Publicity and Public Relations

Meaning of Publicity

Publicity is an activity to promote a company or its products through the media which is not paid by the organization. It involves news stories about an organization or its products. It involves an impersonal message that reaches mass audiences through the media. But several things distinguish publicity has no control over it, and it appears as news and therefore it has greater credibility than advertising. Organizations seek good publicity and frequently provide the material for it in the form of news releases, press conferences, and photographs.

According to American Marketing Association, “Non- personal stimulation of demand for a product, service or business unit by planning commercially significant news about it in media or obtaining a favorable presentation of it upon radio, television or stage, is not paid for the sponsor.”

According to W.J. Stanton, “Publicity is any communication about an organization, its products or policies through the media that is not paid for by the organization.”

According to Philip Kotler, “Publicity is an activity to promote a company or its products by planning news about it in media not paid for by the sponsor.”

Publicity is referred as communicating with an audience by personal or non-personal media that are not explicitly paid for delivering the messages. Publicity is a potent tool of communication and is regarded as highly credible and authentic.

Features of Publicity

Features of publicity are:

• It is of two types personal and non-personal.
• It may be visual, audio and printed form or unified form of all three.
• Sponsor doesn’t pay money for promotion.
• Sponsor doesn’t have any control over publicity materials.
• Publicity is according to the desire of publisher.
• Structure of publicity is also decided by a publisher.
• The impact of publicity is deeper because it is related to media.
• Promotional materials can be presented in different ways.

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Importance of Publicity

Publicity is important due to following reasons:

• Credibility:

Publicity helpsin the credibility. Therefore, publicity of goods or services through organization's independent source is more credible.

• Greater readership:

Publicity also helps in the readership parts too.Publicity of goods or services provided by any organization is done through newspapers or other similar sources. It increases the number of readers. Hence, sometimes publicity plays an effective role of promotions too.

• Contain more information:

Publicity contains more information about the products. In comparison to other means of promotion, publicity contains more information than others. It helps to provide more information about the products to the consumers. It is so because, publicity contains different news, special articles, press conference, speech, tape and films, sponsor of social works, etc.

• Cost benefits:

Publicity has also the cost benefits. Organization doesn’t have to pay any cost as in other means of promotion. Therefore, publicity is more economic in comparison to other promotional methods.It has more benefits than other means As a result, profit is greater than cost.

• Speed:

Publicity works at a greater speed than other means of promotion. Publicity includes news, special article, column article, editorial, etc. Through this medium, an organization can provide its information more effectively. The information can flow in a rapid and speedway.

Meaning of Public Relations

The public relation can be defined as a wide variety of communication effort to contribute to generally favorable attitudes and opinions toward an organization and its products. Unlike most advertising and personal selling, it does not include a specific sales message. The targets may be customers, stockholders, a government agency, or a special interest group. Public relations can take many forms, including newsletters, annual reports, lobbying, and sponsorship of the charitable or civic event.

According to W.J. Stanton, “Public relation is a management tool designed to favorably influence attributes towards an organization, its products, and its policies.”

According to Philip Kotler, “Public relations involve a variety of programs designed to promote and protect a company’s image or its individual products.”

According to N. A. Hart, “Public relations function is to establish and maintain a mutual understanding between an organization and its publics, to communicate a company’s view, objectives, and purpose, whilst at the same time monitoring, feed- backing and correcting the publics’ attitudes and reactions.”

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Finally, public relation refers to those group of people with whom the organization wants to communicate specifically i.e. these refer to those target groups such as customers, trade, media, workforce and other target audiences to whom messages need to be communicated.

Features of Public Relations

Features of public relations are given below:

• It is a two-way process for any organization or its relation with others.
• It is compulsory for both external and internal groups.
• It is a science or art to have communication with an organization and with other groups related to it.
• It is done by providing information.
• The main motive of public relation is to promote name, fame, image and profit of the organization.
• Public relation is the means to provide both information and education to people.
• Public relation improves the relation between organization and different class.
• It provides free promotion/ advertisement of an organization.
• Behavior and thoughts of a different public group make public relation favorable.

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Importance of Public Relations

A public relation is an important tool for creating an image, building awareness and consumer preference, and establishing useful liaisons with influential groups. The importances of Public relations can be briefly shown below:

• Creating image:

Public relation helps in creating a good and favorable image of the company's products to the consumers. It helps to provide essential information to the consumers through various means such as advertising, media,news, etc. This helps the consumers to create a good image in the products.

• Providing information:

Public relations also helps in providing various important information about different products through different means. It helps in the introduction of new products by providing information about them to media by press releases or in any other way.

• Improving the sagging image:

Public relation helps to improve the sagging image too.It helps in improving the image of an existing product and in repositioning it in the market. It helps to improve the image of the products in the society.

• Influencing government:

Public relation also helps in influencing the government sector. It helps in influencing the national and local governments on decisions affecting the organizations.

• Establishing relationship:

Public relation helps in maintaining the good relationship between buyers and sellers.It helps in influencing specific groups and establishing relationships with them which may be favorable to an organization. It also helps in keeping good and healthy relations with various agencies like the government, trade unions, customers, community and other agencies. They are crucial to the success of the company.

References:

Koirala, Dr. Kundan Dutta. Elementary Marketing. Kathmandu: Buddha Academic Publishers and Distributors Pvt. Ltd, 2014.

Thapa, Gopal, Dipendra K. Neupane and Dilli Raj Mishra. Introduction to Marketing. Kathmandu: Asmita Books Publishers and Distributors (P) Ltd., 2014.