The level of use of public relations tools and evaluation of their impact on the reputation of chemical companies from the perspective of the Czech public

Abstract

The article presents the results of primary quantitative research aiming to determine the extent to which PR tools are used by chemical companies towards the public (wide and local) in the Czech Re-public. It was found that, in the opinion of the respondents, the natural publicity of the company through word of mouth and media information has the greatest influence on public opinion, while the influence of social networks has not been appreciated yet. An important contribution of the paper may be the identifi-cation of the extent of use of a complex set of PR tools in the areas of information publicity, events and corporate social responsibility initiatives (CSR) recommended by literature to support business reputation among the public. Thus, it was possible to identify PR tools often used by companies, albeit not very ef-fective, and vice versa, those PR tools that are perceived to be effective, but not yet widely used in prac-tice. The application of research results will facilitate a better allocation of company resources among PR tools in order to more effectively meet the company’s PR objectives towards the public. The research was conducted through the electronic questioning method and involved 53 marketing and PR managers of chemical companies in the Czech Republic.