Difference between Public Relations and Publicity

Category: Academics

Every organization should understand the importance of public relations and publicity and the difference between them. ­­­­Even though, Public Relations and Publicity are two separate things but still they are interrelated. Good publicity campaigns lead to PR extensively. Many companies invest majorly in advertisements and promotional activities to grab the attention of their target audiences. Irrespective of the cost of the publicity campaign, most of the enterprises agree to spend a fortune to create brand awareness and an image that will stay in the mind of their target audiences. It is said that PR professionals can carry out publicity effortlessly but publicity experts are unable to perform the functions of a PR professional. Public relation is a broad term including publicity. It helps to maintain strong relationship with an organization, its employees, stakeholders, customers whereas publicity majorly focuses on strengthening the press coverage. Publicity is much easier than PR, and anyone can do it. But PR professionals require skills that go beyond just handing out press releases to the journalist. The objective of public relations and publicity is almost same, that is to grab the attention of the media professionals towards the client; however Publicity is just a small part of the PR that functions to maintain goodwill and credibility of the client in the eyes of the public. The principle opinion at work in reality is that, an effective PR strategy can create a good impression about the client which leads to amazing success and outstanding results. The author of this opinion article is Ms. Sukirti Gupta a Deputy Manager at PR Professionals