Get blog by email
My bookmarks
LinkedIn profile
Facebook profile
What’s the difference between marketing and public relations?
Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
Hello - welcome to my website.
On my blog I write about marketing, public relations and digital communications. To keep up-to-date with my posts you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or sign-up to receive blog posts by email.
Thanks for visiting and I hope you find my site useful.
At a workshop session yesterday I was asked what was the difference between marketing and public relations.
A good few years ago the answer would have been that marketing was paid-for exposure under a company’s direct control, while public relations was free exposure.
But that answer misses so many of the differences that it’s not really valid. Let’s have a look at some trade body definitions for the two professions:
Marketing is the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably. (Chartered Institute of Marketing)
Marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals. (American Marketing Association)
Public relations is a strategic management function that adds value to an organisation by helping it to manage its reputation. (Chartered Institute of Public Relations)
Once you cut through the business jargon that shrouds these definitions, what’s left?
Marketing has at its core a desire to reach consumers and make them think, believe or do what you want. Public relations is more focussed on influencing reputation, whether corporate or personal.
This graphic from Ads of the World sums it up nicely.
The two professions are clearly complementary - a strongly positive reputation makes the marketer’s job easier, while marketing activity affects a company’s reputation.
If you ever want to infuriate a public relations professional, suggest that public relations is part of marketing.
While the PR function in a company is often managed within a broader marketing division, this is usually for logistic management reasons rather than because PR skills are a subset of marketing skills.
Those organisations that have the most effective communications are those that don’t get hung up on what’s marketing and what’s public relations.
Instead they focus on choosing the most appropriate tool for delivering their objectives, regardless of which toolbox it comes from.
Tags: AMA, american+marketing+association, chartered+institute+of+marketing, chartered+institute+of+public+relations, cim, CIPR, Marketing, Public relations
Comments on “What’s the difference between marketing and public relations?”
Leave your comment
Latest links 
Links to interesting information I've spotted recently on the web:
- Grasping the New Communication Nettle
- Social reporting at Cisco08 Public Sector Summit
- Recession proofing the brand called YOU
- Butt Out IT! Facebook “Productivity Loss” Is No Concern of Yours - Brian Prentice — A member of the Gartner Blog Network
- How Rich Is Your Communication In A Conflict?
- Making Gmail Your Gateway to the Web
- Hiscox: the benefits of bravery
- FAQ’s about Twitter Strategy and Public Relations
- The re-branding of Prince Charles
- The Ethics of Ghost-Writing in Social Media
- The World Does Not Need Journalists
- Tabbloid Turns Feeds into a Personal Magazine
- Creating an internal Social Media Forum
- Warning blogger relations mustnt be rushed!
- Councils told: embrace social networks
Latest bookmarks
My most recent bookmarks from del.icio.us:
- 33 Free Tools to Make Your Website Better | FutureNow's GrokDotCom / Marketing Optimization Blog
- MMA study finds increase in mobile marketing receptiveness
- If RSS Is Niche Media, Why Use It?
- New Media Knowledge - Rough Guide to: Social Media and the Law
- UK Kids and Teens Communicate Nonstop
- Understanding and Aligning the Value of Social Media | FutureNow's GrokDotCom / Marketing Optimization Blog
- weaverluke: Twitter.com
- The week that Britain's culture wars broke out | Media | The Observer
- Message in-a-Box
- Welcome to Where I Live | Where I Live
- Utilising Web 2.0 in local government
- MySpace and Facebook Fast Becoming the Leading Mobile Social Networks
- searching for the impact of empowerment report - MORI
- Demos | Publications | State of Trust
- Pew Internet: Teens, Video Games and Civics
Thursday, April 26th, 2007 at 9:52 am
It’s the perennial Q for PR people! In my mind I like to think that marketing seeks to exploit a transactional relationship betwwen an org and its markets; PR is about building (2-way) relationships with publics. Does that make any more sense. It gets even more blurred when you decide there’s a key difference between Marcomms PR and PR PR.
Friday, April 27th, 2007 at 7:30 am
Working with both the CIM & CIPR as event managers and having a background in both fields I’ve always felt the disciplines are complimentary and that good marketing can be good PR and vice versa.
Very tellingly, one of our most popular recent events was a joint CIM / CIPR seminar and it didn’t end up in a punch up!
Friday, April 27th, 2007 at 11:59 am
Perhaps the difference is that marketing has provided a link between capital and 20% of the worlds consumers and PR has made us aware of the 80% it can’t reach.
Friday, April 27th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
Thanks for the comments, Simon, Andy and David.
Simon - that’s a good distinction to make - and I wouldn’t know where to start with marcomms PR vs PR PR. Maybe I’ll learn that when I do the CIPR Diploma!
Andy - great comment - you could be a diplomat…
David - interesting thought, which I suppose means that having a “foot in both camps” isn’t a bad thing!
Sunday, September 16th, 2007 at 3:14 am
sir i really appreciate both the cleared definition of marketing and PR. but sir can you kindly send me some of the differenciation btw. the two. because i was told by my lectural to write out 20 differences and am able to get some through the above definition and some through my own view.plr send it to my mail box,thanks. bye.
Saturday, October 6th, 2007 at 7:58 am
[...] posted about this before, but I think there’s probably a more succinct way of explaining the difference, without [...]
Monday, November 12th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Hi everyone,
I am in my first year at university studying Public relations. My first assigment is to explain the difference between marketing and pr. I have read all of your comments and I now have a ruff idea. I just wondered if any one would be kind enough to explain it to me in simpler terms as I do not understand some of the words used..sorry am only first year lol I would be very very greatful if someone could explain it to me.
Thanks!
Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
I am a first year stundent studying PR> My first assignment is explain the difference between Marketing and PR. then the difference between the functions and techniques of Public Relations as opposed to the prime facets of Marketing. I have no clue of what to do or say becuase to me they seem to be the same. Looking forward to hearing from you. Hlangi
Friday, August 15th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
I came across your website whilst researching the differences between Marketing and Communciations. I am a Exec Search Consultant looking for candidates for an Interim Marketing Director role in the public sector. I am trying to work out whether candidates who have been Directors of Communications/PR are going to be of interest to my client as well as people who have been Directors of Marketing - am slighlty in the dark about this and looking at my google search everyone else is as well.
Friday, August 15th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Hi Sara - thanks for dropping by - I’ll email you some thoughts on this that may help…