In an era where Marketing and Advertising  is the key function to a product;s success, there is still confusion with what each of these function is suppose to deliver. Many individuals fail to understand the difference between the two. Though closely similar but at the same time they have remarkable difference. Adding further to the marketing muscle is “Public Relations” AKA PR.

Marketing is the action or business of selling the product or services . It is also setting of goals and strategies to sell the product.  Advertising and PR are Marketing tools to sell the product  and ways to market the product. Advertisng  is the communication designed to sell the product. Advertising includes print, digital and outdoor. Public Relations is cultivating a healthy relations between the consumer and the company via unpaid communication tools like media & social media . Each of these is a subset of another.

Let me explain this complicated yet simple difference with the help of these two case studies.

Two companies selling high end audio visual products from the same category. One owned by Mr x and the other by Mr Y.  Inorder to promote the brands, Mr X used online advertisng, and participation in various exhibitions . Mr X’s marketing or action to sell his products is advertising and exhibitions . On the other hand, Mr Y resorted to not just online advertising and participation in various exhibitions but went one step ahead. He also got some key media journalist to write about his products and his company. Having written by key media added to the brand’s equity and market value.

While analysing the sales figures at the end of the fiscal year, Mr Y’s company had sold more products than that of Mr X.  This perplexed Mr X and on decided to hire a research team to find the  hole in the loop. The research findings were rather confusing for him. Despite having spent the same amount of money in marketing the product and the brand recall been the same for both the products, the consumers preferred Mr Y’s brand .  The consumers felt that brand B was more reliable and had a better market value than brand A. The consumers had read good reviews about brand B  and about Mr Y in several reliable media. The company  & the product had a face which is Mr Y and that helped build trust between the consumers and the company. This was the result of using media journalist to build trust amongst the consumers.This had also generated a lot of word of mouth publicity. And this was nothing but Mr Y’s strong “Public Relations” which he built using media.

While Mr X wasn’t wrong  in using his marketing tools but he definitely ignored to build his PR.  PR is a small function of marketing but it is an important function. At the same time if there was no advertising, PR would have been of not much use. IF Mr Y had only resorted to PR as his marketing tool and ignored to advertise his brand,  he would definitely be building a brand but sales could be marginally lower.

If Marketing is a human body, PR is the heart and Advertising  is the brain. Two most important function for any body to function, whether it’s the human body or a company.

Havig said that, Marketing also have other ancillary tools which are relevant to the business which includes emailers, activation, sms blast, digital marketing (new age concept) and much more.