Advertising - Publicity Facet of Public Relations

Advertising differs from the publicity facet of public relations (to be discussed at length later in the semester) in that while advertising is paid for, news articles generated by publicity are never directly paid for. In addition, an ad has an identified sponsor while the fruits of publicity may not. In other words, if you see an ad for Coca Cola, you know that the Coca Cola Corporation paid to have it created. On the other hand, if you see an article about a new Coke product, you cannot be sure (although you may assume) that it resulted from a press release by a public relations professional at Coca Cola.

As pointed out in the forum, sales promotions are an added incentive to buy now. They may take many forms including coupons, sweepstakes, two-for-one offers, cause related marketing (ex: a portion of sales proceeds are donated to a charity), in pack (ex: a toy in the bag with your fast food meal) or on pack (ex: a CD attached to your cereal box), sampling. These may be transmitted through the media that we normally associate with advertising or through other communication channels.

Direct selling is a more personal approach and is common with products that are complicated, emotionally charged, and/or expensive. Life insurance, falls into all three categories and is consequently generally sold through an agent (although some companies also advertise).

Because advertisers now face so much clutter - with the average consumer exposed to literally thousands of advertising messages per day - sales promotions and public relations are gaining popularity among marketers and now occupy are larger share of the communications (promotions) mix than in years past. As such, to ensure that you have a full range of options to choose from, we will discuss them in addition to advertising. We will not spend much time on direct selling because of time constraints and because the Salesmanship class fulfills that