Public relations also known as PR campaigns is a marketing strategy used by companies to attract the public or consumers towards the company. In the case of public relations, the adage that is positive people should see the glass as half full and not half empty is used by the company where companies purposely spread and manages positive information about the company with the help of people and marketing channels like newspapers, television, and social media so that credibility, as well as the trust of the public in the company, is maintained. In order to get a better idea about this concept, one should look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of public relations –
Advantages of Public Relations
More Trustworthy
The first and foremost advantage of public relations is that it is more trustworthy as people believe it rather than just a random advertisement. Hence for example consider a case where you see a full-page advertisement regarding some product in the newspaper and in the same newspaper you see an article from the editor of the newspaper or some famous personality regarding a particular product benefits than as a consumer you will have more trust on the article as compared to a full-page advertisement.
Informative
It contains more information regarding the product or company as compared to other forms of advertisement where only the product or brand image of the company is highlighted. In simple words, advertisements are like a teaser of a movie just as a teaser is short and shows only the characters and movie posters in the same way advertisement shows only a few things about the product while public relation activity is like the trailer of a movie just as the trailer of the movie in 2 or 3 minutes shows important points about the movie as well as the overall plot of the movie in the same way public relations activity is more detailed and extensive as compared to other forms of marketing.
One Time Activity
In case of advertisements, it is not a one-time activity as companies have to run them many times so as to leave an impact on the minds of the people which can prove to be a costly affair as far as the budget of the company is concerned but when it comes to public relations activity it is a one-time activity as it can have a lasting impact and thus can prove to be more economical than other forms of marketing activities.
Disadvantages of Public Relations
Lack of Control
The biggest disadvantage as far as public relations are concerned is that there is no control of the company on the content as well as the opinion of individual doing PR for the company. Hence unlike advertisements where everything is minutely checked and approved before it is presented to the general public in case of public relations company has no such control and hence are at the mercy of individual or organization managing PR activities of the company.
No Repetition Value
In the case of public relations once it is done then it cannot be done multiple times and hence PR activity has no repetition value. In simple words, in the case of television advertising you can give the same advertisement multiple times over many television channels without consumers getting bored or frustrated but when it comes to PR activity take the example of a newspaper article a company cannot reproduce the same article many times in same newspaper as it has no repetition value and newspaper readers will not like to see the same article over and over again.
Requires Help
Another drawback of public relations is that companies using public relations cannot rely individually on this and companies have to use other mediums of advertisements along with public relations activity in order to make the whole marketing plan effective. In simple words public relations alone is not enough to take the company’s marketing strategy to a new high rather it can act as support to other methods of advertisements campaigns run by the company
As one can see from the above that public relation or PR campaign has pros as well as cons and that is the reason why any company thinking of adopting this strategy for their company should carefully read the above points and then only should take any decision regarding whether to have PR campaign for the company or not.