It’s Publicity First, Advertising Second

According to Advertising Age, the birth of a brand is usually accomplished with publicity FIRST.  In fact they say “it’s publicity first, advertising second,” and they also say that “PR is the Nail and Advertising is the Hammer that gives Frequency.” 

Often marketers confuse brand building with brand maintenance and while a heavy dose of advertising is often associated with most brands, it doesn’t mean that advertising built the brand.  

The Body Shop is now a case study in effective PR.  Take a look.

The Body Shop, an internationally recognized brand, was built entirely by PR.  Anita Roddick, the founder of Body Shop, travelled the world talking about the need to be more ecologically conscious, and how the Body Shop’s products were environmentally friendly and as a result she received a huge amount of publicity in all media.  The fact, the company spent less than $10 million in advertising over a 10-year period and its annual sales were $1.3 billion. 

Do you remember?

Over the years, many brands have become internationally recognized with little advertising.  Let’s take a moment and look back and remember Viagra, Prozac and Valium in the pharmaceuticals industry, and Furby, Beanie Babies and Tickle me Elmo in the toy field.  Of course, who can forget Oracle and Cisco that became multi-billion dollar brands with little advertising, but with a whole lot of PR.  These and thousands of brands have been effectively launched with PR; and more and more we’re seeing that PR is central to any marketing effort, because it establishes brand credibility by its association with the particular media that’s reporting it. 

Reaching Just a Few

Unlike advertising, it’s not necessary for a PR program to reach everyone.  Forget reach and think smaller.  At Schrenk PR we understand that it’s important to target your group and then let this group talk to other groups and communicate your message to the market.

It Takes Time

In our fast-paced world we tend to forget that it takes time to change minds and you need time to convince people to change brands, and adopt new ones.  It’s not one article here and another one there that will convince someone to switch brands, it a focused and constant publicity campaign that will generate on-going results and Brand Credibility.  That’s why Advertising Age said that PR is the nail and advertising is the hammer - you need them both when you’re launching your product or increasing brand awareness for your product.

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