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Belch: Advertising and
Promotion, Sixth Edition
V. Developing the
Integrated Marketing
Communications Program
17. Public Relations,
Publicity, and Corporate
Advertising
Measuring the Effectiveness
of Corporate Advertising
As you can tell from our discussion of the controversy surrounding corporate advertising,
there need to be methods for evaluating whether or not such advertising is effective:
• Attitude surveys. One way to determine the effectiveness of corporate advertising is
conducting attitude surveys to gain insights into both the public’s and investors’ reactions
to ads. The Phase II study conducted by market research firm Yankelovich,
Skelly & White is one of the best-known applications of this measurement method. 47
The firm measured recall and attitudes toward corporate advertisers and found that
corporate advertising is more efficient in building recall for a company name than is
product advertising alone. Frequent corporate advertisers rated better on virtually all
attitude measures than those with low corporate ad budgets.
• Studies relating corporate advertising and stock prices. The Bozell & Jacobs study
is one of many that have examined the effect of various elements of corporate advertising
(position in the magazine, source effects, etc.) on stock prices. These studies
have yielded conflicting conclusions, indicating that while the model for such measures
seems logical, methodological problems may account for at least some of the
discrepancies.
• Focus group research. Focus groups have been used to find out what investors want
to see in ads and how they react after the ads are developed. As with product-oriented
advertising, this method has limitations, although it does allow for some effective
measurements.
While the effectiveness of corporate advertising has been measured by some of the
methods used to measure product-specific advertising, research in this area has not kept
pace with that of the consumer market. (One study reported that only 35 of the Fortune
500 companies ever attempted to measure performance of their annual reports. 48 The
most commonly offered reason for this lack of effort is that corporate ads are often the
responsibility of those in the highest management positions in the firm, and these parties
do not wish to be held accountable. Interestingly, those who should be most concerned
with accountability are the most likely to shun this responsibility!
Summary
This chapter examined the role of
the promotional elements of public
relations, publicity, and corporate
advertising. We noted that
these areas are all significant to
the marketing and communications
effort and are usually considered
differently from the other
promotional elements. The
reasons for this special treatment
stem from the facts that (1) they
are typically not designed to promote
a specific product or service
and (2) in many instances it is
harder for the consumer to make
the connection between the communication
and its intent.
Public relations was shown to
be useful in its traditional respon-
sibilities as well as in a more marketing-oriented
role. In many
firms, PR is a separate department
operating independently of
marketing; in others, it is considered
a support system. Many large
firms have an external public relations
agency, just as they have an
outside ad agency.
In the case of publicity, another
factor enters the equation: lack of
control over the communication the
public will receive. In public relations
and corporate advertising, the
organization remains the source
and retains much more control. Publicity
often takes more of a reactive
than a proactive approach, yet it
may be more instrumental (or detri-
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2003
mental) to the success of a product
or organization than all other forms
of promotion combined.
While not all publicity can
be managed, the marketer must
nevertheless recognize its potential
impact. Press releases and
the management of information
are just two of the factors under
the company’s control. Proper
reaction and a strategy to deal
with uncontrollable events are also
responsibilities.
Corporate advertising was
described as controversial, largely
because the source of the message
is top management, so the rules for
other advertising and promoting
forms are often not applied. This
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