A Branded World -The Importance of Public Relations Over Advertising in Brand Building

The Body Shop is a huge best-selling brand, while Pets.com has vanished into thin air. Both of these brands were first in their category and had a good chance to succeed in sales, but still developed differently. What is the reason for the outcome of those brands? To cut a long story short: The Body Shop relied on public relations to attract publicity, while Pets.com launched an expensive advertising campaign.
When it comes to branding (the building of a brand), many companies rely first and sometimes only on advertising. However, as of today, advertising has lost its former credibility and has turned into an art form. This has two reasons: Consumers feel bombed with empty promises during commercials, and advertising agencies fight for awards for the creativity of their developed ads.
The solution to this is clever PR. Public relations influences third parties (newspapers, TV shows, etc.) to publish favorable articles about the brand. Because PR itself is invisible and many people do not recognize it is there, public relations still has what advertising lacks: tons of credibility. However, most companies still rely on advertising to make their brand sell. This happens because public relations is difficult to control, while advertising can be developed exactly how planned. Nevertheless, companies need to understand that nowadays, advertising’s role has switched and should only be used for brand maintenance—years after the brand has been built through slow publicity by PR. Before that, advertising is mostly just money poured down the drain.