Advertising is a method, public relations is the goal

Two small things happened in the industry recently.

First, Ogilvy said it has set a goal to expand its public relations department three times. It is not clear how long it will take them to complete the task and what the specific strategic logic is, but they are starting to pay more attention to public relations business.

The second is from Shengjia’s Ma Xiaobo’s circle of friends: “In the next three years, Shengjia will transform into a public relations agency. Because "advertising" is a narrative means of widespread publicity, advertising is a method, and "high-quality public relations" is the goal. ”

Ogilvy and Shengjia, one at the center of the global marketing stage and the other at the center of the Chinese marketing stage, respectively received the same experience. Maybe that explains something.

The trend I see is: the Internet has basically eliminated information asymmetry, the battlefield for incremental consumption is getting smaller and smaller, and the future will be more of a battlefield for existing stocks. Increasing sales requires widespread publicity, while managing existing sales requires high-quality consumer relationships.

Advertising is the method, public relations is the goal. This is a good summary of the view, and it echoes my article two years ago, "Building Brands with Public Relations Thinking."

Public relations is the underlying logic, and advertising is the form of expression.

The reality is that advertising has become increasingly powerful in recent years, and many public relations agencies have transformed into media agencies or press release companies. There are certainly human reasons behind this. Public relations is not as cool as advertising, and there is a lack of professional public relations people. The fundamental reason for the decline of public relations is the difference in deliverables.

The most important deliverable of PR is “opinion”, but almost no brand is willing to pay a high price to buy a “opinion”, and the final quote will fall on media fees. Media costs are too transparent and the quotation cannot be raised.

The deliverables of advertising are clearer, such as a TVC or a poster, and the cost is easier to calculate. The quotation for a TVC can be detailed to dozens of items, making the brand feel that it is getting great value for money and the advertising company’s profit margin is also guaranteed. This business model is sustainable.

I read the article I wrote two years ago again and decided to rewrite it.

Try to make public relations thinking and the marketing role of public relations clear, hoping to gain more consensus.

Below, enjoy:

Public relations is the foundation of marketing

The full name of public relations is "public relations management". The relationship management between brands, the public and consumers or users, and changing consumer relationships are the essential value of public relations and the core value of brand marketing.

In the information-transparent Internet environment, consumers' brand awareness is the brand itself.

Therefore, public relations is the foundation of marketing.

But the reality is very bad. People’s understanding of public relations is either very traditional or very negative.

The tradition is to treat public relations as media releases. In the era of traditional media, if a brand wants to make its voice heard, it can only do so through the media, so the core skill of traditional public relations is to deal with the media, or even manipulate the media.

But in today’s situation, the carriers of brand voice have long broken through the limitations of the media and can be heard anywhere.

The statement can be made on social media; the PR director can make a statement on WeChat Moments; the founder can give a speech at a public event; third-party KOLs can give testimony; or a million-dollar brand declaration can be made.

Therefore, the media environment is changing, but the skills of public relations professionals have not fully kept up. The skill of dealing with the media accounts for up to 20% of public relations work.

Then it is too negative, and the black PR conspiracy theory is widely believed. Recently in the past 10 years, with the rapid development of Internet companies and the fierce competition in various industries, there may be some black public relations elements, but they must be a minority. Visionary founders will understand that open conspiracies can go further than secret ones.

The core of public relations is the way of thinking, and the carrier and form are just appearances.

It is difficult to say that public relations is "content", it is more appropriate to say it is strategic thinking. It may be an opportunity, such as the recent Xinjiang cotton incident. Domestic brands take advantage of this opportunity to do appropriate marketing, which is public relations thinking. It could be concepts and opinions, and the carrier could be the CEO’s circle of friends, or it could be a million-dollar brand declaration. What’s important is the change in concepts.

However, in terms of business links and organizational forms, the weapons that public relations can use are mostly just media releases, which makes public relations very weak. Essentially, public relations can be integrated into any form, which can be videos, events, KOLs, etc. The public relations department should be framed in a certain form.

But if we look back at the existing system, the public relations department and the marketing department of most companies are separate, and the division of work is relatively clear. The public relations department is responsible for dealing with the media, while the marketing department is responsible for filming and placing films. Due to the different content of their respective work, it is difficult to integrate the two tasks.

Public relations and advertising need to be more integrated, or public relations thinking should be more integrated into various forms of marketing.

Public relations thinking, advertising carrier

Next, let’s talk about specific strategies and how public relations and advertising can be integrated together to create a synergy.

I think a good collaboration model is the thinking and communication of public relations combined with the creative form of advertising. Public relations and advertising merge together to accomplish one thing.

For example, Bilibili’s “The Next Wave” last year, I think it is not just an advertising statement, but more like a public relations activity in essence, but it appears in the form of an advertisement.

I have talked about "standpoint marketing" in my previous articles. Many international brands express their stance in public events in order to establish an alliance with consumers. Some founders expressed their views on social media, while others made their views known by shooting commercials.

There are also some things like brand tone setting, especially the new consumer brands nowadays, when they break through the circle from niche brands to mass brands, they need more public relations thinking and need to establish a brand role in consumer opinion.

I tried to talk about what role each should play in the integration of public relations and advertising.

Public relations thinking as the brain

The public relations I am talking about are neither traditional PR nor black PR. It is public relations that lead the brand upward, establish the brand role at the level of public opinion, and reach a broader consensus.

The current communication environment, with information explosion, fragmentation, distracted attention, solidified circles, opposing views, etc., are all obstacles to brand marketing and make communication more difficult. It is extremely difficult for commercial brands to attract attention in this environment.

The value of public relations is to make the right voice in the right way, so that the brand can enter public opinion and be talked about.

For some big brands, their popularity has already reached a very high level, and the efficiency of communication and exposure is very low. They need new brand perspectives and new information to stir up public sentiment again, which requires public relations.

There are many such cases. Some old brands tried to renovate themselves and made a lot of efforts in advertising, but to no avail. This is equivalent to making a lot of "0"s but without a "1" in front. Just like 10 years ago, Li Ning tried to become younger and made many changes, but almost went bankrupt. It was not until the later national trend that the Li Ning brand’s “1” became valuable, and everything done afterwards became valuable.

There are also some newly emerging brands that need to set the tone for public opinion and become an important industry player. This is the time when public relations strategies are needed, including what tone to set, who to contact, what form to take, how to expand consensus, and ultimately make it a done deal that is widely recognized.

In other words, public relations thinking is mass communication thinking. In the chaotic Internet environment and amidst the conflicting public opinions, we can better carry out brand communication, better establish consumer relationships, and more broadly build public consensus. This requires public relations thinking.

However, it would be difficult to achieve this if the only weapon of public relations is publishing press releases. Advertising is needed as a more powerful weapon for public relations.

Advertisement format as carrier

For example, the same idea expressed in words and in a brand statement will have completely different effects.

The core of advertising is a high degree of generalization and summary, and it is extremely formal and ritualistic, and can be preserved in the form of video, images, etc. But on the other hand, it is becoming increasingly difficult for advertisements to break out of the circle. Countless commercials have been shot, but even if money is spent on their placement, they fail to cause any waves and are buried forever.

Advertising creative techniques are not enough to support a strong point of view, the brand must have something to say.

Use the form of advertising to make public relations expressions. The advertising format amplifies the public relations information and makes it more ceremonial and solemn. The public relations perspective will make the advertisement more powerful, enter the public opinion, and gain wider dissemination.

I still want to talk about the case of "The Next Wave". At the critical stage when Bilibili was breaking into the general public, such a campaign has strongly defined Bilibili's role as the "Next Wave" of the youth community. At the same time, in terms of communication logic, there are clear levels from CCTV speeches to WeChat Moments advertisements to social topics.

In the new environment, advertising must be expressed and communicated in a public relations manner to establish more positive consumer relationships.

Outlook: Entering the PR battlefield

The collaborative model between advertising and public relations will undergo new changes in the next few years.

The boundary between advertising and public relations will gradually disappear and become more integrated. But ultimately, the goal is to build brand public relations.

The transformation of collaborative models requires, first of all, a change in concepts and awareness, the recognition of industry practitioners, and the creation of excellent case studies.

For brands, integration should be organized. I have always insisted that marketing should be a team. It is not appropriate for the public relations department and the marketing department to be too far apart. They should be gradually integrated. The number one marketing person must have both public relations and advertising thinking, and cannot have traditional public relations or black public relations thinking.

The most important thing about public relations is to change public perceptions and reach a new public consensus.

When a brand is doing mass communication, in addition to communicating basic selling points, it needs to think about what ideas to convey, what consensus to reach, and what form of expression to use.

For public relations agencies, although public relations is becoming more and more important, the public relations of the future will not be limited to the media. Channel resources are very transparent. What is important are concepts and strategies.

My personal suggestions are, first, to strengthen the output of public relations strategies, and second, to strengthen the form of expressing opinions.

For advertising companies, they can either become vertical content production agencies or move up to become strong strategic marketing agencies.

Many advertising companies are doing quite well nowadays, and their work is relatively vertical, such as making films and creating creative works. But these jobs hardly involve big brand strategies or brand solutions. Even the dissemination strategies after the content is completed are not involved. Become a creative content production team.

The real solution is still a strategic solution. Visionary advertising agencies should strengthen their public relations strategies and mass communication thinking.

Content and creativity are the methods, and building more stable and better consumer relationships is the foundation.

Brand marketing in the next decade will be a stock battlefield for managing consumer relationships.

Author: Yang Buhuai

Source: Yang Buhuai