Difference between Public Relations and Advertising

Public relations is a business tool that often gets confused with marketing and advertising, two related but very distinct activities. In the following sections, I clear up the differences for you.

Marketing: The four Ps

Marketing is typically defined by the Four Ps — product, price, place (channels of distribution), and promotion.

• Product refers to the physical product and its packaging. With many products — fruit juice, for instance — the packaging is a key product differentiator: Juice boxes are a separate product category from frozen concentrate. Service can also be an integral part of a product. For example, L.L. Bean has gained widespread fame publicizing its lifetime guarantee on everything it sells.
• Price is what you charge for the product.
• Place refers to channels of distribution — in other words, where the product is sold. Do you sell at a retail store or on a Web site? Do customers buy the product directly from you or through an agent or distributor?
• Promotion consists of advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, and, of course, public relations.

So as you can see, public relations is a part of promotion under the larger umbrella of marketing.

Paying for advertising while PR is (practically) free

Several characteristics separate public relations from advertising, but one fundamental difference is this: Advertising is paid; public relations is free. When you run an advertisement for your company, you pay for the space; when your press release prompts a newspaper to write an article about your company, you don't pay for that coverage.

Of course, PR is not absolutely free of cost. Your public relations staff member or your outside PR agency has to be paid for services. But compared to the megadollars of advertising campaigns, PR is quite a bargain. Many small- and medium-size businesses that can afford only limited advertising (with limited results) can do much more PR — and get better results — on a fraction of the budget they'd spend on paid advertising.

So the difference in cost is fundamental. But another distinction between PR and advertising gets less attention, though I think it's equally important: Advertising is clearly identified in the media as a paid promotion — readers and viewers know that it is a promotional message paid for by a sponsor. Publicity, by comparison, is not identified as a paid promotion. Even though a story about a product or organization may have resulted from a publicity campaign, the article or report never acknowledges that fact. (For instance, you almost never see an article in a newspaper or a magazine say, "According to a press release sent by the PR department of So-and-So Corporation. . . .")

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Thanks for the lousy press coverage!

Clergymen across the United States denounced actress Sarah Bernhardt (1844–1923) as the "whore of Babylon," which, much to their dismay, generated massive attendance at her performances. After a Chicago bishop delivered a particularly critical speech against Bernhardt, which was widely reported in the press, the actress sent him a $200 check along with the following note, as recounted by Clifton Fadiman in The Little Brown Book of Anecdotes: "I am accustomed, when I bring an attraction to your town, to spend $400 on advertising. As you have done half the advertising for me, I enclose $200 for your parish."

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Four other key differences between PR and advertising are

• Control
• Repetition
• Credibility
• Attractiveness

Sometimes these distinctions mean an advantage for PR, sometimes not. In the following sections, I go into more detail on each of these differences.

Control

When you advertise, you have almost total control over the content, format, timing, and size of your message. You specify how big your ad is and when it runs. You write the copy and design the layout, and your material appears exactly as you created it. With public relations, on the other hand, you have almost no control over the content, format, timing, and size of your message as it appears in the media. You can write whatever you want in your press release, but you can't dictate to the newspaper how it is printed or used, nor can you review or approve any changes made. You provide the press with written materials that they use (or don't use) in any way they see fit. Your press release may appear verbatim in one magazine but may be rewritten almost beyond recognition in another. One industry trade journal may write a cover story based on your material; another may not publish it at all.

Repetition

Advertising is repeatable; PR is not. The same advertisement can be repeated as many times as you want in a given publication; the same TV commercial can be broadcast night after night. With PR, a media source is going to run a given press release or cover a publicity event only once. To get covered again, you have to provide the media with a new story, or at least come up with a different angle or new spin on the old topic.

Credibility

Consumers are skeptical of advertising. They tend not to believe the claims made in advertising — at least that's what many consumers say. Many people believe that if your service or product is as good as you say it is, you don't need to advertise. On the other hand, people tend to take at face value what they hear on radio, see on TV, or read in the paper. They believe that if the newspaper printed it, it must be true. Because publicity is promotion in the guise of editorial, feature, or news material, people do not identify it as promotion and are, therefore, not skeptical of it; indeed, they believe it.

In many instances, media coverage of your event or story can appear to the public to be media endorsement of your organization or product — for example, a favorable story about your charity on the evening news or a good review of your software package in a computer magazine. What's more, comments or claims that would sound conceited, self-serving, and not credible if you said them about yourself in an ad seem complimentary, flattering, and impressive when the media say them about you.

Attractiveness

Publicity must have an angle — that is, a hook or theme that engages an editor's attention — in order for it to have a decent chance of being noticed, read, and used. Therefore, it must appeal to editors and program managers, as well as to the consumers (your sales prospects and the people who read the magazine or listen to the radio show).

An ad has to appeal to only one audience: your sales prospects. You don't care whether the media like or are interested in the ad, because they have already agreed to run it in exchange for a given amount of money.