“Corporate pathos”: new approaches to quell hostile publics

Abstract

Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review work on the power and importance of emotional appeals from a range of disciplines including philosophy, psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, linguistics and advertising. It aims to illustrate the growing body of evidence and theory that emotions play a vital part in how we shape and alter our attitudes and behaviours. By contrast many PR practitioners have been slow to recognise the importance of these new findings and do not regularly consider how emotional appeals can help enhance reputations or limit criticism. It further suggests that to date the PR professional has lacked a workable framework around which the importance of emotions can be understood and subsequently used to aid the planning and delivery of public relations programmes. Design/methodology/approach – To aid the practitioner a new framework is suggested; newly referred to as corporate pathos. This approach allows for emotional appeals to be systematically analysed and provides corporate PR practitioners with a set of new tools by which emotional appeals can be deployed freshly and deliberately alongside rational arguments. To illustrate the practical impact of adopting rather than ignoring emotional appeals a series of four case studies from the worlds of technology, food manufacture, property and energy are used. Findings – With corporate threats to reputation coming from a far wider set of sources more quickly and intensely than ever before the need to parry them with emotional engagement techniques is becoming more important. Failure to do so risks serious damage to reputation, but corporations that use a "corporate pathos" approach can achieve strong results with low levels of risk. Yet, much further research and practice is necessary before "corporate pathos" becomes an accepted and important part of the corporate communicators toolkit. Originality/value – With the corporate pathos framework modern PR practitioners can now look afresh and how to ensure emotional appeals blend with rational arguments when faced with hostile publics.

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