Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
Chapter 6: Objectives
Test Bank
Multiple Choice
1. According to the text, campaign objectives lead the practitioner to answering which
one of the following questions?
a. What do you want to accomplish?
b. How should you proceed with a campaign?
c. Which organizational goals are pertinent to the campaign?
d. Who is in the audience for the campaign?
2. A clearly written objective should specify all of the following EXCEPT ______.
a. how much
b. who
c. when
d. why
3. Leaders need objectives to contain which one of the following?
a. performance expectations
b. organizational history
c. market trends
d. stakeholder issues
4. Which one of the following is necessary to clarifying and specifying an objective?
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
a. stakeholder support
b. market trend
c. competitor position
d. audience definition
5. One of the first and basic things that campaigns rely on is which one of the following?
a. the organization committing enough funding to its projects including public relations
campaigns
b. the organization being committed to effective communications
c. the organization having high-level goals for itself
d. the public relations efforts in an organization to be based on objectives
6. Management by objective assesses managers’ performance by which one of the
following?
a. past performance
b. objectives
c. outcomes
d. goals
7. According to Public Relations Society of America, which one of the following is NOT
needed to ensure the success of campaigns?
a. objectives that are measurable
b. objectives that relate to audiences
c. objectives based on research
d. objectives that can be judged on return on investment
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
8. Why do PR practitioners often overlook setting formal objectives?
a. because formal objectives are often ignored by organizational leadership
b. because PR professionals are often untrained in setting objectives
c. because setting formal objectives requires defining failure
d. because setting formal objectives is costly
9. Which one of the following is NOT mentioned as one of the three categories that
objectives fall into?
a. inputs
b. outputs
c. outtakes
d. outcomes
10. Why are outcome objectives considered the most valuable in connection to an
organization’s goals?
a. Outcome objectives measure changes in audience size.
b. Outcome objectives measure changes in audience behavior.
c. Outcome objectives can be measured more easily than other categories of
objectives.
d. Outcome objectives represent the consensus of the organization’s values.
11. Which one of the following characterizes an Outtake objective?
a. PR staff posts a message on organization’s web site.
b. Target audience member understands a message.
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
c. Target audience member tweets a remark about an organization.
d. Target audience member shares a Facebook post from an organization’s message.
12. Why is it recommended that each specific audience targeted in a campaign need a
specific communications objective and message?
a. because communications messages and audiences change over time
b. It is a more cost-efficient approach.
c. It allows fewer opportunities for messages to be misinterpreted.
d. It enables messages to be measured for success or failure individually.
13. Being able to tally the results of a communications objective makes that objective
______.
a. relevant
b. credible
c. measurable
d. specific
14. The key characteristic of a functional objective is which one of the following?
a. It is based on relevant research.
b. It is based on the organization’s goals.
c. It is attainable with a given budget and timeframe.
d. It is given sufficient allotment of time and organizational support.
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
15. Public relations practitioners help ensure that their attainable objectives achieve
approval for execution through which one of the following?
a. a clear rationale for their choices
b. well-detailed budgets and timelines
c. the innovativeness of their ideas presented
d. the experience and reputation of the communications team
16. What category of objective tracks, for example, the number of reporters who were
contacted with campaign information?
a. outtake
b. output
c. outcome
d. outreach
17. Which one of these items is NOT cited as a factor that affects the timeline for a
campaign?
a. the size of the allotted budget
b. the scope of the change desired
c. volume of work necessary for the communications team
d. the involvement of the organization’s leadership
18. According to the text, well-executed campaigns should expect to do which one of
the following?
a. involve organizational leaders to actively participate in the campaign
b. execute one objective at a time
c. outsource specialty objectives when necessary
d. run multiple objectives simultaneously
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
19. Based on Brook and Sha’s analysis, how would organizational leaders be involved
in assessment of the success of a campaign?
a. by relying milestone dates to see if objectives are being achieved
b. by the final report issued by the campaign leader
c. by reporting from members of the campaign team
d. by outcome performance data generated by target audiences
20. Based on Stacks and Michaelson’s types of outcomes, which one of the following
sequence of events represents the ideal from a successful campaign?
a. message reception-opinion change-behavior change
b. behavior change -message reception-opinion change
c. opinion change-message reception-behavior change
d. message reception-behavior change-opinion change
21. Objectives needing approval should be written to fit the S.M.A.R.T. model. During
this phase, practitioners should also do which one of the following?
a. research which target audiences is key to the campaign’s success
b. get buy-in from organization’s dominant coalition
c. build relationships with members of the media who may support the campaign
d. provide a clear rationale for the objectives based on supportive secondary research
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
22. In the diagnosis phase, consideration should be given to organizational need and
which one of the following?
a. community resources
b. target audience access
c. organizational enthusiasm
d. organizational financial resources
23. The text states that to help ensure that PR practitioners in organizations must do
which one of the following to help ensure that campaigns to succeed?
a. develop several budgets for a campaign so it is scalable to the organization’s goals
b. prepare more than one rationale for the campaign’s objectives
c. anticipate and respond to internal coalitions and decision-makers
d. remove obstacles to campaign approval by ensuring that objectives are relevant to
target audiences
24. PR objectives that express a resulting outcome should prioritize which one of the
following?
a. how easily the outcome can be adjusted
b. how well the outcome addresses the problem at hand
c. how the outcome reflects leadership’s values
d. if outcome will have lasting effect
25. Communications objectives can be considered stronger and thus more likely to be
successful if they possess which one of the following characteristics?
a. They are developed and implemented by specialized teams within the organization.
b. They are developed and implemented solely by the communications department of
an organization.
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
c. They are implemented by the organization’s leadership.
d. They reflect input from different levels of personnel within the organization.
26. An organization has two concurrently running communications objectives: (1)
Increasing employees’ awareness of the organization’s health benefits, and (2)
increasing employees’ knowledge of its health insurance plans. These two objectives
can be described as which one of the following?
a. autonomous
b. divergent
c. systemic
d. in alignment
True/False
1. In the early stages of a campaign, modifying objectives to accommodate budgets is
not recommended.
2. Organizational executives prefer that objectives are fully developed before being
asked to respond to them.
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
3. Overcoming a hesitancy of setting objectives is an important step toward creating
campaigns that connect with larger organizational and communication goals.
4. Most campaigns are careful to track only outcome objectives to ensure consistency.
5. An outtake objective does not indicate how much behavior change occurs in a target
audience.
6. The S.M.A.R.T. model sets standards for assessing the effectiveness of objectives
7. A single clear communications objective is appropriate for multiple target audiences.
8. Communications objectives with more generic messages relate better to larger
audiences.
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
9. As an example, a campaign that seeks to change voter opinion would use qualitative
measurement but not quantitative measurement.
10. The more specific the behavioral focus, the more effective the message can be
when writing objectives.
11. The more relevant an objective’s measurable component is to the broader
organizational goal, the more valuable it becomes.
12. A successful campaign would result first in change in the target audience behavior,
then a change in the audience opinion.
13. During the diagnosis phase, the organizational PR practitioners should be sensitive
to the views of internal or executive audiences.
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
14. Campaign outcomes such as community goodwill, volunteer enthusiasm and brand
equity do not translate to data but can be measured using proxies.
15. Objectives should be written in a way that is neutral in how they are accomplished.
Short Answer/Essay
1. Why does measuring the results of an outtake objective provide limited insight to the
effects of a campaign’s message?
2. The S.M.A.R.T. model sets standards for writing objectives. Explain what each letter
in the acronym stands for and its significance in the objective writing process.
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
3. As an example, a campaign to change an audience opinion might use both qualitative
and quantitative measurement, but for different purposes. Explain how.
4. Explain what the PR practitioner would do prior to a campaign to later demonstrate
that an objective was attained after campaign.
5. A campaign’s outtake and outcome objectives are generally intended to lead to in
three changes in the target audience. Name the three types of change.
6. Complex campaigns with multiple layers of objectives will often have objectives
running in a time-bound manner. Why do PR practitioners support this effort to set
reaching objectives within time limits?
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
7.Explain how milestone measurements are used during a campaign and their value.
8. When developing objectives, the PR practitioner will gather a variety of perspectives
from within the organization. Why is this important and how might this effort affect the
objectives?
9. An organization is interested in increasing membership. Discuss the important
differences between the two following objectives:
Objective 1: Raise awareness of the organization among potential members in the
community
Objective 2: Identify and capture contact information for 100 potential members over the
next three months.
Instructor Resource
Luttrell, Public Relations Campaigns: An Integrated Approach 1e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
10. Why should the PR practitioner consider carefully its working relationships with
other departments within an organization?