PUBLIC RELATIONS AND MARKETING

In my last post I shared the difference between public relations and journalism because it was one of the professions that was overlapping it. This week I will want to share the perspective from marketing and public relations.

Marketing is the field most commonly confused with PR not unreasonably since marketing refers to PR in its texts and practices as part of the marketing mix.  It looks at a clear exchange of money for goods and services. To marketing practitioners and academics, PR is one of what they refer to as the 4 Ps – product, place, price and promotion – which is needed for a successful marketing campaign. This is not far from the truth since PR plays an essential role in creating successful products. Much of public relations activity is directed at support of marketing to the extent that it may in some instances amount to the principal promotional tool used by marketers.

Wilcox et al (2003) has identified a number of PR activities which support marketing efforts by creating new leads through gaining editorial coverage in trade and consumer media and also producing sales brochures. In a competitive field, such as fast moving consumer products, publicity can be crucial to success and PR provides avenues for publicity. While the marketing team may create special offers and sales promotions, the publicity people will be seeking media coverage and arranging launch events and together a create success.

Marketing has a broader remit that perceives customers as being one public or several disaggregated publics among many. The key words for marketing are ‘consumers’ and ‘profit’

Understanding the consumer and producing products or services that will satisfy consumer needs to the profit of the supplier is the traditional arena of marketing. There is a clear exchanged of money for goods or services which is easily measured. PR campaigns on the other hand are often harder to quantify. Many organizations may not have goods or services to sell but have messages to communicate or receive. They need to maintain relationships which are too complex for marketing to handle which is where public relations come in.

Kitchen (1997;28) explains perfectly the relationship between PR and marketing by saying that “Public relations and marketing are two major management functions within an organization but how they are organized depends upon managerial perceptions, organizational culture and historical precedents.” He goes on to say that “Marketing is concerned with an organization’s exchange relationships with consumers in which quid pro pro transactions occur. On the other hand, PR deals with a broader range of publics involved with or affected by the organization. Subsuming PR into marketing delimit organizational ability to function successfully in highly competitive environment.