Confused over Public Relations and Advertising???

Those who are not from the field of Public Relations or Advertising may not be well-known with what is the basic difference between both of these two. While both are primarily to help the brands boom, each has their different roles. PR, attained mainly through earned media, helps in brand building by offering a level of legitimacy which paid media advertisements cannot provide. While, advertising helps support the brand by reiterating messages and graphics which helps the public to identify the brand and its benefits. 

The basic differences between PR and Advertising can broadly be classified into three Cs:

1.   Control

A flawless PR drive should be able to control messages you want to put out. However, in some circumstances, which may be out of the PR team’s control, could derail public relations efforts. Let’s say, if a company’s news conference clashes with a breaking news event, reporters may not attend the conference in order to get breaking news coverage. It’s very rare that external factors can impact advertising schedules.

2.   Cost.

Public relations is earned media while advertising is paid media. Advertising comes with many more concrete costs, but you get accurately what you shell out for. On the flip side, PR has less concrete costs, but you cannot be assured that your efforts will turn up into the exact coverage you want.

3.   Conviction.

Readers, Viewers and listeners of media can make out paid advertisements and understand they come from biased sources. Although the advertisements work as huge reminder for a brand, still they don’t have the same integrity as a news story drafted by an external channel. This third-party recognition is undoubtedly has more conviction than self-promotion.

Public Relations or Advertisements: Which to opt for?

Find ways to work in both PR and advertising to grow your brand. Both have their own importance in their own ways. But for sure, in PR the money spent is one-fourth and the reliability is double in case of business building.

In case you want to go for separate PR and advertising teams, their compatibility in terms of message and approach would strengthen your overall efforts.

                  The author of this opinion article is Ms. Anjoo Dalal at PR Professionals