To protect company's images and to ensure that negative publicity is avoided, firm uses:

Public relations

The correct answer is option 1- Public relations.

To protect company's images and to ensure that negative publicity is avoided, firm uses Public relations.

Managing public opinion of an organisation is an important task which can be performed by the marketing department. The business needs to communicate effectively to customers, suppliers, and dealers, since they are instrumental in increasing the sales and profit. Besides those who come into direct contact with the organisation or its products, there are other members of the general public whose voice or opinion is equally important. This public may be interested in the company and its product and have an impact on the business ability to achieve its objectives. Thus, it becomes imperative to manage public opinion and the company’s relation with the public on a regular basis. Therefore, public relations involve a variety of programmes designed to promote or protect a company’s image and its individual products in the eyes of the public. Most organisations, business or otherwise nowadays, have a separate department to manage public relations. They may also utilize the services of any outside public relations agency. Their main task is to disseminate information and build goodwill about the business. Concrete steps are to be taken to monitor the attitude of the general public and generate positive publicity. They are especially useful when there is negative publicity about  the company or its products. At that time, the situation has to be tackled like an emergency to improve public image. The public relations department then has to do something drastic so that damage to company’s images is controlled and minimised. They also advise top management to adopt certain programmes which will add to their public image and ensure that negative publicity does not take place at all.

OTHER OPTIONS

• Advertising is the most commonly used tool of promotion. It is an impersonal form of communication, which is paid for by the marketers (Sponsors) to promote some goods or service.

• Personal selling involves oral presentation of message in the form of conversation with one or more prospective customers for the purpose of making sales. Personal Selling plays important role for the business persons as well as for the society.

• Sales Promotion refers to short-term incentives, which are designed to encourage the buyers to make immediate purchase of a product service. These include promotional efforts other than advertising, personal selling and publicity, used by a company to boost its sales.