Many people seem to think advertising and public relations are pretty much the same thing, and people who do one always easily do the other.

Nope.

“There are some pretty major differences between advertising for a company, and doing PR work for a company,” says Liz Heck, J.O.’s Director of Marketing and Public Relations. “For starters, getting the word out about events, discounts, sales, etc. is a lot easier with advertising than PR.”

With advertising, you pay to have an ad run or printed whenever and wherever you specify. But with PR, you send alerts and releases to the media and hope they’ll mention it. Once.

Another difference is context. “With advertising, the public views or reads your announcement exactly the way you crafted it,” Liz tells us. “With PR, someone (or several people) in the media will likely change the wording and context to better fit with their story.”

So, with the hardships that come with public relations, it’s starting to sound like advertising’s the way you should always go, right?  “Not so,” Liz says. “Announcing things through the media, rather than through an ad campaign, gives more credence and credibility to what you’re pitching.”

As a result, with media announcements, viewers tend to feel as though they’re being educated and informed, rather than sold to—thereby often making public relations a more effective advertising medium than . . . well, than advertising!

So, are you doing PR? Are you advertising? Are you doing enough of either?

And, at J.O. we believe there is nothing quite like grass roots PR to spread the word:

So, are you doing PR? Are you advertising? Are you doing enough of either?