After reading an insightful post on Gary Schlee’s blog about the increasingly cozy relationship between marketing and PR, I decided to post a comment. Read the post then come back and follow along below:
I believe the differences between PR and marketing are largely artificial. That is to say, PR is a specific aspect of marketing that deals with certain kinds of audiences and certain kinds of buyers.
Perhaps marketing departments offer less pretensions about their fiduciary relationship to the overall goals of the company. I think it obfuscates the issue to say that marketing is about selling and buyers while PR is about relationships and audiences. What kind of relationships are we building? Why are we trying to reach these audiences? We’re selling to media or the community or those audiences which evaluate the reputation of our organization before buying our product, engaging in our service or voting for our legislation. Yes, PR can be specialized in practice and it is certainly specialized in skill. But to proscribe the marketing function of PR and try to separate communications as being loftier in intention than marketing is an argument that will ultimately fail in the jostle for corporate dollars.
Instead, the increased integration of all aspects of the marketing mix should lead the public relations industry to study from other marketing streams. Can we measure results like marketing? Can we build a strong brand like advertising?
The maturation of public relations should not automatically assume that the practice will become more independent — it probably won’t. Our best bet is to continue to advocate the strengths of PR campaigns as cost-effective and credible ways to further the marketing and corporate goals of those we represent.
Stractical: Very Public Relations 