The difference between marketing and PR
This week’s column is aimed mainly at youth aspiring to get into the public relations (PR) profession or young PR professionals who are still in the process of gathering experience in this field.
I hope this column will help the youth get an idea of the difference between marketing and PR; as well as what would be expected of them practically at work, on a daily basis.
People often make the mistake of thinking marketing and PR are the same thing.
Marketing is the custodian of any company’s brand. It is generally responsible for establishing brands – the look and feel of logos (fonts and colours) as well as how these brands can be used/applied on different platforms.
More importantly, marketing strategies cover promotions, direct marketing and advertising, which seeks to return direct sales.
A good example of a marketing role in an organisation ’ s rebranding exercise is the amalgamation of Absa’s brand from the merger of its financial providers - United Bank, Allied, Volkskas and Sage group.
During this process, marketing did an amazing job in entrenching the new brand into everyone’s hearts and minds.
The role of PR, however, is to look after the reputation of any company’s brand.
In Absa’s case, PR was responsible for telling the story behind the new brand, which included the reasons behind the change, the benefits to customers and the business goals.
The two functions work together, and they complement each other, but there is a clear distinction between the two roles.
Another example is when my marketing colleague and I used to get advertorials from any of the Absa branches to approve before they were published in the local newspapers.
The first thing she noticed in the advertorials was: How the logo was applied, if it was placed in the wrong place and if the right colours were used.
Also, she would check if the logo used was the correct one and if the formatting of the advert was aligned to Absa ’ s corporate identity rules.
On the other hand, as a typical PR specialist and writer, I would notice if there were any spelling/grammar errors, if the punctuation marks were applied correctly or if the overall rules of writing were used correctly.
In summary, the role of PR in any organisation is as follows:
● To build and look after the reputation of any company’s brand using leadership profiling, stakeholder relations and reputation management.
● To create awareness around a company’s brand, its products and services through media publicity and media relations.
● To provide the company’s target audiences with relevant information on the brand and its offerings in an effort to assist them in making informed business or buying decisions.
Lastly, if a potential customer heard a company executive on a radio or TV interview talking about how the organisation was making a difference in business or the communities in which it operates, and based on what was said, decided they wanted to be associated with that brand – then PR has done its job.
Again, I would like to encourage everyone to engage on these important issues and find solutions together, constructively of course.
These columns can be found on all my social media pages every Thursday - FB, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram - my handles are all the same @MirandaLusiba. #pradvise
For more information or media queries, please contact me on: 068-029-8760 (voicecalls); 078-675-1297 (WhatsApp), or e-mail: miranda@ strangeconsulting.co.za or Ora4117@gmail.com
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The role of PR, is to look after the reputation of any company’s brand.