While I still subscribe to the opinion that advertising and public relations are rather different from each other, I was surprised to discover that their planning processes are actually pretty similar.
Both advertising campaign plans and PR plans grow out of the
client’s mission statement and overall company goals. The realization of these
goals elicits certain business objectives, achievable through strategies
carried out via specific tactics. Just like an advertiser can’t simply “have a
good idea” for an ad or promotion without it reinforcing the values, goals and
business objectives of the client, PR activities must also be supported in the
same way.
However, I’m finding that PR planning gets slightly more
complicated with its additional consideration of multiple audiences. In my
formal advertising education, I have always been taught that the best ad
campaigns target a single, defined audience, to whom all communications are
directed. While a client can run several campaigns simultaneously appealing to
different target audiences, each is a separate planning process among which the
key insight will usually significantly differ.
PR planning, though, must address all relevant parties under
the umbrella of each objective and communicate to each as appropriate. It’s a
slightly different approach in the fact that this process occurs all in one
plan. But the more I think about it, the two still are not all that unlike each
other.
I suppose the major difference (and the reason I love
advertising) is the manner in which it is considered acceptable for each to
convey their messages. Devices like hyperbole aren’t necessarily acceptable in
the realm of PR communications, and it’s blatantly biased and persuasive
techniques like this one that make being an advertising copywriter so much fun.
(Not to say you PR people don’t have fun, too! It’s just a different kind of
fun.)
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