Difference Between Public Relations and Advertising

Public Relations vs Advertising

The rise of mass production in the late 1800s and early 1900s resulted in the development of modern advertising. To reach a large number of people, different types of mass media are used. Newspapers, magazines, radio, television, the internet, and cellular phones are now being used to deliver advertising messages to consumers.

Advertising is a marketing strategy that is aimed at persuading an audience to buy a certain product or service and to take action on upon a certain idea. It includes the name of the product and how it can benefit those who purchase it.

Its purpose is to increase the use and sale of products through branding. The repetition of an image and the product name is used to help retain the products in the minds of the audience so that when they need a certain product, the brand that they will remember first is the company’s.

Public relations or PR on the other hand is concerned with the maintenance of a celebrity, a politician, a business or an organization’s public image. It is used to build a bond between a company and its employees, investors, and consumers.

It is considered an art as well as a science that deals with the analysis of trends and how they can affect the sale of products. It deals with the planning and implementation of programs that are beneficial to both the company and the public.

Advertising involves the promotion of a product by paying for an ad space where the campaign will be aired or placed. The company will have creative control over the ad and will be notified when the ad will be placed. The ad can run for as long as the company’s budget can allow.

PR involves getting free publicity for the product or company so the company has no control over how its ad is presented, if it is presented at all. It is only placed once and is viewed by consumers differently from a paid advertisement, making it more credible.
Advertising needs a certain amount of creativity but limits your contacts to those that you are working with rather than with media people who are the contacts of a PR consultant. Public relations enables one to have an unlimited number of contacts and media exposure as well.

There is also a difference in how they are done. PR is done in a news format with no commercial messages while advertising is done with the purpose of exulting the product and the company.

Summary
1. Advertising is a marketing tool aimed at promoting a product or service while public relations is concerned with the maintenance of the public image of a company or a celebrity.
2. You have to pay for advertising while public relations is free.
3. In advertising you can openly endorse a product or service while in public relations this is a big no-no.
4. Advertising can run as long as the company is able to pay for the ad space while a PR exposure is only done once.

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