The Difference between PR and Publicity

The two terms Publicity and Public Relations (PR) are often termed synonymous but are in actuality two completely different disciplines. If you want to leverage the power of media in promoting your business then it’s a must for you to start with knowing the difference between Publicity and PR.

What all is Publicity?

Publicity is the art of attracting and achieving media’s attention and gaining as much market visibility with the public as possible. The primary focus of publicity is to achieve the maximum number of press coverage. The only thing involved with publicity is getting more the number of coverage, and it has nothing to do with how exactly media is portraying that particular event or story. This type of media stint will either up with good publicity or a bad one. Talking about the bad publicity it’s like making a story for an actress’s bad dressing style at her film’s promotional event instead of focusing on her tremendous performance in the movie. Turning towards good publicity, it’s like getting press coverage of a hometown boxer bringing home an Olympic gold medal after much struggle.

Considering the point that people don’t want always to read coring news and yearn for something unusual, interesting, exciting, and controversial and often an emotion provoking scandalous stuff. And, publicity stints are meant for info-tainment involving any of the above mentioned reactions. Media companies want to maintain high ratings with their audience and so chances of getting news stories involving publicity stints in media is quite easy. But such stories or news coverage can’t guarantee enhancement of your brand’s credibility or reputation.

What is Public Relations (PR)?

Public relation (PR) is the strategic process of getting positive media presence in order to maintain the reputation of an individual, organization or brand in the eyes of target audience. The difference between PR and publicity is simply that the former is concerned more with managing the reputation of the brand over simply getting tons of coverage and ink that the latter actually dies for. Publicity is one of the several tools that PR agencies at times use to shape up the consumer opinions favorably towards their client.

Damage control is also a characteristic feature that differs the two. One can earn a lot of publicity, especially the bad one if a thing or two goes wrong. However, use of PR is done for a completely opposite purpose. Instead of keeping the company’s reputation at stake, PR is more of repairing and uplifting the image of a company. This is known as crisis PR and this service is mostly provided with all the PR companies in Delhi but to get well- reputed position in market it is advised to go with the services of the reputed PR services in Delhi only.

Should You Get Publicity Or PR For Your Business?

According to the PR experts from the reputed PR firms, one should promote themselves or their organization with a great mix of both. Publicity should not be another strategy but instead it should be the part of PR strategy only.  The most important thing to remember is that a great PR strategy in hand is far better and valuable than the occasional mention in the paper or on television. Publicity is important as well to shape the way your audience perceives your brand and the credibility associated with it.