Uses & Gratification Theory to predict PR effectiveness

Can a theory forgotten in the 20th Century provide the path to a successful PR campaign in today’s landscape?

The rapid development of digital media that has shaped the current mass communication landscape has made the uses and gratification theory, first developed in the 1940s and properly expanded in the 1970s by Blumler and Katz, more relevant than ever. Today, the public has a wide range of options to customize and tailor their mass communication experience to satisfy their specific needs, making them the active players that the theory explained. Because of their increased ability to choose, goal-oriented behavior, and perhaps more familiarity with digital media, the uses, and gratification theory provides a functional practical approach to Public Relations success, a field that has increasingly gained importance in every industry.

This study focuses on a qualitative content analysis of successful and unsuccessful PR campaigns, to find out if a theoretical framework using the uses and gratification theory can predict PR success. The theory’s concepts of audience information-seeking, social interaction, personal identity reinforcement, and entertainment desires were the independent variables to explain the campaign results, while the audience’s previous expectations determined the dependent variable. After analyzing a total of 10 cases (6 successful, 4 unsuccessful campaigns), results showed a clear correlation between campaign success and many gratification desires fulfilled, aligned to the audience’s previous expectations, while company reputational crisis was often determined by the lack of fulfilling any gratification desires and/or alignment between audience expectations and message. This study encourages the inclusion of the uses and gratification theory in a more in-depth, statistical analysis to show the relevance and practical use of its concept in today’s mass communication practices.

The uses and gratification theory is one of the most overlooked mass communication theories for the lack of consideration of important factors in research such as ignoring the power of media influence, their very subjective results, or leaving out unintended effects of their selective behavior (Uses and Gratification Theory, Communication Theory), some remarks like the ones made by Cynthia Vinney, Ph.D., in her article Uses and Gratification Theory in Media Psychology are common assumption in the academic field: “some scholars feel because of its lack of distinction between needs and motivations and the poor definitions provided for these and other concepts, the theory is better regarded as an approach than a full-fledged theory” but the uses and gratification theory has gained more relevance in today’s digital media, user behavior and their wider range of options when it comes to obtaining or consuming information. Probably of this modern development in mass media, not every researcher believes the uses and gratification theory has any space in mass communication theory, however. Thomas E. Ruggiero wrote in his publication Uses And Gratification Theory in the 21st Century back in the year 2000 that “the emergence of computer-mediated communication has revived the significance of uses and gratifications. The uses and gratifications theory has always provided a cutting-edge theoretical approach in the initial stages of each new mass communications medium”.

The uses and gratification theory defends the idea that the public, as an active, not passive media player, seeks out the media effects they want for themselves by actively using media to satisfy their specific needs. First, it characterizes media users as active in their selection of the media they consume. From this perspective, people don’t use media passively. They are engaged and motivated in their media selections. Second, people are aware of their reasons for selecting different media options. They rely on their knowledge of their motivations to make media choices that will help them meet their specific wants and needs (Cynthia Vianney). This is dictated by affective, personal, social, tension, or cognitive needs (Blumler and Katz) making the media effects limited or influenced by specific psychological factors, which means that the same message is perceived differently by people. Researchers of the theory determined that people use media to escape from their problems, obtain information, consume entertainment, and explore their identity, factors that influence the way someone seeks and consumes mass media information. On a practical level for example, a recent study by the Pew Research Center identified that about a third of US adults over the age of 30 get their news from TikTok, while in other social networks, this tendency has declined or stayed the same. This has caused both news outlets and companies to understand TikTok and adapt their content to that outlet to stay relevant. Phenomena like this or how movies are being premiered on streaming platforms instead of cinemas are a clear example of the higher influence the way people consume media is increasingly influential in the way mass media evolve, especially considering the wide range of options they have to tailor their experiences to their specific needs. From a practical approach point of view, the uses and gratification theory can shed light on increased effectiveness in Public Relations, a field that has gained a lot more importance in recent decades. Already in the 70s, author Leonard J. Snyder suggested using the uses and gratification theory as an approach for effective communications, “because when a majority of a population has identifiable motivations known to be receptive to messages of informational utility, the communication process is enhanced and more effective communication will result.”

As Riley Moylan states in one of the few articles about the application of this theory on PR: “One of the goals in public relations is to understand the audience. When developing a campaign, as PR professionals, we want to understand the audience’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. This goes along with one of the main ideas of the uses and gratification theory. Again, the theory seeks to understand why users chose specific media to fulfill their needs, while PR professionals are constantly looking to cater to their audience needs”. Therefore, understanding how the audience uses mass media is an important concept for PR professionals, validating the essence of this theory to this day. The most commonly agreed definition of Public Relations defines the field as “the management function that establishes and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between the organization and the public on whom its success and failures depend” (Cutlip, Center, and Broom’s Effective Public Relations) and many of the practices in the professional fields usually craft messages, narratives, or activations that can earn third party recognition in the media and build a favorable image externally and internally. This, in essence, constitutes an ideal scenario to apply the uses and gratification theory of mass communications and understand its value in this relatively new media landscape. For companies to perform a successful PR campaign, they need to provide something of value (a newsworthy press release, a socially conscious initiative, influencer activations, social media reactive campaign, etc.) that can spark interest and conversation around the company to become trustworthy and influential. Because of that necessity, these practices usually work to identify something valuable to the public to activate that engagement.

The goal of this small study is to explore how the principles of the uses and gratification theory can be a framework to explain PR campaign success, by evaluating how many of the core elements of the theory (information-seeking, entertainment, social interaction, and personal identity reinforcement), as independent variables, are present in a content analysis of both successful and unsuccessful PR campaigns. The concept of audience expectation acts as a dependent variable while we look at these campaigns, as it influences the potential for audience gratification success. While this study doesn’t involve statistical calculations of correlations, it provides the framework for its addition, suggesting a multiple and partial correlation calculation to prove the findings of this qualitative content analysis.

GoPro Social Media Use

A popular example obtained from Penn State scholars Riley Moylan, Elizabeth Molek, and Hannah Morrissey and originally extracted from Steven Geer in his article about social media branding and the uses and gratification theory is GoPro. The majority of GoPro’s Instagram presence is based on user-generated content of customers and fans using their products and creating videos featured daily or by influencers or brand ambassadors showing the capabilities of their cameras. It is a simple yet effective way to adapt your message to the way your audience uses that platform to cater to the needs of your audience and your brand. “People post to socialize, vent personal feelings, gather information, and reaffirm their identity and social status. After recognizing the potential and massive opportunity in these channels, brands have since been using social media to build brand identity and reach. If companies can tailor a promotional campaign to the platform and audience, they can maximize their exposure and ideally, expect more revenues. This involves tapping into consumers’ specific uses of that medium, and figuring out a way to satisfy them”. GoPro’s approach to social media and user-generated content provides a complete example that aligns with the uses and gratification theory principles: social interaction gratification by becoming part of a global community of similar interests, information-seeking to show the capabilities of the GoPro cameras, and personal identity reinforcement to their customers to showcase their skills and attracting the GoPro brand to people that share similar values, and provide entertainment to their followers with entertaining short videos. Author Chenkhinwee simplifies the nature of the uses and gratification theory by asking us to think about a TV show we regularly watch and list possible uses and gratifications (Media Studies 101). My answer would be Friends, a series that I have already finished but I keep coming back because it is comforting and marks the moment I get to unwind from the daily routine, as millions of people around the world do.

The action camera market is an extremely competitive and tight race to stay on top. In an environment where products are similar in price and quality, more often than not, branding, marketing, or communications are the differential factors in the customer purchase decision. The main reason GoPro stays on top of competitors of successful brands like DJI is their ability to tap into the most user gratifications, better. A quick look at DJI’s social media profiles will quickly reveal the similarities in approach with GoPro, however, GoPro is simply able to satisfy more needs from the public than DJI with stronger access to user-generated content submission, easy-to-use gear, and more focus on showcasing the preferred lifestyle and experiences of their audience rather than the quality of their products or aesthetics of their profiles.

The Best Job in The World

Another example to which a uses and reputation theory principle can be attributed is in a campaign named “The Best Job in the World,” which is written about in the book Rethinking Reputation: How PR trumps Marketing and Advertising in the New Media World. The best job in the world was a PR campaign developed to promote tourism on Hamilton Island in Australia. The Best Job in The World was a real position created that was accepting applications to hire someone to live on the island for six months on a salary of over $100,000. All they had to do was blog about their experience. This job posting became viral around the world, featuring in all the major news outlets and sparking conversations on social media. Looking at the success from a PR and use and gratification theory perspective, we can quickly identify that giving the press an unusual story and the audience something to talk about (and apply to) is one of the key performance indicators. However, it is worth noticing that three days before the announcement of the Best Job in The World, the Department of Labor announced the US had hit a 16-year high at the end of 2008. The book, by interviewing the PR practitioners involved in the campaign, counted on the fact that launching this job posting during the worst moment of the recession was beneficial. I would suggest that this event harmed the happiness of US citizens, who would likely turn to digital media as a way to escape from reality. “A lot of people were hurting and we gave them some hope,” said John Frazier, one of the members of the campaign. This campaign provided gratification to the public in the form of hope and having a topic to share with friends as a mediator, and entertainment to see what the lucky hire would share about the experience.

Ice Bucket Challenge by ALS Association

This viral social media challenge is perhaps the prototype of TikTok’s success. The potential cause can be how effectively it taps into the audience’s gratification of social interaction and entertainment among other things. The Ice Bucket Challenge traveled around the world fulfilling the objective that the ALS association had: to raise awareness of how it felt to have ALS, a degenerative neural disease. The challenge became extremely popular as it provided the public with the social interaction of participating in a social challenge, personal identity reinforcement for becoming a part of a good cause, and entertainment when engaging with other people sharing their videos.

Snoop Dogg’s biggest announcement to date

Regardless of the controversial decision from the company to fire its CEO after the campaign allegedly didn’t get the results in sales, they were expecting, the effectiveness of this campaign can be calculated using the uses and gratification theory. in November 2023, Snoop Dogg posted an announcement on his social media profiles that broke the news around the world. “After much consideration and conversation with my family, I have decided to give up smoke” the image reads. The celebrity, known worldwide for this certain type of activity, shared a highly controversial statement that left everyone wondering. After a few days, a new ad was shared on his profiles alongside the brand Solo Stove, announcing their new stoves and grills that produced much less smoke and more fire than other products. A communications campaign that tricked everyone and was followed by millions. By analyzing the independent variables in the uses and gratification theory, we can identify why this campaign turned out to be effective. While the personal identity reinforcement focuses more on the brand’s personality instead of how potential customers would feel gratified about it, the stunt performs incredibly well in the other variables.

Even though it could have been a risky move to deceive the public with misleading information, the information-seeking element was sparked by the curiosity around Snoop’s decision in a unique situation. This is directly related to the entertainment value that has an unexpected twist and storyline (it turns out he was giving up smoke in his house, for smokeless stoves and grills). Finally, for obvious reasons, this post had a strong social interaction potential from the beginning. With more than 20 million followers, Snoop Dogg is mainly known for his specific songs and lifestyle that he has, making him a reference in that field. It was like when a legendary athlete announced his retirement and people wanted to know more.

The company’s alignment with the target audience’s values on sustainability

While most of the PR campaigns would revolve around creating something that will get covered in the media and talk about the intended audience’s interests, the uses and gratification interests can go beyond PR campaigns and user-generated content on Instagram. There is an interesting opportunity to dive deeper into the application of this theory in the field of corporate social responsibility which has been increasingly linked with corporate communications and PR. More and more companies are adopting environmentally conscious practices mainly due to the increasing worry of the younger generation about social issues that can influence their consumer choices. For instance, when we are previewing a product on the Nike website they mention the process they went through to fabricate that product with environmentally-friendly products, hoping to tap into a consumer that buys things that identify with his/her values. Corporate social responsibility and sustainability practices performed by companies can satisfy essential audience gratification.

Patagonia makes good use of CSR (corporate social responsibility) as a company committed to sustainability. This is exemplified by the corporate initiative Worn Wear, followed by a corporate communications plan that announced how this idea was born and the reason why. Clothing is one of the industries that pollute the most, and knowing that Patagonia is a brand for outdoors and nature lovers, Patagonia shared that they wanted society to cut down consumption and make more use of the stuff they already own. This meant that the Worn Wear initiative would provide customers with tips and information on how to repair and/or recycle their Patagonia products (information-seeking) so their clothes can last longer or so they can get store credit for returning what they won’t use anymore. Secondly, Patagonia is a brand with a strong storytelling and multimedia content strategy, and bringing in customer’s stories related to Worn Wear provided them with a platform to feel part of a community committed to sustainability (social interaction), with the best stories being amplified by Patagonia’s production quality (entertainment). All these practices combined transformed Patagonia into the leading clothing brand in sustainability we know today, whose products contribute to the personal identity reinforcement of customers who want a greener future.

The Most Hated Brand in Every Country Digital PR campaign

Digital PR refers to a newer concept inside the Public Relations field that focuses on online reputation and exposure, which is usually achieved by managing search engine optimization, content, or website exposures. The best way to boost all these is by creating creative PR content that becomes newsworthy, which is what digital PR does.

To obtain more website visits and improve their search ranking, tech, and marketing organization Rave Reviews invested in conducting a research study on a global scale that would reveal the most hated brand in every country in the world. The study was shared through a press release and a map design showing the results. By using the uses and gratification variables, we can understand why it was such a success: the study was picked up by the main news outlets and branding magazines because of the high degree of information-seeking value that tapped into the curiosity to know about the results, which at the same time fulfilled the entertainment value to find any controversy or surprise. From a personal identity reinforcement, users would share if the study aligned with their personal opinion or contradicted them, which in turn created a space for discussion on social media (social interaction) not only caused by entertained people but also inside the branding industry.

Furthermore, while positive PR campaigns and CRS initiatives very often tick the boxes of the uses and gratification theory’s independent variables, when coming up with ineffective campaigns that turned into a company’s reputation crisis, one common trend was identified: while tapping into the independent gratification variables in a s stronger or weaker way can vary the degree of success and exposure to a campaign or tactic as we have seen with The Best Internship in the World and DJI social media strategy, not being able to fulfill any of the independent gratification variables resulted in a reputation crisis, often caused by triggers such as content that is not authentic or original (entertainment), not providing valuable or clear information/explanaitions or hide the truth (information-seeking), showing cultural insensitivity (personal identity reinforcement), and failing to provide a valuable and positive conversation to targetted audiences (social interaction, which were existent but very negative). These are all expectations that the public has when actively seeking to consume information. An important aspect that influences achieving audience gratification is their expectations, which degree greatly shape the results of the uses and gratification effectiveness. While the most successful PR campaigns can create a set of expectations that they can achieve to facilitate the gratification of the potential audience needs, most of the unsuccessful ones observed in this study weren’t able to tap into their audience gratifications because they couldn’t meet or didn’t align their expectations to the gratifications they promised to satisfy. These expectations are created not only by the company’s values but the message shared in a communications campaign.

British Petroleum PR fiasco

British Petroleum will forever feature in all the texts and conversations surrounding communications deception and PR disasters. The oil company, pressed against a growing demand for sustainability and socially moral business practices, announced the inversion of millions of dollars to promote their corporate initiative “Beyond Petroleum” which promised to use alternative sources and implement business changes for a more responsible practice with the environment. In a domino effect, the seemingly positive and forward-looking plan turned into a disaster because it was proven that none of that was true. When a company or campaign message isn’t consistent with the brand values or promises, then it can’t satisfy the gratification needs of its audiences. The information-seeking variable is non-existent because the information is not true, the lack of entertainment value (which makes sense in corporate cases like this one) caused heavily negative social interaction towards the brand that eliminated any personal identity reinforcement. Many could argue that it is harder to satisfy the gratification needs of an active audience if you are an oil company rather than an industry that could evoke more creativity or entertainment. However, the independent variables that we list from the uses and gratification theory also serve as a framework for companies where it might seem harder to achieve audience gratification. For instance, firstly stating the obvious, on the information-seeking variable BP should have just been transparent about their actions, which should have gone hand and hand with announcements. Moving forward, BP can fulfill the social interaction gratification by involving academics, activists, citizens, or authorities and provide them with a platform to share concerns, suggestions, etc. for the Beyond Petroleum campaign, and then use entertaining formats like videos of blogs to educate the public about what’s being done, how, why, and by whom. This combination could potentially attract people concerned about pollution and about what oil companies they buy from, making BP an attractive option to convert loyal like-minded customers.

Other similar campaigns to the list of successful ones didn’t end up becoming a reputation crisis, but never became as effective or popular due to inefficiencies in meeting the expectations necessary for audience gratification:

The Best Internship in the World

Just one year after The Best Job in the World, Tourism Australia decided to build on its PR success by creating a near-identical stunt named “The Best Internship in the World” in which they looked to hire a college student to travel around Australia’s tourist attraction while sharing content on blogs and social media. But even though this campaign had the same ingredients as its protegitor it failed massively in getting the same results. The uses and gratification theory provides us with key details as to why it didn’t perform as expected: first of all the multiple errors found in the application portal became a barrier for the information-seeking gratification of users learning about the opportunity, the lack of authenticity or similarity to the previous campaign didn’t achieve the same potential of entertainment which consequently devalued the amount of coverage and exposure of the initiative. It is worth mentioning that timing is a great variable that can influence to a degree the amount of interest in the story, as The Best Job in the World came up shortly after the Great Recession.

The Fyre Festival PR Disaster

In 2029, the brand Fyre was a company that looked to offer an innovative service in the celebrity industry and to celebrate their launch, owners Ja Rule and Billy McFarlance decided to create an exclusive and high-profile music festival in The Bahamas. The announcement was followed by a successful social media and promotional campaign that became viral and sold out tickets in a matter of weeks after being promoted by some of the most popular celebrities in the United States. This successful publicity campaign and sales performance created a huge buzz around the event, which turned out to be a disaster. Fyre Media couldn’t get the resources and minimum standards required to host a music festival. This lack of resources translated into different bigger problems that were not communicated to festival-goers (too expensive catering, performers pulling out, no medical services, or decent accommodation) to the point that Billy recently served 6 months in prison. There’s a Netflix documentary about the fiasco.

While the promotional communications campaign was extremely effective and promised to satisfy the interest of their customers, it is clear that the expectations were not met. In fact, the large gap between audience expectations and the huge failure to deliver on these promises suddenly “killed” Fyre Media. This event proves that while you can tap into the audience’s gratification during a communications campaign, this is only the first step into creating the expectations while the actions are what the public seeks for gratification.

Pepsi and Kendall Jenner Ad

Although advertising has core differences with public relations in their objectives (sell a product vs protect a company’s reputation), today’s media landscape has blurred the lines to the point that PR elements need to be taken into account when developing ads, especially after understanding the positive and negative potential of audience gratifications. In 2017, Pepsi tried to convey a message of unity and social activism by producing an ad in which celebrity Kendall Jenner left a photoshoot to join a social demonstration in the street. She is then seen approaching a police officer to give him a Pepsi and everyone turns to be happy. The general audience generally expects these things from ads: to be clear, informative, and entertaining. The intended message underlying the ad (unity and social commitment) wasn’t portrayed in the best way possible, undermining the information-seeking gratification. What’s more, the ad quickly became controversial for tribalizing sensitive topics such as citizens going to the streets to demand social justice, suggesting that just a Pepsi can fix any of these issues. It certainly didn’t help either that the person leading the people on the streets was a white celebrity. Every social interaction regarding the campaign was negative for obvious reasons, no personal identity reinforcement was existent, decreasing Pepsi’s reputation and by using and the entertainment value was elminated. From an information-seeking perspective, people expect authentic content that is socially conscious, so seeing a toned-down important event for democracy that is quickly fixed with a Pepsi can’t meet a socially conscious expectation. Pepsi quickly apologized and retired the ad. Perhaps for socially conscious commitments, other channels of communication different than advertising would have been more appropriate, as usually the information-seeking value of ads can overturn the communications of social initiatives (such as “greenwashing” perceptions) while using a less serious situation to portray pepsi as the tool for common understanding. For instance, a 2023 ad by European beer Heineken advertised their product under their new slogan “All the taste, no bitter endings”. Although the objective of the ad was different than Pepsi’s, the show is produced to mimic a Viking-era streaming series in which a character is facing the threat of a king, who is the dad of the female he has asked to marry. When all the elements to suggest a bitter ending are present, the threatened person offers a Heineken and he and the king magically improve their relationship, in a similar fashion to Pepsi’s ad but in a “less serious” situation.

Results

This content analysis showed an observable correlation between the number of audience gratifications satisfied when expectations are met or exceeded. While a PR campaign was still successful to a lower degree when fewer gratifications were satisfied, the most unsuccessful campaigns shared the common trend of breaking the chain of audience gratifications. None of the different independent variables were effectively satisfied when expectations were not met. Strategic communications is an essential role in identifying how to interact with an increasingly active audience, and in crafting a message that establishes the expectations of that interaction. These results suggest that when developing a PR campaign, you have to think more about attraction rather than promotion. If a campaign can tap into the needs of a specific audience and meet their expectations, then the more gratifications you can offer the more success you will encounter. The uses and gratification theory may have been overlooked for the past decades, but it has never been more relevant for the current mass communication landscape.

Limitations and further research

While the study uses specific examples in the communications industry that suggest the value of the uses and gratification theory as a practical approach to creating effective campaigns (and the potential negative outcomes in not doing so) moderated by the audience’s previous expectations, there is an opportunity to elaborate further on a research-level by bringing a bigger sample to perform statistical analysis, bring quantitative elements to a similar study. For instance, a multiple correlation coefficient calculation of a bigger sample of campaigns to further prove that more of the theory’s gratification is fulfilled (information-seeking, social interaction, personal identity reinforcement, and entertainment) with a single dependent variable (previous audience expectations), the more success is predicted, with a partial correlation of each variable to understand the individual contribution of each independent variable. This study only scratches the surface on the increased relevance of the uses and gratification theory in today’s media landscape which corresponds to the increased importance of PR, a field that excels in understanding the audience needs, but only on a simple qualitative level and a small sample of campaigns where these relationships are probably easier to identify in their degree of success/controversy than others. Finally, there needs to be a section that studies unsuccessful PR campaigns even when expectations, as a dependent variable, are met.

Discussion

Lastly, by leaving out the uses and gratification theory in mass communication, we are ignoring an essential question which is why people use digital media to quickly skip to the how. Perhaps, this seemingly small variation could unearth bigger answers when it comes to fostering a more effective, beneficial, and tailored approach for mass media messaging that would save problems for communications professionals in the professional practice to settle expectations that align with the potential audience gratifications. As Elizabeth Molek and Hannah Morrissey state in Uses and Gratifications in PR, “This theory allows public relations professionals to not only understand the best way to tailor a message to a specific audience, but it allows for public relations professionals to understand what drives the needs of those they are trying to reach with their messaging”, especially in a time where people are using different mediums for specific needs. While agreeing with the remarks of Ynthia Vinney, Ph.D., that “some scholars feel because of its lack of distinction between needs and motivations and the poor definitions provided for these and other concepts, the theory is better regarded as an approach than a full-fledged theory”, I would like to see this theory adapted to today’s academic demands and applied in research to understand other issues such as the tendency of social media users to become less social on the internet and more active on smaller forums.

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