There are many times when you need PR, but the one I want to touch on is: launching a new brand/product.
When introducing a new product, you have three options:
1. Launch with advertising
2. Launch with PR
3. Do nothing and hope word-of-mouth carries the product name.
I'm assuming most brands/people won't do nothing, so we will focus on the first two.
Why advertising?
While I consider launching a new brand solely with advertising foolish, I completely understand the appeal. Their are many benefits to launching a brand with advertising:
1. You pick the outlet (TV, radio, print, online)
2. You control the content (control over print ads and commercials)
3. Guaranteed hits (You can get an accurate number of who has seen your ad)
Advertising is the safe route, NOT the effective route.
Why?
Advertising's major downfall is the lack of credibility. There is plenty of data to back this up, but lets go the common sense route. What do you think would be more effective, an ad for a new novel by a Nicholas Sparks or Oprah's endorsement of his new book? The answer is obvious.
Do you think anyone would take a new coffee shop seriously if it touted that it had 'the worlds greatest coffee'? Of course not. This was mocked by Will Ferrell's character in the movie Elf. When his character went ecstatic and congratulated the coffee shop on being 'the world's best' it drew laughs from the audience. They realized anyone can call themselves the 'world's best' and it seems outlandish that anyone would believe it, therefor laughter ensued.
But lets say that coffee shop mentioned above, received a review from The New York Times, verifying that it indeed, has some of the best coffee in the world. Would that not draw a significant amount of buzz? Much more than running a print ad in the Times with the same claim.
So if advertising isn't how you should launch a brand, why Public Relations?
In one word: credibility.
PR is riskier. You can't completely control the message, the timing, or that you will even get coverage. While these are disadvantages to take into account, the power of credibility outweighs all of them.
For the most part, people believe what they see or hear on TV, radio, blogs, and customer reviews. The more cluttered advertising becomes, the more likely consumers are to seek out a third-party for their opinion.
Laura Ries makes an excellent point in her book "The Fall of Advertising, and the Rise of PR":
"It's ironic that America's advertising agencies, the 'advertising builds brands' crowd, do almost no advertising themselves. Rather they depend heavily on PR to build their own brands. They deluge the trade presses, especially Advertising Age and Adweek, with samples of their work. No award, no matter how trivial, goes uncrowed....How can you believe in advertising for others if you don't believe in advertising for yourself?"
So if PR is significantly cheaper and more effective, why not?
Famous brands built by PR: Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Linux, Segway, Red Bull, Amazon, Ebay, and many more.
There is too much more information on this topic for one blog post. Much more to come..
