Public Relations vs. Marketing

I'm a little behind on reading but got stuck in chapter one last night reading Effective Public Relations by Dr. Glen Broom who joined us last week at our meeting.

I understand the difference between marketing and PR. I've worked in small business marketing all my life so have never had much opportunity to separate the two functions. I firmly believe the line between marketing and PR is blurred due to the speed of communication and changes within communication channels thanks in large part to web 2.0.

The question is:

Do we as professionals do ourselves a disservice by not being well-versed in both PR and marketing?

Broom quotes the late Rex Harlow in the following definition of PR:

"Public relations is a distinctive management function which helps establish and maintain mutual lines of communication, understanding, acceptance and cooperation between an organization and its public; involves the management of problems or issues; helps management to keep informed on and responsive to public opinion; defines and emphasizes the responsibility of management to serve the public interest; helps management keep abreast of and effectively utilize change, serving an early warning system to help anticipate trends; and uses research and sound and ethical communication as its principal tools."

After reading that I whipped out my Marketing Management (Kotler and Keller) text from my MBA marketing course and looked up the definition of marketing and the book quotes the American Marketing Association:

"Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large."

If you're a true nerd, you can read a 2008 press release by the AMA which redefines the definition of marketing.

Both public relations and marketing are extremely involved in the research of products and people. Both share media outlets and often times similar audiences. Both are important for helping executives make important decisions about products and messages. Both must use each other in the process of designing and message delivery.

Public relations may focus more on the exchange of ideas and marketing on that of products, but the ultimate goal of both are sales. Selling our "publics" on ideas and products are the core of what we do. Without it, we don't get paid.

So back to the question: Do we as professionals to ourselves a disservice by not being well-versed in both fields?

I'd like to leave you with one of my favorite new commercials by Coke. What a tremendous blend of PR/marketing.

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I see your correlation and point, but I think the biggest difference between PR and marketing is that PR SHOULDN'T be defined as a sales function, because the very definition of the word "sales" implies a weighted precondition on the relationsip.

By focusing on the sincere relationship between an org and public, marketing has the room to accomplish its sales function. But I think the the sales mission of an org should be independent of a PR function. 

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