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Belch: Advertising and
Promotion, Sixth Edition
V. Developing the
Integrated Marketing
Communications Program
17. Public Relations,
Publicity, and Corporate
Advertising
Public relations is indeed a management function. The term management should be
used in its broadest sense; it is not limited to business managements but extends to
other types of organizations, including nonprofit institutions.
In this definition, public relations requires a series of stages, including:
1. The determination and evaluation of public attitudes.
2. The identification of policies and procedures of an organization with a public
interest.
3. The development and execution of a communications program designed to bring
about public understanding and acceptance.
This process does not occur all at once. An effective public relations program continues
over months or even years.
Finally, this definition reveals that public relations involves much more than
activities designed to sell a product or service. The PR program may involve some of
the promotional program elements previously discussed but use them in a different
way. For example, press releases may be sent to announce new products or changes
in the organization, special events may be organized to create goodwill in the community,
and advertising may be used to state the firm’s position on a controversial
issue.
The New Role of PR
As discussed in the introduction to this chapter, in an increasing number of marketingoriented
companies, new responsibilities have been established for public relations. It
takes on a much broader (and more marketing-oriented) perspective, designed to promote
the organization as well as its products and/or services.
The way that companies and organizations use public relations might best be
viewed as a continuum. On one end of the continuum is the use of PR from a traditional
perspective. In this perspective public relations is viewed as a nonmarketing
function whose primary responsibility is to maintain mutually beneficial relationships
between the organization and its publics. In this case, customers or potential customers
are only part of numerous publics—employees, investors, neighbors, specialinterest
groups, and so on. Marketing and public relations are separate departments; if
external agencies are being used, they are separate agencies. At the other end of the
continuum, public relations is considered primarily a marketing communications
function. All noncustomer relationships are perceived as necessary only in a marketing
context. 2 In these organizations, public relations reports to marketing. As the book
by the Rieses clearly indicates, for many companies the PR function is moving more
and more toward a “new role,” which is much closer to a marketing function than a
traditional one.
The new role of public relations envisions both strong marketing and strong PR
departments. Rather than each department operating independently, the two work
closely together, blending their talents to provide the best overall image of the firm and
its product or service offerings.
Writing in Advertising Age, William N. Curry notes that organizations must use
caution in establishing this relationship because PR and marketing are not the same
thing, and when one becomes dominant, the balance required to operate at maximum
efficiency is lost. 3 He says losing sight of the objectives and functions of public relations
in an attempt to achieve marketing goals may be detrimental in the long run. Others
take an even stronger view that if public relations and marketing distinctions
continue to blur, the independence of the PR function will be lost and it will become
much less effective. 4 In fact, as noted by Cutlip, Center, and Broom, marketing and
public relations are complementary functions, “with each making unique but complementary
contributions to building and maintaining the many relationships essential for
organizational survival and growth. To ignore one is to risk failure in the other.” 5 This
position is consistent with our perception that public relations is an important part of
the IMC process, contributing in its own way but also in a way consistent with marketing
goals.
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2003
565
Chapter Seventeen Public Relations, Publicity, and Corporate Advertising