In the world of communications many people confuse the Public Relations and Advertising industries with one another. It is not rare for companies to being a hiring process for someone in the advertising field and then expect them to perform public relations duties or vice versa. This is mostly due to the lack of understanding in the difference between the two fields.
Public Relations and advertising are similar because both deal with reaching out to different publics, both participate in publicizing whom ever they are representing, and both work in the interest of whom ever they are representing. However, there is in fact a major difference even with these similarities.
Public Relations is more concerned with publicity of something or someone rather than producing sales through publicity like advertising. For public relations, publicity is gained on relationships that are made; in public relations publicity is never bought or paid for. This is because typically the publicity typically sought is to inform, raise awareness, make an important announcement, or attract attention. This is why it is crucial to the careers of people in public relations to build relationships with other members in the communication industry like journalists, broadcasters, and news reporters.
Advertising must always pay for their space whether it be on television, radio, or in a newspaper. This is due to the fact that advertising is trying to achieve goals that correlate to sales through the placement in any of these mediums. Advertising is extremely important for companies to have within their business because not only does their placement correlate to sales, but can also persuade an audience to do something, change minds or perceptions, and create awareness of a product.
Both professions are equally important because they affect a business’ publics in different ways in order to help their growth. However, when improperly hiring for these positions the tasks are not performed correctly and can either be ineffective or actually hurt the business. There are certain ways each profession is taught to research, plan, communicate, and evaluate. The processes are quite different in the two industries. If they are not carried out in the correct manner it will not produce the desired outcome.
Therefore, when hiring for either position it is crucial to the betterment of your business to hire a person that has studied or has extensive experience in that particular field. Pay close attention to the kind of publicity the business needs, whether it is to raise awareness or sales. It will make all the difference in the world.
2 comments:
I completely understand when you were talking about who to hire. Most of the time the human resources department doesn't even know about the job that they need to hire for. They might not even know any of the skills needed for the job. I know this from my field, Fashion Design, most of the time the interviewer just knows that the company needs three people to hire and as long as they do well on the interview they get the job. More research needs to be done on the actual skills needed to perform the position. It would save companies time because then when they take the time to train they will be using that time for an employee that won't let the company down.
Yes, i agree that advertising and public reltions are extreemly close in job decription, but are extreemly different in the other hand. If there are two legeit canidates for a PR position but one has a degree in advertising, The canidate with the Public Relation degree would have to be the best fit, because that paticular canidate would be more knowledgable in the PR feild. It's kinda like Baseball, just because you have a Pitcher who is as all Pro doesnt mean he could play the catcher position and do just as good. Their are specific skills and qualifications a canidate must meet to be eligabe for that specific Job.
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