Public relations (PR) aims to manage information between an organization and the public to maintain a positive view, while advertising is paid communication to promote a product. PR differs in that it seeks free exposure through topics of public interest rather than direct payment. Both PR and advertising are used to promote products, but they differ in control (advertisers control ads fully, PR has less media control), communication (ads are one-way, PR is two-way), media (ads are paid for, PR seeks earned media), and credibility (ads have less, PR placements have more). Their goals of informing the public are similar, though advertising reaches more people due to expense while PR provides free and potentially more trusted coverage.

1. PR IN RELATION TO
ADVERTISING

2. Introduction

3. Public Relations
Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing the spread of
information between an individual or an organization (such as a business,
government agency, or a non-profit organization) and the public.
■ The aim of public relations is to inform the public, prospective
customers, investors, partners, employees, and other stakeholders
and ultimately persuade them to maintain a positive or favourable
view about the organization, its leadership, products, or political
decisions
■ Public relations may include an organization or individual gaining
exposure to their audiences using topics of public interest and news
items that do not require direct payment.This differentiates it from
advertising as a form of marketing communications.
■ Public relations is the idea of creating coverage for clients for free,
rather than marketing or advertising.An example of good public
relations would be generating an article featuring a client, rather
than paying for the client to be advertised next to the article.

4. Advertising
■ Advertising is described as a paid, non-personal, one-way public
communication that draws public communication towards a
product, service, company, or any other thing through various
communication channels, to inform, influence and instigates the
target audience to respond in the manner as desired by the
advertiser.
■ Advertising can be done through print ads, radio or television ads,
billboards, flyers, commercials, internet banner ads, direct mails and
so on.The advertiser has exclusive control over what, how and when
the ad will be aired or published. Moreover, the ad will run as long as
the advertiser’s budget allows.
■ As advertising is a prominent marketing tool, it is always present, no
matter the people are aware of it or not. Nowadays, advertising has
not left a single medium to spread the message to the target
audience.

5. Relation b/w PR &
Advertising

6. PR & Advertising
Advertising and Public Relations are the two important tools for
promoting products and services offered by the company.
■ Advertising alludes to a form of communication, which a firm uses to
instigate prospective customers to choose the product offered by
the company, over other products. On the other hand, Public
Relations is about building and maintaining good relations, with
company’s stakeholders, by gaining favourable publicity, having a
good reputation and so on.
■ The primary motive of any business is profit maximisation, and it can
only be achieved by increasing sales.The firms apply many
strategies, tactics, tools, plans to gain maximum customer attention
and grab a competitive position in the market, that comes under
promotion mix.There are 4 aspects of promotion, i.e. advertising,
direct selling, sales promotion, and public relations.
■ Due to some similar traits, people have confusion in understanding
the difference between advertising and public relation, but as per an
old saying ‘advertising pays, public relation persuades’.

7. An illustration depicting relation
b/w Advertising and PR

8. Comparison Chart
BASIS FOR
COMPARISON
ADVERTISING PUBLIC RELATIONS
Meaning A technique of drawing public
attention to products or services,
mainly through paid
announcements, is called
Advertising.
Public Relations is a practice of
strategic communication that
aims at building mutually
beneficial relationship between
the company and the public.
Focuses on Promotion of product or services,
with an aim to induce the
intended audience to buy.
Maintaining a positive image of
the company in the media.
Control The company has full control over
the ad.
The company can pitch the story,
but has no control over, how
media uses or does not uses at all.
Communication One way Two way
Media Purchased Earned
Credibility Less High

9. Control
■ Advertising: you have control over the
content of your advertisement including
where and when it will be seen in the
media.
■ PR: you have less control of your coverage
in the media. Once you send a story idea
to a journalist they have control over it.
They can choose to change your story
idea or not even publish it at all. However,
your PR agency should offer you media
training so you know how to control an
interview and make the most of any
media opportunities they create for you.

10. Communication
■ Advertising: It is a monologue
activity i.e. it is a one way
communication channel
wherein the public cannot
give their feedback of any
sort.
■ PR: Public relation is a two
way communication process,
wherein the company listens
and responds to the public
through feedbacks and
surveys.

11. Media
■ Advertising: you pay for an
advertisement to be placed in the
media.
■ PR: your PR agency develops
strategies for you to gain
publicity in the media. PR
professionals develop a range of
tactics to gain positive media
attention for your brand, which is
very effective at increasing your
target audience’s brand
awareness.

12. Credibility
■ Advertising:Advertisements have less
credibility than the coverage gained by PR.
When your target audience see’s an
advertisement they know it has been bought
by a company trying to sell them something.
■ PR: PR provides information and newsworthy
stories to a journalist so they can write an
article about your product or business, if they
chose to. An article written by a journalist will
be presented in an unbiased manner and
contains the journalist’s third-party
endorsement.This means your target
audience may view the article with more
credibility than an advertisement because it is
not blatantly selling them something. PR can
be a very powerful tool because it can help
shape public opinion.

13. Similarities b/w PR &
Advertising
■ The function of both advertising and publicity is the same.
Both make a non-personal presentation of a product, service or
idea to the masses.
■ The aim of both advertising and publicity is similar. Both aim at
informing and educating the public about some products or
services.
■ The masses, with whom a communication is made through
advertising and publicity, are not interested in knowing
whether the sponsor is identified or not in the communication,
and whether it is paid for by the sponsor or not.That means,
from the point of view of the public, both are same.

14. CONCLUSION
Advertising and Public Relations both use communication
channels to inform and influence the general public. While
advertising is a highly expensive marketing tool, because it
can reach a large number of people at the same time. Public
Relations is free of cost implied endorsement along with
validation of the third party.

15. MadeBy:
MadhavKhandelwal
36/BBA/JU/L/2015