Communication Tools

Advertising and publicity are two very different communication tools, even though both employ the mass media as a vehicle for reaching large audiences. Traditionally, most marketers placed heavy reliance on advertising and only occasionally used publicity. On the other hand, public relations practitioners have primarily relied on publicity or, as they sometimes prefer to call it, media relations and only rarely used advertising. This does not mean that advertising should be seen only as a marketing tool and that publicity should be seen only as a public relations tool. Thoughtfully used, both tools are valuable for both functions.

Advertising buys its way into the media.

An advertiser purchases air time on a broadcast medium or page space in a print medium and then uses that media time/space to deliver whatever persuasive messages the advertiser chooses to the media’s audiences. Presumably, a smart advertiser will purchase ad space in only those media whose audiences are known to be consistent with the target audiences the advertiser wants to reach. Most often, advertising messages are inducements to purchase a product. However, advertising space can be used for non-product oriented messages.

The biggest advantage of advertising is that it gives the organization total control of the message that will be presented to the audience. The advertiser, not the media’s editors, control the content, the timing, and the amount of time/space given to the advertising.

The biggest disadvantages are the high price of advertising and the skepticism with which audiences sometimes view advertising that they know is unedited opinion of the advertiser.

credit to : http://www.nku.edu/~turney/prclass/readings/ads.html