Yes, public relations and advertising are completely different things, and in many cases they complement each other. However, many clients, when they hire a PR agency, don’t understand these differences. With this article, I don’t have the intention to create a guide or even put an end point to the discussions about the distinctions, but I want to show 5 differences between what each one has to offer.
1. Differences between the companies:
The PR agency searches for information of collective interest inside their clients and their respective products, disclosing these topics to the journalists from communication media outlets. Thus, it helps on the dissemination of the client with its target public. In this case, the contact is always with the media outlet editorial team.
On the other hand, an advertising agency also works with the target public, searching for information inside of the clients and their products. However, it prepares an advertising campaign, which normally involves a lot of money, and talks directly to the commercial department of the media outlets, publishing the campaign and generating demand for the customer.
2. Space at the publications:
The PR agency aims, without payment, the editorial space of the media outlets. This space is much more influential to the reader. Therefore, it may bring more results, depending on the sector of the client.
The advertising guaranties, through the purchase, the advertising space of the media outlets and in some cases, for example retail companies, it brings expressive sales results.
3. Information control:
When a client is interviewed, the content spoke to the journalist is an information of this professional, and the PR agency can’t control what will be published.
On the other hand, in advertising, the control of what is published is entirely of the agency. The client can, for example, announce a car for $ 1.00 (since this does not violate the regulations of the sector) and it will generate a flood of people wanting to buy this product.
4. Decision of what will be published
The decision of what will be published inside of the editorial space and how to do it, is total and unique of the media outlet. So the PR agency and the client can’t decide what will be published.
Even as the hypothetic case above, about the car that costs $1.00, when the advertising is done, the client and the agency are responsible of the decision of what will be published.
5. Credibility
When a spokesperson is interviewed and it is published on a relevant media outlet, the credibility is higher. The PR agency searches exactly for these credibility media outlets to increase and improve the dissemination of the client´s brand.
On advertising the credibility can be a little harmed, as the person that sees the advertising knows that the add is an information right from the company and doesn’t have a filter, as well as in the case of editorial information. But like I said above, in many cases this kind of thing can be highly recommended.
By Rogério Artoni
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