Public Relations vs. Advertising

“What exactly do you do?” If we had a dime for every time we heard that question…

It’s also a question that’s difficult to answer, because PR encompasses so many things. Sometimes it’s best to describe it as something it’s NOT, which is paid advertising, because everyone seems to be familiar with advertising. We don’t go out and buy TV spots or purchase print advertising space. But, we do pretty much everything else to help our clients meet their communications goals.

So, what exactly do we do? 

Let’s take one of our clients, for example. It is a local food and beverage company hoping to create national attention for its products and, ultimately, increase sales. We developed a strategic plan specifically with this goal in mind that included working with media and bloggers to write stories about the products, creating national sampling opportunities, using social media to communicate with and engage audiences, aligning the company with important causes and promoting those partnerships, and more. Since partnering with us several years ago, the company has seen an average growth of 20% per year in sales.

Advertising can be an effective means of communications. In fact, we’ve designed many print ads for clients. But, advertising is a one-way street. It’s all about the company telling the readers and viewers how great it is. It’s not interactive. And, because it’s paid, it’s also not as credible. We recommend to clients that if they want to advertise, they should align their advertising strategy with a PR campaign.

We found a great article in Forbes that discusses advertising versus public relations. For those of you wondering about the effectiveness of each, it’s a great read. http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwynne/2014/07/08/the-real-difference-between-pr-and-advertising-credibility/