Advertising vs Marketing vs PR: When To Use Each

In the business world, it’s common to hear terms like “advertising,” “marketing,” and “PR” thrown around interchangeably. I remember, early in my career, a client wanted to “do some PR” when they were actually looking to advertise their new product launch. They thought any promotional effort fell under PR. They aren’t alone—there’s so much overlap and subtlety between these three, it can be tough to know when to use each. However, it’s safe to say that nearly every large organization understands it needs marketing vs PR vs advertising to be successful and competitive. But what’s the right amount for each? And is it beneficial to have them in action all at once? What about startups that don’t have the budget to invest in all three from the get-go? These are all frequently asked questions, but the first step is getting acquainted with each function and how they differ.

In this article, I’ll walk you through the core differences between advertising vs. marketing vs PR, share examples, and offer practical guidance on when to use each. Understanding these distinctions can empower your business to create a balanced and impactful strategy.

Key Takeaways

Advertising, marketing, and PR each serve unique functions within a brand strategy. Advertising aims for quick conversions, marketing focuses on long-term customer engagement, and PR builds trust and a positive public image. Knowing when to use each is crucial to achieving the desired impact.
Advertising is persuasive and repetitive; marketing guides consumers through a journey with ongoing interactions, while PR engages by fostering trust and credibility through storytelling and earned media.
Advertising offers full control over messaging since it’s paid media. Marketing adapts based on audience feedback, whereas PR relies on external media, making it less predictable but powerful in shaping perception.
Advertising is often costly, especially for premium placements. Marketing costs vary and can be more affordable when using owned channels, while PR can be low-cost but may involve investments in media relations or reputation management.
Advertising metrics like clicks and conversions provide clear ROI, while marketing looks at long-term engagement metrics. PR, however, is challenging to measure, focusing on intangibles like brand sentiment and reputation.

Understanding Advertising vs Marketing vs Pr

“Every square is a rectangle, but not every rectangle is a square,” states the strange square/rectangle law. Marketing, public relations, and advertising all live in the same realm and may have overlapping roles. However, they are all quite different fields. Before i get into the differences, let’s define what each of these terms entails. They are interconnected, but each plays a unique function in developing your brand.

What Exactly is Marketing?

This is a fantastic question. I used to work for a digital marketing agency, so I’m going to spend more time discussing digital marketing. Telling someone you work in marketing is one thing, but when you mention digital marketing, they immediately assume you are a social media influencer. That is simply not true.

Yes, digital marketing works with social media, but not in the way you may expect. That represents a relatively modest portion of the industry. After becoming acquainted with these common sorts of marketing, you may have a better understanding of what marketing entails.

Content marketing:
Inbound Marketing
Tradiotional
Email
Visual marketing

Marketing refers to the activities a company undertakes to promote the buying or selling of its products or services. Marketing encompasses a much larger scope than advertising. It’s all about building relationships with customers over time, understanding their needs, and positioning your products or services to meet those needs. Marketing strategies include everything from market research and brand positioning to content marketing and customer loyalty programs.

What is Advertising?

Advertising is a marketing subsector in which your company pays for space on a billboard, website, magazine, or elsewhere to promote its products and services. Although many businesses hire an advertising firm to manage their advertising strategy, you may successfully advertise your business without employing an agency if you understand the different types of advertising and select which tactics are ideal for your organization.

Is it just me, or does it feel that the public relations person in movies is usually portrayed as the evil guy?

In truth, a public relations representative is simply performing their job to make you – the customer – look good. They have to constantly be ready to spin any media so that the client always comes out looking rosy. Like makeup, a good public relations team can enhance your existing qualities and make you look great, or it can make you look like a clown.

A smart public relations team will not only try to keep the client’s image consistent and clean, but will also seek out media opportunities. The majority of media opportunities are PR-related (earned media), but others are advertising-related (paid media). However, engaging the client in speaking with the consumer is all part of public relations.

What is PR?

Public relations (PR) is the process of controlling your company’s image and reputation. It is the practice of fostering favorable public perception, which is frequently accomplished through media contacts, community involvement, and brand narrative. Unlike advertising, public relations relies on reputation and trust rather than direct sales.

Public relations continues to be an important aspect of the marketing process, and it is frequently less expensive than traditional advertising. PR specialists develop strategic relationships between corporations and their target audiences in order to grow or enhance their reputation, as well as media partnerships to increase exposure for their clients.

“One of the most important things about starting a campaign is that having PR helps define the message of your company,” she informed the audience. “The first question we ask is, ‘Why are you doing what you’re doing? Why do people care?’ … It helps fine-tune the message and keep it consistent.”

Without consistency, customers won’t understand or trust what your brand represents. A strong PR campaign creates a recognizable message across multiple media platforms. This is important for small businesses, which lack the name recognition of larger companies and corporations.

The Differences Between Marketing vs Advertising vs PR

Understanding the distinctions can clarify when each approach is the best choice. Here are five key differences that can guide your decisions.

#1. Purpose And Goals

Advertising seeks to generate instant revenue or leads. It’s about grabbing people’s attention and urging them to act quickly. Then marketing focuses on long-term growth. It covers everything from brand recognition to consumer involvement and loyalty. PR is to build goodwill and trust, influencing how people see your brand.

#2. Approach for Engaging the Audience

Advertising is straightforward and convincing, with messages frequently repeated to emphasize their importance. If you see the same ad on various platforms, it’s intentional—it’s designed to stick in your mind.

Marketing seeks to lead individuals on a journey by engaging them with useful information, promotions, and regular communication. While public relations focuses on trust. Instead of openly selling, public relations seeks to indirectly engage by sharing the brand’s beliefs and stories.

#3. Control Over Messaging

Advertising provides you with complete control. Because you are paying for the space or airtime, you have complete control over what and how you say it. Similarly, marketing provides moderate control but frequently responds to consumer responses. For example, social media marketing is dependent on user participation, and you may change your plan based on responses. However, PR has limited control because it is frequently dependent on external media and public opinion. This makes it less predictable, yet it may be very effective when done correctly.

#4: Cost And Investment

Advertising typically requires a large budget, particularly for premium channels such as television or high-traffic internet platforms. However, marketing expenditures can vary significantly. Content marketing, for example, can be cost-effective if you utilize owned channels like blogs or email. PR can be relatively low-cost, especially if you focus on earned media, though PR agencies or relationship-building efforts may require some investment.

#5. Measurability And Metrics

ROI Calculator for Advertising, Marketing, and PR_ A Comprehensive Guide Download

Advertising is simple to track, with KPIs such as impressions, clicks, and conversions providing immediate insight into ROI. Marketing measures engagement KPIs across time, such as customer retention, lead generation, and brand awareness.

However, PR is more difficult to define because it is based on perception. You can use media mentions, brand sentiment, and reputation scores to calculate ROI, but the results may not be as apparent.

To summarize, the magic happens when you blend advertising, marketing, and public relations. For example, when Coca-Cola introduced a new product, they utilized advertising to increase visibility, marketing to engage customers with samples, and public relations to communicate the story behind the new flavor’s inspiration.

Advertising vs Marketing vs PR: When to Use Each for Maximum Impact

Marketing includes public relations and advertising. Although advertising, marketing, and public relations are distinct, it is critical to develop a cohesive strategy that incorporates all three to effectively communicate your brand’s message to your target audience. While your PR team may operate independently of your marketing and advertising teams, they should all share information and communicate about planned campaigns and events. This allows you to take advantage of every opportunity to amaze your target audience while also keeping your brand consistent and front of mind at all times. Here are a few examples where you can use each of them:

#1. Branding

It is pretty challenging to write a marketing blog post without mentioning branding. I wrote an entire blog post just on branding.

Why? Because when branding is done right, the brand becomes part of the product. A great example is when you see fonts based on brands, such as the Disney D. With a simple glance at a product promotion, a customer should recognize the company or at least feel a sense for the company or product values.

Let’s look at another example: the Kyte Baby clothing line.

If I didn’t know anything about the firm, I’d think it’s a baby clothes brand that employs high-quality, environmentally friendly materials. I derive these conclusions based on the pastel color palette, the photograph’s clarity and simplicity, and the presence of a rewards program for a baby brand.

If you are familiar with Kyte Baby, you will know that it is a family-owned and operated company that offers consumers sustainable bamboo items for newborns. At the bottom of their home page, they proudly announce that they are an “official member of the Kidizen Rewear Collective, supporting and reusing quality goods.” If that doesn’t perfectly embody Kyte Baby’s branding, then I don’t know what does.

Crafting brand standards is critical to the overall success of a product or service since it lifts a message from basic words to something more meaningful. An effective marketing team applies the client’s branding requirements to all they do, regardless of position in the team.

Let’s return to our Kyte Baby brand example. Marketing took the client’s firm objective and developed meaningful branding standards. Advertising designed the rewards program ad following those standards. Public Relations approved both a rewards program (customer-first) and the Kidizen Rewear cooperation as ways to support the Kyte Baby brand principles while attracting good press coverage.

#2. Promotion

A product or service rarely sells on its own. Will a product that sits on your desk but no one sees it ever sell? It’s like a tree falling in the woods when no one is around to hear it.

No. You have to promote it.

The three branches of marketing covered in this post are all involved in some form of promotion. Let’s review the definitions. Marketing is the process of promoting a product or service. Public relations is the process of maintaining a public image, which may also be viewed as supporting a specific image. And advertising creates advertisements that are subsequently presented or promoted to the public. Each branch promotes the client’s product or service distinctively.

I could spend a lot of time reviewing how to promote a business or product, but fortunately, I have already written loads of posts for your easy consumption.

#3. Sales

Everything comes down to money. How to store money, spend it, make it, and how people perceive its value. What is fascinating about marketing in general is that, while marketers do not sell items themselves, they have a significant impact on how effectively a product or service sells.

The traditional marketing team will focus on assuring a solid product-market fit, identifying the correct audience, and understanding how that group makes purchasing decisions.

Public relations will assist in maintaining the relationship with the audience while also keeping the firm looking professional. Finally, advertising will run adverts to attract the desired audience to the product or service.

#4. User Experience & Customer Experience

Sales are more than just the exchange of money for a product or service. Sales are also based on experience. Even non-service sales. I’m talking about UX and CX.

Marketing will focus on what the UX and CX should be, while PR and advertising will need to reinforce the intent. Think of it this way: Marketers want to ensure that website users and product purchasers have a great experience. For example, if the website is malfunctioning, the marketer will want to deploy a patch as soon as possible to avoid permanently damaging the user or customer experience.

Giving your customers a positive experience makes it easy to sell in the first place. Which, in turn, keeps clients. If you’ve been reading our site for a time, you’ll know that the cost of retaining clients is significantly lower than the expense of acquiring new ones. This means that maintaining consumers is far more profitable than acquiring new customers.

In terms of public relations, they will want to ensure that customers are satisfied and remain satisfied, because otherwise, the customer will blast the company on social media, resulting in a tarnished reputation (and an irate PR staff).

As for advertisers, they want to make sure that their ads are being received positively so as not to have a negative ripple effect on PR or marketing.

What is the difference between marketing and advertising?

In basic terms, marketing is the process of identifying customer needs and determining how best to meet those needs. In contrast, advertising is the exercise of promoting a company and its products or services through paid channels.

Why is PR more effective than advertising?

Public relations (PR) can be more effective than advertising because it can help build a brand’s reputation and establish trust, which can lead to long-term success.

Conclusion

Although advertising vs marketing vs PR are distinct, it’s important to devise a cohesive strategy that includes each to get your brand message across to your target audience. While your PR team may work independently from your marketing team and your advertising team, they should all share information and communicate about upcoming campaigns and events. That way, you can use every opportunity to impress your target audience and keep your brand consistent and top of mind, all the time.