Recently, I have been asked to collaborate with advertising majors on a project for a class. This project consists mainly of a written assignment about advertisement flubs in the past. As I have been working closely with these advertising majors to write this assignment, I have noticed something very unsettling. These advertising majors are having issues writing a simple paper. So I’ve decided to wander into the differences between advertisers and public relations consultants.
Advertisers and public relations consultants alike must be able to get straight to the point when it comes to writing advertisements or press releases. Although, we both must get to the point immediately, advertisers have a different way of going about it. As I have noticed, each of my advertising group mates know how to get to the point but have no idea about how to expand on their thoughts.
Maybe it’s because advertisers write a brief amount of information about how a product works or what a product is, while public relations practitioners have to research a product and write something for a product’s launch. These are not the only differences between advertisers and public relations consultants.
We, as public relations consultants, have to get our clients free press, while advertisers have the budget to advertise anywhere they’d like. Our clients pay us to get them free press, while advertisers are paid by our clients to advertise their products as efficiently as possible. Advertisers also have the luxury to run their advertisements for as long as their budget will allow them to, while the media will only accept a press release once.
The media expect public relations consultants to have new material every time we want to publicize something, whether it’s an event or a press release about the advertisers new product. I believe it is because the media relies so heavily on advertising that they give advertisers so much leeway when it comes to their advertisements.
While public relations consultants have to be careful about how they promote a product or an event to the public, advertisers can use anything from puppies to sex to sell their products. This also delves heavily into the ethics and morals of the media. The media expects public relations professionals to give uncontroversial material, while advertisers can be as controversial as they’d like. If they’re advertisements stir controversy in a community, they may have to pull the ads but they will still profit off of the negative coverage that we as public relations professionals or journalists give them.
Throughout time, advertisers have been able to become more racy while us as public relations professionals have always had to stick to our ethical and moral values in a situation. Although advertisers are able to get by with scandal, we’re the ones who get to write about it. This is why we learn about how to delve more in depth into our stories and our work while advertisers are trying to cut to the chase without any explanation. They cut to the chase in their line of work to hook more people onto their products, while public relations professionals are pressed with questions about why the advertiser/client chose to do something a certain way. But I guess, without advertisers we wouldn’t have a line of work and without us there wouldn’t be someone to tell their story.
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