of great PR: ideas, influence, and impact. The problem: the polling industry is going through a tremendous upheaval thanks to their inability to measure Donald Trump or his supporters accurately. But it gets even worse. The credibility of political polling over the next decade may have been dealt a fatal blow in the eyes of the public thanks to its failures in 2020. It was incorrect in predicting Donald Trump’s margin of loss, incorrect in predicting Democratic control of the Senate, and incorrect in predicting the gains Republicans made in the House of Representatives.

But before venturing further into an autopsy of polling, it’s essential that readers understand that polling is not and will never be infallible. Pollsters and those who use polling need to continually educate people about inherent errors in survey research as well as the uncertainty that polls can’t detect. Every stakeholder in the political and public relations process—the pollsters themselves, the media, corporate and organizational executives, and even the politicians—needs to do a much better job explaining with easily digestible language how polls are snapshots in time with room for variation and error. In particular, pollsters need to get better at providing the credibility we want, the confidence we need, and the accuracy we deserve in what is perhaps the best—if imperfect—way to measure what the public really thinks.

But even with the faults of polling, pollsters are still essential. When crafting the language to attack, to defend, to promote, or to criticize, listening to people is more important than listening to leaders or the elite. Rebuilding the trust polling has lost with the public starts with humility, honesty, and accountability, which will require time and patience. Our industry needs to reward accuracy and actively seek to learn how we can improve, not summarily dismiss outlier results as partisan hackery. We should hold ourselves to the highest levels of accountability with the public before elections occur, not just as a reactionary post-election defense when our polls are off.

There have been an infinite number of essays, analyses, and chronicles about the novel phenomenon of Donald Trump and his supporters, and how the Trumpian rage against political institutions and elites has changed everything. His critique of political polling is particularly harsh. Trump has assailed polls since he descended the golden escalator at Trump Tower, branding them (and media organizations sponsoring them) as tools of the corrupt, elite ruling class that he is fighting against. (Ask yourself: If you are a Trump supporter, why would you ever participate in a process like polling given Trump’s claims about the process?)

That’s why gauging public opinion accurately is so difficult. Even with the advent of online survey research, it’s tougher than ever to get the people you want to answer the questions you need. Many see the institution as rigged and biased—whether it is or isn’t—so they will simply refuse to engage. The only way to remedy this is to approach Trump’s supporters with absolute contrition and humility. Many polls jump right into the questions without much pretext, identifying themselves as neutral bystanders, or explaining why answering the questions truthfully should be important to them.

That’s why I always begin the polls I conduct with an extra paragraph of context right at the start:

Many Americans feel ignored and forgotten. We are grateful for the opportunity to listen and hear from people like you and then share your opinions with elected officials/business leaders who can make a difference in America’s future.

Some have criticized this methodology for making the surveys unnecessarily long or seeming inauthentic. To those I say: Be up front that you value and respect participants’ voices and perspectives. Explain that their opinion will make a meaningful, measurable impact on their lives and the country, business, or whatever topic you seek to measure.

As for the media, they are also culpable for the mistakes in polling that Americans have endured the last two presidential elections. Not only have their polling units been responsible for many of the incorrect predictions we’ve witnessed, but their obsession with the “horse race” aspect of the campaign—analyzing who is up and who is down—is malpractice for the national dialogue. One single poll was the basis for an ABC News/Washington Post report that said Biden was up 17 points in Wisconsin days before the election, when he actually won by a percentage point! The saturated emphasis on a single poll at a given point in time does not meaningfully educate the public. Rather, the trend in polls over time is what can inform the trajectory of a candidate’s performance.

Ultimately, polling is about listening to and understanding the public and the incredible diversity of opinions they hold. Public relations and political polling are imperfect, and their mistakes in 2020 may spell their end. But I am hopeful we can make the necessary changes and find a way to elevate what the public is thinking so their voice can have an impact on making this world a better place for all. This isn’t a mea culpa. It’s a reflection and a way forward.

And ultimately, public relations requires getting not just the ear of the public but its agreement. For in the end, it’s not what you say that matters. It’s what they hear.

* Portions of this chapter previously appeared in Frank Luntz, “No Wonder America Is Divided: We Can’t Even Agree on What Our Values Mean,” Time, October 26, 2018, https://time.com/5435825/divided-america-values-language-meaning/ and in Frank Luntz and Brian C. Castrucci, “Political Division Is Dangerously Defining Our COVID-19 Conversation,” The Hill, December 17, 2020, https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/530554-political-division-is-dangerously-defining-our-covid-19-conversation.