Is PR A Marketing Tool or Vice Versa - Essay Example

Is PR A Marketing Tool or Vice Versa? Theoretical Approaches: Analysis Marketing is defined in the literature as the “whole process of storing, shipping, advertising and selling to promote and actualize a sales transaction.” That makes advertising an adjunct of marketing, as is public relations, which fulfills the “promotional” function. However, these traditional distinctions between marketing tools have been blurred by the new configuration of the marketplace, where there are too many companies, too many products and too much marketing noise vying for the consumer’s attention (Ries & Trout, 2001). The old product-driven marketing concepts have given way to the consumer-oriented approach because of increasing economic competition. For this reason, companies have been forced to adopt a marketing mix to sell their products or services. In this strategic mix, specific marketing tools often overlap and one method may take the function of another, such that marketing is used as a PR tool instead of the other way around. For example, it is not unusual to see a PR man distributing his company’s promotional materials during a luncheon or seminar he arranges for the benefit of the firm. This is sales promotion, a distinct marketing function, being squeezed into a distinct PR activity, in which case marketing is effectively used as a PR tool. In its purest sense, public relations is confined to media relations, internal communications, community relations, public affairs and government relations, financial relations, emergency or crisis relations, and integrated marketing communications (Hendrix, 2001). PR uses media, a potent marketing tool, and the press release is its standard tool for promotion. The first requirement is to learn how to use media and build a working relationship with media practitioners (Smith). The end goal of doing interviews or sending out a press release is to raise a company’s, its expertise and products or the high quality of its personnel. These are more or less the same objectives of marketing set by Kotler (1980), which are: 1) to create direct sales, 2) to build the brand or company’s image, 3) to communicate specific messages, and 4) to counter negative publicity or competitor’s activity. In reference to objective Nos. 2 and 3, image building is in fact synonymous with PR even as communicating specific messages is a largely PR domain. As for objective No. 4, a crisis PR is also called for when a company needs to control the damage of any adverse publicity. Again, this demonstrates that the traditional functions of marketing and PR often intrude into each other. Marketing and PR: Roles and Functions Of all the marketing modes, advertising is the most resource-intensive tool while PR is the least expensive. The specific functions of PR include writing pamphlets and press releases and arranging them for publication, organizing exhibits of the company’s goods and services, arranging seminars and luncheons to improve a company’s image and sales. Because of its cost-efficiency, PR is popular among smaller firms and startups, which cannot afford the high cost of advertising (NBSP). The advent of the Internet also provided smaller firms with other cost-effective but powerful tools of marketing. Tele-marketing and blogging, for example, opened opportunities for smaller companies to engage with customers on a scale previously available only to large firms (Tait, 2004). To get the right formula for a “Unique Selling Proposition,” companies must project an image of friendliness, reliability and high quality (Ries & Ries, 2002). This can only be done through a marketing mix, in which each method is designed to achieve not one but several objectives. Relationship marketing calls for such a strategy, which aims to establish a long-lasting relationship with customers instead of the single-sale goal of traditional marketing (Ries & Trout, 2001). The essential purpose of PR is persuasion, which requires a customized approach. This concept fits nicely into the systems-based approaches to modern-day marketing where the need to adapt an organization to the environment is the central tenet (Hendrix, 2001). By making marketing a tool of PR instead of the other way around, PR can personalize the approach. There are five types of benefits that marketing can promise to place its product high on the list of consumers: the benefits from the core product, the actual product, expected product, augmented product and potential product (Kotler, 1980). A combined marketing and PR strategy can handle the functions of maximizing and augmenting the expected benefits from the product. Apart from PR and advertising, the literature says today’s marketing tools also include blogging and telemarketing, sales promotion, direct mail, trade fairs and exhibitions (WIMXS). Reflection Positioning, an important aspect of marketing, involves communicating in an “over-communicated” society (Ries & Trout, 2001). To make your voice head over the din of marketing activities, marketing scholars stress the need to connect with customers in a more personalized way and to differentiate its products. MTV discovered this need for itself when its business struggled in Asia, South America and other areas when its video shows featured only American and European artists. After it changed its format and related its programs to foreign audiences by focusing on local artists, its business began to pick up. In the same way, Toyota’s market positioning is found to be effective because it adapts its message to local values, although the firm is highly internationalized. However, the value of marketing is believed on the wane such that CEOs are now focused on cost-cutting measures as they realized that under current conditions, top-line revenue growth is no longer possible (Tait, 2004). Lack of differentiation is perceived to be the cause of the failure of 80 percent of US firms. This is said to be the reason why US firms like Campbell, Kodak, K-Mart, Levi’s and Oldsmobile are very ill. Oldsmobile is in fact dead and Levi’s had a sharp decline over the last seven years. Klein (2000) postulates that brands marketed at great visibility to customers and pride themselves on high moral ground may be setting themselves up for the big fall. This happened to Nike and Coke on separate occasions. In 1999, Coke’s homey image was shot to pieces when a batch of spoiled Coke products downed people in Belgium. The same thing happened to Nike when it was accused of using sweatshop labor in its plants in Third World countries, which toppled the posture it had earlier taken that it champions the rights of workers in developing countries. In their efforts to replenish the company image sullied by those incidents, Coke and Nike used a marketing mix that placed a premium on PR, giving little attention on which method achieved which goal. In other words, PR was sometimes used to achieve a marketing goal and marketing was utilized to achieve a PR objective. Conclusion Apart from persuasion, PR is also about reputation, the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you (Ranieri). Its main objective is to win the understanding and support of a company’s publics, which include the firm’s staff, suppliers, shareholders, and customers. Of course, these all lead to the end goal of “actualizing a sales transaction,” which is the textbook purpose of marketing. For this reason, PR can be interchanged with marketing by using the standard techniques of PR to realize the objectives of marketing. When the worldwide sale of Tylenol suffered in the 1960s after tampered specimens of the drug killed several people in the US, the problems it faced had both PR and marketing dimensions. The quality of the company’s core product remained untainted, so the pharmaceutical firm had to concentrate its guns on its new tamper-proof design of Tylenol. This required a multi-faceted marketing mix aimed at persuading the public that use of Tylenol is safe. Question Marketing is expensive, especially if it includes advertising. The least expensive marketing tool, as the literature indicates, is public relations, which consists of direct mail, sales promotion and the writing of press releases. With direct mail, all one needs is a mailing list and promotional materials, while sales promotion only requires gift coupons and the provision of discounts. The question is: Can a company achieve its marketing objectives by relying solely on PR work? Reference List: Gregory, A. 2000, Planning and Managing a PR Campaign, Koran Page. Hendrix, J. 2001, Public Relations Cases, 5th ed., Belmont CA: Wadsworth Thomson Learning. Klein, N. 2000, No Logo, St. Martin’s Press. Kotler, P. 1980. Marketing Management. Northwestern University: McGraw-Hill. Ranieri, P. 2001, Preparing for a PR Campaign, Ranieri Public Relations, Webpage (online) at: www.ranieripr.com Ries, L. & Ries, A. 2002, The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR, Harvard Business. Ries, A. & Ries, L. 2004. The Origins of Brands; How Product Evolution Creates Endless Possibilities for New Brands. New York: Collins. Ries, A. & Trout, J. 2001, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, McGraw-Hill Education. Smith, C. Marketing and PR, webpage (online) at: www.copycarats.co.uk Tait, B. 2004, How Marketing Science Undermines Brands, Admap, Fallon Brand Consulting, Oct. 2004, Issue 454. NBSP, PR vs Advertising, webpage (online) at: http://www.startups,co.uk/PRandnbsp vsandnbsp advertising.YVJ4GGj.html WIMXS, Marketing and PR, webpage (online) at: http://www.startups.co.uk/Marketing and PR at Wimxs.html Read More