Advertising and Public Relations

Posted by Carroll Trosclair Jan 5, 2008

Janienne Jennrich's article on advertising a small town business exposes the close relationship between public relations and advertising. Sometimes it is difficult to differentiate the two.

Some folks try to draw a line between them by calling public relations "free advertising." Most PR professionals don’t buy into that definition. They will tell you very emphatically that PR is not free and that it is a separate communications function with rules, strategies and techniques of its own. And they are right.

It usually takes considerable time, special skills and sometimes special materials to carry out a public relations function properly and all three can be much more expensive than the cost of an ad.

But our main point right now is not the differences between advertising, public relations and such specialized functions as community relations, employee relations and investor relations. The message that comes out in Janienne’s article is that all such functions can and should be conducted in harmony with the organization’s prime mission and goals, especially in a small community.

Go through her article and define each function or project as advertising, PR and community relations. Then examine how those functions work together and strengthen one another. When you do, you’ll find the ingredients of a carefully planned marketing program, with each function carrying a specific message to a well targeted audience.