As technology and globalization increase, the overlapping of public relations, advertising and marketing increases as well. At least for the time being though, there are significant differences between the three segmentations.
- The Facts
- The information and situations that each subsector often deal with in a working environment are a major discrepancy in the fields. Effective public relations are based almost entirely off of fact and people’s perception of real situations. Advertising is often based off of exaggerations and surrealism. Marketing, like public relations, is based on facts, but they are usually statistics and facts on a page rather than situations that have, are or will be occurring.
- The Message
- CNNmoney.com contributor Kathleen Ryan O’Connor believes that the main difference between advertising and public relations is how the audience receives the message. In a “Small Business Blog” article, O’Connor argues that “When it came to communicating depth of information, public relations was more effective.” This is also true for relationships between the audience and the product she says, “But with advertising, the message was much easier to control. With PR, you not only can’t guarantee placement, you have little say in what comes out on the other end” (http://smallbusiness.blogs.cnnmoney.cnn.com/2009/06/17/advertising-vs-pr-what-pays-off/).
- The Medium
- While the mediums and demographic used by all three groups are almost identical, who pays for that medium is often a difference in the role played by public relations compared to advertising. For instance, if a person buys a Forbes business magazine and reads an article about a successful startup company, that article is within the realm of public relations work. The buyer of the Forbes magazine is paying for the content of that article. However, if the same company places an ad in that same Forbes magazine, the company must pay for it.
It is very hard to rank the three components in importance to a company, and in many ways the three are constantly crossing each others boundaries. At the end of the day, advertising reigns over all other mass communication efforts in the business world. Exxon spilled over 10 million gallons of oil into the Prince William Sound. Their public relations team followed this event with one of the worst reactions in 20th century business. Last time I checked, Exxon was still one of the most profitable oil companies in the world. A bad advertising campaign won’t necessarily put a company out of business either, but advertising is so directly linked to sales that a company can see an immediate response in revenue from one good or bad campaign. Public relations is capable of such immediate results, but it is not their sole purpose. It can be argued that without marketing, the demographics for both public relations and advertising would not be realized. As you can tell from Table 1 below, advertisers are paid the most in company hierarchy, followed by marketing and public relations as a close third (http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/cgs030.htm). Even though the other two fields would not be nearly as accurate without it, marketing is still probably the least necessary. Public relations follows marketing in terms of necessity, although advertising could easily be exchanged for it.
Table 1. Employment of wage and salary workers in advertising and public relations services by occupation, 2008 and projected change, 2008-2018.
(Employment in thousands)
| Occupation | Employment, 2008 | Percent Change, 2008-18 | |
| Number | Percent | ||
| All Occupations | 462.3 | 100.0 | 8.0 |
| Management, business, and financial occupations | 69.0 | 14.9 | 5.3 |
| Advertising and promotions managers | 7.8 | 1.7 | 6.4 |
| Marketing and sales managers | 7.0 | 1.5 | 5.8 |
| Public relations managers | 5.3 | 1.1 | 17.1 |
| Accountants and auditors | 7.2 | 1.6 | 7.3 |
| Professional and related occupations | 124.8 | 27.0 | 14.1 |
| Market research analysts | 8.4 | 1.8 | 40.8 |
| Graphic designers | 23.7 | 5.1 | 17.1 |
| Merchandise displayers and window trimmers | 5.2 | 1.1 | 3.7 |
| Producers and directors | 4.7 | 1.0 | 3.7 |
| Writers and authors | 7.1 | 1.5 | 17.2 |
| Sales and related occupations | 110.0 | 23.8 | 13.6 |
| Advertising sales agents | 54.6 | 11.8 | 27.7 |
| Sales representatives, services, all other | 12.5 | 2.7 | 3.7 |
| Demonstrators and product promoters | 18.1 | 3.9 | -2.4 |
| Telemarketers | 5.3 | 1.1 | -17.1 |
| Office and administrative support occupations | 116.6 | 25.2 | -0.9 |
| Customer service representatives | 10.9 | 2.4 | 14.0 |
| Secretaries and administrative assistants | 21.2 | 4.6 | 1.0 |
| Mail clerks and mail machine operators, except postal service | 19.3 | 4.2 | -14.8 |
| Office clerks, general | 15.7 | 3.4 | 3.7 |
| Production occupations | 21.0 | 4.5 | 9.2 |
| Printers | 10.1 | 2.2 | 17.8 |
| NOTE: Columns may not add to totals due to omission of occupations with small employment | |||
| SOURCE: BLS National Employment Matrix, 2008-18 | |||
