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Belch: Advertising and
Promotion, Sixth Edition
V. Developing the
Integrated Marketing
Communications Program
17. Public Relations,
Publicity, and Corporate
Advertising
single chapter in this text, we suggest you peruse one of the many books available on
this subject for additional insights.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Publicity
Publicity offers the advantages of credibility, news value, significant word-of-mouth
communications, and a perception of being endorsed by the media. Beyond the potential
impact of negative publicity, two major problems arise from the use of publicity:
timing and accuracy.
Timing Timing of the publicity is not always completely under the control of the
marketer. Unless the press thinks the information has very high news value, the timing
of the press release is entirely up to the media—if it gets released at all. Thus, the
information may be released earlier than desired or too late to make an impact.
Accuracy A major way to get publicity is the press release. Unfortunately, the
information sometimes gets lost in translation—that is, it is not always reported the
way the provider wishes it to be. As a result, inaccurate information, omissions, or
other errors may result. Sometimes when you see a publicity piece that was written on
the basis of a press release, you wonder if the two are even about the same topic.
Measuring the Effectiveness of Publicity
The methods for measuring the effects of publicity are essentially the same as those
discussed earlier under the broader topic of public relations. Rather than reiterate them
here, we thought it would be more interesting to show you an actual example. Figure
17-5 is a model developed by Ketchum Public Relations for tracking the effects of
publicity. (I guess we just provided Ketchum with some free publicity.)
One of the more controversial forms of advertising is corporate
advertising. Actually an extension of the public relations function,
corporate advertising does not promote any one specific product or
service. Rather, it is designed to promote the firm overall, by enhancing its image,
assuming a position on a social issue or cause, or seeking direct involvement in something.
Why is corporate advertising controversial? A number of reasons are offered:
1. Consumers are not interested in this form of advertising. A Gallup and Robinson
study reported in Advertising Age found consumers were 35 percent less interested in
corporate ads than in product-oriented advertising. 28 This may be because consumers
do not understand the reasons behind such ads. Of course, much of this confusion
results from ads that are not very good from a communications standpoint.
2. It’s a costly form of self-indulgence. Firms have been accused of engaging in
corporate image advertising only to satisfy the egos of top management. This argument
stems from the fact that corporate ads are not easy to write. The message to be
communicated is not as precise and specific as one designed to position a product, so
the top managers often dictate the content of the ad, and the copy reflects their ideas
and images of the corporation.
3. The firm must be in trouble. Some critics believe the only time firms engage in corporate
advertising is when they are in trouble—either in a financial sense or in the
public eye—and are advertising to attempt to remedy the problem. There are a number
of forms of corporate advertising, each with its own objectives. These critics argue
that these objectives have become important only because the firm has not been managed
properly.
4. Corporate advertising is a waste of money. Given that the ads do not directly
appeal to anyone, are not understood, and do not promote anything specific, critics say
the monies could be better spent in other areas. Again, much of this argument has its
foundation in the fact that corporate image ads are often intangible. They typically do
not ask directly for a purchase; they do not ask for investors. Rather, they present a
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2003
Corporate Advertising
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Chapter Seventeen Public Relations, Publicity, and Corporate Advertising