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This does not mean that executives must slavishly follow public taste. But an awareness of outside trends and sentiments is essential. Public relations men cite the example of the automotive industry, which refused to heed warnings that the customers were growing concerned about automobile safety, hence was caught off guard by Ralph Nader's crusade. Similarly, the insurance companies and the American Medical Association should have been far better briefed on the public's favorable attitude toward the Medicare program, which they tried in vain to stop. Intelligent response to p.r. advice, on the other hand, helped Du Pont start an anti-pollution program long before the public outcry. "Good public relations," writes Heilbroner, "has come to be something very much like the corporate conscience—a commercial conscience, no doubt, but a conscience nonetheless."
Facing in the other direction, p.r.'s more obvious role is to influence the public and frequently politicians. Hill and Knowlton is currently engaged in what President Bert Goss calls "the public relations case of the decade": the tobacco industry's rearguard action against unfavorable medical evidence on cigarette smoking. H. & K. unfailingly seeks to refute such evidence the minute it is published. The firm lobbied skillfully in Washington with the result that a proposed warning on cigarette packages that "Habitual Smoking Is Injurious to Your Health" was toned down to "Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous to Your Health."
The p.r. man's third major function is to work with (and on) the press. Many top businessmen are bewildered when faced by the vast modern communications machine, with its peculiar language and mores; in Sonnenberg's words, they regard reporters as "gypsies with tambourines." On the other hand, the gypsies are often bewildered by the intricacies of the modern industrial organizations they are supposed to cover. They need a guide through the labyrinth. The aerospace industry leads in this respect; many of its p.r. men have engineering experience, and they enable reporters to do a complicated job amid the computers.
Finally, most p.r. firms are engaged in publicizing products, with variations of fairly familiar devices. Daniel Edelman & Associates is helping to educate American palates to drink more wine by persuading business conventions to have wine-tasting sessions instead of cocktail parties, is also spreading the word that wine "is the safest and best tranquilizer." Instead of simply pressuring or gladhanding, p.r. men now try to create "situations of reality." A few years ago, coffee consumption was going down, partly because teenagers and 20s were not taking to it. On behalf of the National Coffee Association, Harshe-Rotman & Druck retained a young minister, urged such organizations as the Y.W.C.A., the Salvation Army and the Campfire Girls to run coffeehouses for young people —started off with free coffee and coffee pots contributed by the industry. Another way of creating "situations of reality" is to stage conferences on current topics, often in conjunction with universities and foundations.