Let’s all work together
With PR’s storytelling experience and advertising’s ability to define brands, the two disciplines are best placed to work together says The Hallway’s Louise Pogmore.
The lines between the marketing disciplines used to be very clearly defined: if you paid to insert the brand’s message, it was advertising. If the message was spread via influencers, it was PR.
Increasingly the lines are blurring beyond recognition.
We know the media landscape has shifted and is increasingly fragmented. As communication specialists, it’s our job to ensure we seamlessly connect brands with consumers in the most efficient and effective way possible for our clients.
people buy/watch media for the articles/stories/shows/programmes – not the ads
so the main difference between advertising and PR is that while advertisers are always wondering whether their theories about target, strategy and message were correct, the PR needs to get it right first time in order to appeal to the journo, who is a proxy for the audience
some PR’s aren’t good strategy wankers because they don’t have the luxury to be so when the outcome of their work is so unpredictable – there’s no point tailoring the perfect message and media strategy when you’re relying on a journo to execute it for you
This only makes sense for those PR agencies whose goal is advertising anyway.
PR is also about communicating interersting stories and useful information to the public. It an be about raising the profile of an individual or explaining the importance of a cause.
A story about a flash mob or a sponsored survey is pure advertising dressed up as news.
I have contemplated this article as I sit here in my Sinclair lounge rocker with the electrically operated extending foot stool, my back feeling much more relaxed than it has for years, and I agree with those who see PR as discipline apart.
As I sip on my refreshingly different, lightly carbonated Koola Cola, and snack on my low sugar yet blissfully rich chocolate Duple Bar, I am reminded of the constant attempts by advertises to insert commercial interest into unrelated stories, or mere opinion comments.
I will still be pondering this later this evening, as I drift off to heavenly sleep on my chiropractic approved Limbo Mattress, and revel in the enveloping warmth of my goose down Dartington Doona.