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Advertising can costs organizations and individuals millions of dollars each year, whereas publicity can be free. One way to promote a business (its products or services) is through advertising. Effective techniques of creating and testing advertisement ads need to be learned, and the most effective advertising outlets need to be determined. Due to the amount of time that is needed to see results from advertising, organizations turn to experienced Advertising firms. Results entirely depend on the advertising budget available, which in turn allows an amount of advertising space to be purchased.
There may also be a lack of credibility with advertising, not everyone believes what is said, and unfortunately false advertising has tainted the public’s view of ads. Publicity on the other hand, is the more effective way to promote a business, or its products or services. Good publicity allows you to achieve results totally disproportionate to the amount of money and effort put in to gaining a larger customer base. Favorable articles written by independent reviewers, journalists, columnists and editors about and organization will have far more credibility than any advertisement ever could.
For many organizations advertising is the obvious way to promote a business or product. Once an organization learns the techniques of creating and testing great ads, and the right places to advertise – it can produce results – but at the end of day, the results will depend directly to the amount of advertising space a firm buys, which depends on the budget. An organization like the one I work for has a budget of ten million for the year. Even though that sounds like a lot of money in today’s market it does not buy as much as one may think. Wall Street Journal Ads, TV, CNN, CNBC, FOX NEWS are very high priced.
Publicity is the smart way to promote a business or product. Using both Advertising and Publicity are very effective methods to promote and create positive awareness of a business. As stated above, there is a clear difference between Advertising and Publicity. Advertising is something you get by paying for it (radio, TV, newspaper, banner advertising, etc). Publicity however, is something you hope you’ll get. Publicity can be generally gained at no cost to the firm, and it generally has many times the credibility of advertising. It also refers to free content about the company.
Publicity is about what others say about the firm. Below are some of the differences between the two; Publicity No charge for media coverage. News slant. High credibility. Items infrequently used more than once. Media share control. Advertising Paid for. Selling slant. Sometimes lacks credibility. Ads scheduled close together. Placer has complete control. Publicity is the way a firm tells its story; advertising reinforces the story and gives it an image in the marketplace. Free publicity is usually the best approach. People are also more attracted to news articles than to ads.
In order to get your message out about the company a mixture of advertising and publicity should be used. Advertising is the most costly way to reach a target audience with a specific message because you pay the media every time you run an advertisement, a commercial or an on-line display banner. For companies on a limited budget, costs for purchasing space or time can be prohibitive to reach the number of readers, listeners or viewers with the frequency desired, especially since nearly all effective advertising campaigns require repetition.
Just one advertisement in a major consumer magazine can cost more than an entire year’s publicity program. For the same media fee of one advertisement, a publicity program can produce one or more stories in that same consumer magazine — and produce throughout the year numerous stories in other consumer magazines, in newspapers, in books, in trade journals, on the Internet, and on radio and television broadcasts. Because the media is paid to advertise, the firm has control of that space or time purchased. As a result, the advertising message can be controlled, the location of the message and its frequency are all predetermined.
Organizations can make the message as blatantly persuasive, colorful and dramatic as they wish. In contrast, because you do not pay the media to run publicity, there is no control over the space, time or content of the message, as in advertising. Credibility is often much higher with publicity that appears in editorial content than with paid advertising. That’s because the reader (viewer or listener) recognizes that the advertising space has been purchased and the message is biased. When compared to paid advertising, a successful publicity placement has greater believability by the implicit endorsement of the media.