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The following ten properties just scratch the surface of the many differences between advertising and public relations. 1 . Paid Space or Free Coverage * Advertising: The Company pays for ad space. You know exactly when that ad will air or be published. * Public Relations: Your job is to get free publicity for the company. From news conferences to press releases, you’re focused on getting free media exposure for the company and its products/services. 2. Creative Control Vs.. No Control Since you’re paying for the space, you have creative control on what goes into that ad. Public Relations: You have no control over how the media presents your information, if they ecocide to use your info at all. They’re not obligated to cover your event or publish your press release just because you sent something to them. 3. Shelf Life Since you pay for the space, you can run your ads over and over for as long as your budget allows. An ad generally has a longer shelf life than one press release. * public Relations: You only submit a press release about a new product once. You only submit a press release about a news conference once.
The PR exposure you receive is only circulated once. An editor won’t publish your same press release three or four times in their magazine. 4. Wise Consumers Consumers know when they’re reading an advertisement they’re trying to be sold a product or service. “The consumer understands that we have paid to present our selling message to him or her, and unfortunately, the consumer often views our selling message very guardedly,” Paul Flowers, president of Dallas-based Flowers & Partners, Inc. , said. “After all, they know we are trying to sell them. When someone reads a third-party article written about your product or views coverage of your event on TV, they’re seeing something you didn’t pay for with ad dollars and view it differently than they do paid advertising. Where we can generate some sort of third-party ‘endorsement’ by independent media sources, we can create great credibility for our clients’ products or services,” Flowers said. 5. Creativity or a Nose for News In advertising, you get to exercise your creativity in creating new ad campaigns and materials. In public relations, you have to have a nose for news and be able to generate buzz through that news.
You exercise your creativity, to an extent, in the way you search for new news to release to the media. 6. In-House or Out on the Town If you’re working at an ad agency, your main contacts are your co-workers ND the agency’s clients. If you buy and plan ad space on behalf of the client does, then you’ll also interact with media sales people. You interact with the media and develop a relationship with them. Your contact is not limited to in-house communications. You’re in constant touch with your contacts at the print publications and broadcast media. 7.
Target Audience or Hooked Editor You’re looking for your target audience and advertising accordingly. You wouldn’t advertise a women’s TV network in a male-oriented sports magazine. You must have an angle and hook editors to get them to use info for an article, to run a press release or to cover your event. 8. Limited or Unlimited Contact Some industry pros have contact with the clients. Others like copywriters or graphic designers in the agency may not meet with the client at all. In public relations, you are very visible to the media. PR pros aren’t always called on for the good news.
If there was an accident at your company, you may have to give a statement or on-camera interview to journalists. You may represent your company as a spokesperson at an event. Or you may work within community relations to show your company is actively involved in good work and is committed to the itty and its citizens. 9. Special Events If your company sponsors an event, you wouldn’t want to take out an ad subconsciously a pat on the back for being such a great company. This is where your PR department steps in. If you’re sponsoring an event, you can send out a press release and the media might pick it up.
They may publish the information or cover the event. 10. Writing Style Buy this product! Act now! Call today! These are all things you can say in an advertisement. You want to use those buzz words to motivate people to buy your product. You’re strictly writing in a no-nonsense news format. Any blatant commercial assuages in your communications are disregarded by the media. The Importance of Research in PR When we want to become more familiar with a client, identify target audiences or simply try to find that influential flogger or reporter to cover the new product launch, doing a little homework can go a long way.
Research is the key to any successful PR campaign, and if it is carried out in a sub-par manner your company will find itself unprepared and unwilling to face the embarrassment of a lackluster campaign. Before implementing any call to action, conducting the slightest bit of preliminary research will leave you ore prepared to handle difficult situations in the process of developing a PR campaign. What is your client’s mission? What are their long and short term goals? What are they trying to accomplish by bringing your PR agency on- board?
This information can be easily identified through the easiest way of researching: active listening. It is one of the five senses that people seem to have the most trouble with. Listen to your client, identify what needs to be done and carry out PR activities that are in the best interests of the client and your agency. Entry level PR employees will be expected to write press leases, conduct research and find any sort of news that could be considered an opportunity or a threat to the client’s reputation. Setting up Google alerts and using sites like acclimation. Com and blouses. Com are free resources that are easy to use.
Social media has done the entire media industry a favor by providing platforms that offer timely information and a way to connect with the public. But as a public relations specialist the realm of social media is too vast, making it more important than ever to monitor blobs, twitter, Backbone and other social platforms to keep the client and your agency positioned well in the publics eye. Many public relations practitioners count communication and strategy as the most valuable skills in their field. But in practice, one cannot put those skills to good use without a foundation of research and information gathering.
It’s important to know a client’s needs, target market, and available resources in order to draw up a good PR plan. For example, before submitting a story to a magazine, you have to know its readership and editorial standards to make sure your piece will fit in. Importance of Research in Advertising Research is very important for advertisements. It provides you information about the brand on which product campaign based. * The prod cut is for whom? * What is the perception of customers abort the product? Everything has its perception value. If your research is wrong then you will play in wrong direction.
In advertising research is of different kinds: * Product research * Market research * Consumer research 1 . Product research: During the production of a television commercial or a print ad, the art director, the music writer, the copywriter, or someone else in the Creative Department of an ad agency is likely to request help from the research apartment. The assistance requested is as variable as advertisements themselves, but all of it shares One Common characteristic: research is needed to provide some specific information for the production of an advertisement.
Here are some examples of actual requests: * determining the bottle colors of competing brands in the category (needed by an art director) * locating images of John Wayne (for use in drawing a cowboy figure) * conducting a quick ethnographic study to find out what people do while waiting in a coin laundry (for a commercial to be set in a coin laundry) determining who owns the rights to the song “Happy Birthday to You ” (for a music director who wants to set different words to the tune) * researching the history of pasta (for a copywriter who wants to emphasize cultural traditions in a print ad) Researchers collect the information about the competitors’ product and then finalize the qualities and LISP of the product. 2.
Consumer research: At present, diverse research strategies psychological, social, and cultural help advertisers understand consumers and assess the effectiveness of advertising messages directed to them. The particular kinds of research inducted in an advertising campaign are always tailored to serve the needs of those who produce the ads as well as the interests of the clients whose products or services are promoted. A client who seeks to direct messages to a very specific group of consumers’ needs to know if the ads are effective with that group For example, milk producers may want to encourage dad Its to consume milk. Thus, they need ads that position milk as an adult beverage.