Difference Between Advertising and Publicity

Advertising vs Publicity

Some products appear on the market for only a short while and then one will hear nothing about them anymore. Some have been on the market for years, existing since before one is born. For a business to be successful, it needs to promote its name and products so that people will become aware of them. Some companies achieved the popularity and success that they are now enjoying through years of hard work and persistent use of advertising and publicity to promote their products and name.

Advertising is a communications tool which is used to convince viewers, listeners, or readers to do something about a product, an idea, or a service. It is designed to positively influence people to patronize a product or service.

It is usually a paid announcement or promotion to entice people to notice and patronize a company’s product through the use of various media such as radio, television, newspapers, magazines, through fliers, and the Internet.

When a company decides to have an advertisement placed in a certain publication, TV, or radio show, it controls how it is presented on the medium which carries it. It can specify the size, scope, and content of the advertisement containing its product. Since it is a paid promotion, customers view advertisements as questionable. It contains only the information that the company specified which is meant to be beneficial to it and no feedback from customers who have tried it.

Publicity, on the other hand, is the promotion and management of the public’s impression towards a subject. It is the process of creating news through sponsorship, exhibitions, staging a debate, organizing a tour of the business, and inventing and presenting an award. Through involvement in these activities, the individual or company’s name will be extensively mentioned in the media and attract the attention of people to the individual or for consumers to a company’s products and services.

Publicity is usually an unpaid promotion, although a minimal cost is incurred for the materials used in the publicity. However, since it is unpaid, the individual or company has no control over how the material is presented if it is released at all. Since it is featured in a magazine or newspaper, the company’s name and products being mentioned by a writer or editor, consumers will see them as a positive feedback about the product and the company. People will believe in the product if somebody else talks about it.

Summary:

1.An advertisement is a communications tool which is used to make people patronize a product while publicity is a communications tool which manages people’s impressions about a subject.
2.An advertisement is a paid promotion while publicity is free; an individual or company only has to spend funds on the materials needed.
3.In an advertisement, the company can dictate how the information about it is presented including the content while in publicity, the company has no control over how it is shown if at all.
4.Since it comes from a third party, publicity is viewed as more credible by most consumers in contrast to an advertisement which comes directly from the company.

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