ABSTRACT
African petroleum Plc, a Marketer of petroleum products and chemicals, knows that public support and goodwill as well as good corporate image are very important for business success. Tends to be influenced by their publics which includes, its staff, shareholders, customers and of course members of the press.
The company is actually very much interested to know its public problem areas and opportunities with the aim to improving the organization’s overall performance to enable them know what their public thinks about African petroleum public Relations programmes and quality of services of the organization to its publics.
The researcher therefore decided to embark on this study with the objectives.
The objectives of the study are:
To determine the extent of AP’S public Relations messages accessibility to their publics and also find out whether AP’s public relations practices influence the opinion of their publics.
Relevant data based on the scope of the study were collected through primary and secondary data with structured questionnaire as the main instrument administered to two hundred and fifty (250) respondents comprising forty African petroleum staff, sixty share holders, one hundred and twenty customers and thirty members of the press.
The questionnaire was highly structured and open – ended where necessary. The questions and the response were very standard to facilitate comparison of responses and to secure good control of the questions, chi-square (x2) was used to analyse the hypotheses formulated.
Among the findings were that the African Petroleum Public Relations Media Message and quality of their overall services are satisfactory through their mobilization programmes and enlightment campaign but needs more efforts. AP’s Public Relation’s Practice influences their publics to favour her products through persuasive and convincing communication. The following recommendation were made; AP should always engage in a constant evaluation of their public relations practice and its effectiveness to identify any short comings. Media combination should be reviewed to always embrace appreciable coverage.