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Belch: Advertising and
Promotion, Sixth Edition
V. Developing the
Integrated Marketing
Communications Program
17. Public Relations,
Publicity, and Corporate
Advertising
Does the Success of Public Relations
Mean the Death of Advertising?
Just about a decade ago, some people involved
in the public relations (PR) industry were asking
marketers to stay out of their domain. These tra-
ditional PR people were arguing that marketing
and public relations always have been separate
communications functions and that they should
forever stay that way. My how things have
changed!
Recently, two very well known marketing consultants
released a book titled The Fall of Advertising
and the Rise of PR. The gist of the book is
that while advertising is still the most dominant
medium used by marketers, declining advertising
effectiveness means that this communications
tool is no longer effective for introducing and
building new brands. The only way to build a
brand now, they contend, is through public relations.
While this obviously led to book burnings
in advertising agencies around the world, what
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2003
made it worse is that the authors—Al Ries and his
daughter Laura Ries—are well known and
respected marketers! Al Ries (along with a former
coauthor, Jack Trout) is best known for first introducing
the concept of positioning. And what
could be more marketing than that? But now, say
the Rieses, consumers have changed, and the
communications program and the way we think
about branding must change with it. Consumers
now learn about products and brands through
means other than advertising—the Rieses contend
that some brands including Palm, Starbucks,
and the Body Shop have succeeded with no
advertising—and advertising has lost credibility.
The Rieses contend that companies now must create
brand images through publicity and media
that consumers rely on for more “objective”
information. The role of advertising, they say, is
to maintain the brand image. And the Rieses are
not the only ones who feel this way. Linda Recupero,
vice president of the brand marketing company
Burson-Marsteller, in New York—which was
responsible for the successful PR launches of
Botox and Segway—agrees with the premise that
PR is more effective in building a brand in the
introduction stage. Executives from large marketing
companies like Gillette, Unilever, and Georgia-Pacific
have also weighed in on the side of
public relations.
But not everyone is buying the death-ofadvertising
argument yet—including some PR
executives. Thomas Harris, a public relations consultant,
calls the book “a gross generalization”
that overlooks other public relations functions
beyond publicity. Harris argues that publicity can
be a powerful tool for mature brands—not just
introductions—citing the Pillsbury Bake-Off as
just one example. Others have taken issue with
the Rieses’ contention that advertising is now