Looking through Sticky Figure's Marketing Blogs Portal as I often do, I came across a headline for a post by Kevin Levi at Small Business Branding that caught my eye.
Titled "A Little P.R. Can Go a Long Way," it talks about the battle between ad and public relations people, where the ad agency folks often don't get
the value of public relations. He goes on to correctly give some of the reasons p.r. should be a part of a brand's marketing mix.
I'll share with you my comment to Kevin, and I'll add a little more to think about.
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I think advertising agency people today are recognizing the role and the power of public relations, rather than fighting it. I used to have those fights with ad agency folks, who would belittle p.r. effectiveness and treat us like we were small potatoes because our budgets were a lot smaller than theirs.
Back in the early 1980s, when I was directing the p.r. work for L’eggs hosiery, the ad agency, Dancer Fitzgerald Sample (now Saatchi) wanted to grab our p.r. budget (under $200,000) for themselves, even as they were spending around $16 million for the client. They convinced the client to do an advertising equivalency evaluation, to see what the free time and space would have cost had it been purchased as ads. We resisted at first, saying it’s comparing apples and oranges. But the client went ahead with the evaluation.
According to the ad agency’s calculation, our $200,000 brought more than $2 million in space and time. And that doesn’t factor in the credibility factor, of course. Plus, some of the publicity we generated could not have been bought at that time for any price -- like a photo on the front pages of the Sunday New York Times and the Sunday Daily News.
I find the tables have turned 180 degrees and smart ad agencies understand and utilize the power of public relations. All of the giant ad agency holding companies have bought p.r. agencies over the past 20 years, and p.r. is a routine part of the marketing mix they recommend to clients. Over the past several years I’ve had several ad agencies refer me to their clients for public relations support to complement the ad agency’s efforts.
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Kevin, in his post, explains how p.r. can generate exposure in print, broadcast and online. But we must add to the mix the effectiveness of non-media exposure such as special events, exposure at conferences and seminars (especially good for b2b clients), and many other direct-to-target methods.
Public relations should not be put into a cubby-hole of media relations alone. Done well, it can reach the targeted audience in many ways that don't rely on an editor to put it into print or on the air.