Lets begin by defining the difference between PR and Marketing…
Public relations (PR) is a growing, ever changing discipline which is defined and used in Different ways by PR practitioners and marketing practitioners. When a business first launches they do not always grasp the long-term benefits of PR. It is often taken on as part of marketing duties and marketing professionals seem to have a less complex view of PR than a PR professional. Marketers tend to view public relations as only one aspect of the communications mix available to them. A PR practitioner may argue that PR can be a useful tool to many more aspects of the communications mix.
Paul Smith and Jonathan Taylor define PR as “the development of and maintenance of good relationships with different publics” (Smith & Taylor, 2004, p. 444) . This is all very well but there is a large variety of many different stakeholders. For example investors, employees, suppliers, the media and of course the consumers of the services and products the organization provides. All of these stakeholders have individual needs which a PR professional must take into consideration when addressing them and building a two-way communication channel and relationship between the organization and the stakeholder. A PR practitioner has the responsibility to not only begin to build relationships with these stakeholders but also the sustained effort of maintaining the relationships over a long period of time.
James Hutton also defines PR and states that “marketing sees public relations as only marketing communications and as a cheap option.” However he then goes on to say that marketing doesn’t appreciate the difficult process that PR professionals go through to get material into the media and that it is “…more difficult than paying for advertising”. He also goes on to explain that marketing does not note the importance of PR professionals managing and maintaining relationships with a wide range of stakeholders with different needs (Hutton, 2001) . Many marketers view PR as a way of getting publicity for free which would help support a promotion of a product or service an organization provides its publics (Anne Gregory, 2009, p. 31). This suggests that marketers do not always appreciate the effort made by PR practitioners. It takes a lot of time and effort to devise a PR plan that would support other promotions as the message must be consistent to those before it. Also, as stated by Hutton, it is a challenging process to achieve positive representation from a third-party in the media. As marketers pay for their advertising space they are not likely to understand the efforts needed to persuade a journalist to write about your organizations cause for free.
CIPR define public relations as “the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics” (CIPR) . Other definitions for the CIPR state that public relations looks after reputation “…with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour” (CIPR) . These definitions do not only suggest the high importance of relationship management but also maintaining an organizations reputation in the eyes of its publics. It also highlights the importance of ethics and using PR in a fair and moral manner by the use of the phrase “…maintain goodwill…’. This shows that there is a larger range of aspects to consider when looking at PR from a PR professionals perspective than a marketing perspective. I will go on to explain subsystems and how the theory can demonstrate the wider range of application the public relations discipline has within any organization.
According to, PR practitioner and academic, Anne Gregory public relations professionals “operate at the edge of the organization…” she suggests that “they have one foot in the organization and one foot outside.” (Gregory, 2000) . They represent not only the organization but their publics too. When PR is held in high regard in an organization a senior practitioner is likely to be highly respected in terms of their opinions and ideas of communication strategies. Gregory also addresses the systems theory which is used by many PR academics, for example, James Grunig and Todd Hunt.
Systems theory suggests that organizations are split into subsystems that all interact and affect each other. Organisational theorists argue that, typically, organizations consist of five subsystems, these are as follows: production, maintenance, disposal, adaptive and management (Gregory, 2009) . Grunig and Hunt (1984) suggested a public relations subsystem which works alongside all of the other subsystems including the disposal subsystem which is where marketing is located in the theory. This suggests that from a PR perspective public relations is seen to be extremely important within an organization, as well as very versatile. In a visual sense public relations is almost the glue that connects the management subsystem to the other subsystems. From the marketing perspective this is most likely not considered to be an important role of PR as it seems they are more focused on the aspect of public relations that directly affects them rather than other aspects that could benefit them if applied in the right manner.
It seems that the marketing discipline understands the importance of relationships and different aspects of PR that affects their practice but almost fails to identify with the full potential of public relations. Marketing tends to focus on sales and therefore sees the importance of PR at this stage, but it seems it does not credit other aspects of the PR mix as they are not used as frequently by marketing professionals. They might be less likely to see the importance of corporate PR and how it can benefit sales along with their marketing campaigns. For example, ensuring your company’s corporate PR is consistent can benefit your brand image. Good corporate PR puts out a positive organizational image which in turn can build a good reputation of your organization, this will reflect in your brand image from the perspective of your stakeholders.
As previously stated public relations is just one communication tool available to marketers. Ardi Kolah indicated that PR’s role in the marketing mix is a simple one. “…it’s to communicate key messages to defined target audiences within the marketing chain to influence purchasing behaviour.” (Kolah, 2004, p. 21) . A PR professional would see the role of public relations as more complex. They would recognise the sophistication of external endorsement, for example good reviews from previous customers or positive media coverage. Any external endorsement is more often than not seen to be more credible to the organizations stakeholders than internal endorsement. It is not always easy to achieve positive third-party commendation, however, when it is attained Gregory points out that it can “inform/educate the consumer… support a sales force… extend promotions, hype advertising… contain crises” (Kolah, 2004, p. 21) .
The power of integration in business market communications table cited in Smith and Taylor’s marketing communications book shows that the use of PR editorials can not only move customers to the attention and interest stages of the buying process but can also push them through to desire and even conviction. However PR practitioners may argue that PR is also likely to push consumers through to the action stage, thus supporting the importance of external endorsement via the medium of media relations. Most consumers are more likely to buy into a product or service that they have read a positive review of. For example, when buying a new moisturiser there are many to choose from. One might recall an advert for a product and in turn remember a positive review read in a magazine or newspaper. Consequently they would be more likely to buy the one they have seen endorsed by a third-party rather than the one they have only seen an advertisement for, which has been carefully crafted by the organizations marketing team.
This idea can be applied for a variety of products or services from organization to organization. It can also be expanded by notions of credibility which I will go on to discuss later. This example indicates the benefits PR can give an advertising campaign and how both the marketing and public relations disciplines may evolve in the future. Paul Wills suggested that PR is becoming increasingly appreciated in the marketing world and is a diverse discipline that when correctly applied can “…grab attention, get people talking and move them to action” (Wills, 2009) . It seems that marketers are just beginning to grasp and appreciate the impact PR can have, especially when used alongside advertising and other integrated marketing communication tools.
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