Public relations: as perceived and practiced by commercial
banks

Abstract: The increasing competition in the business world has forced firms to become
innovative as well as effective in their promotion activities. PR is a
promotion tool that has gained increasing importance in recent times, since
it is perceived as both cost effective and highly credible. PR is a set of
communications techniques which are designed to create and maintain
favourable relations between an organization and its publics.

This study aims to provide a better understanding of how banks utilize PR
in communicating with their publics. The role of corporate reputation and
trust development is also examined within this study. To this end, case
studies were conducted of two large Swedish banks, SEB and Handelsbanken.
The cases explain the roles, objectives, functions and tools of PR at the
banks.

Findings show that banks do not define their communication activities as
PR, but still utilize it to a high degree. While objectives are different
in the banks, one common priority is the building and maintaining of
relationships with the publics. Banks utilize many different tools to reach
PR objectives: many of these are used at the local branch level. Similarly,
banks consider corporate reputation and trust as vital for the
organization’s capability to sell financial services, and therefore manage
this with high priority.