How PR Killed Advertising and Became King

Long ago advertising was King and to make a real presence it was necessary to spend mega dollars to promote services and product offerings. Big companies ruled the markets, as they were typically the ones who could afford to spend big bucks to advertise. However, changes in traditional advertising started when dotcom companies resourcefully used PR tactics to make headlines. This resulted in Internet websites competing with large corporations and gaining market share in specified target industries. Setting the standards for virtually anyone to successfully utilize public relations for services or product offerings.

Traditional advertising is dead for many reasons and returning to rule, as the King will most likely never ever happen in this lifetime. After all a common problem with traditional advertising was that it could never be determined how to measure where advertising dollars went. Public relations practices are more or less a pay for performance effort. If you have good public relations people in place their main job is to keep you in the news. You should be receiving repeated free publicity surrounding your services and product offerings. One well-written media release should get your services and product offerings in front of massive audiences. Public relations have gone mainstream with applying web 2.0 tools that allow for advance distribution, promotion, and publication.

How PR killed advertising and became King:

PR is the perception of public image and how the public perceives a service or product. Public relations practices have the advantage of telling a full story by delivering press media kits. Supplying media releases that are distributed to target audiences to capture and create interest. Opening the door to pitch stories that create opportunities to increase brand awareness and sales.

PR tools are most often respected and considered organic because there are no payments for the free publicity received. Public relations practices are dynamic promotional tools to add to any services or product offerings. Making a service or product offering standout in the crowd is ultimately the goal of a great PR campaign.

One can never deny but only confirm that advertising was once King and considered the ultimate solution to brand, market, and promote services and product offerings. However, today advertising has been exposed for simply what it is, paid for advertising to draw interest in services and product offerings. Before spending thousands of dollars to run a large ad in the newspaper or magazine, why not try using PR and get free publicity about your services or product offerings?