The Relationship Between PR and Marketing

Its the age old debate among many people and also myself before I embarked on study in the field of public relations. What actually is public relations and how does it differ to marketing?

Kotler and Mindak (1978) were the first researchers to begin to define the difference between the two and how they could be used in a business structure. The following are points on the relationship between marketing and public relations as outlined by Kotler and Mindak (1978) on how they could both function in an organisation:

• Separate but equal functions (marketing and public relations have different functions,perspectives and capabilities).
• Equal but overlapping functions (both are important and separate functions but they share some terrain, particularly product publicity and customer relations; in addition, public relations serves as a ‘watchdog’ on the social responsibility of marketing).
• Marketing as the dominant function (marketing manages the relationship with all publics in the same way as the relationship with customers – ‘megamarketing’).
• Public relations as the dominant function (if public relations builds relationships with all key publics of the organization, then programmes to build relationships with customers, i.e. marketing, would be a subset of public relations).
• Marketing and public relations as the same function (public relations and marketing converge in concepts and methodologies and a single department manages the external affairs of the company).

No matter which way a company chooses to go when structuring their organisation for efficient use of both marketing and public relations both roles are integral to the workings of any successful business. As defined by social media blogger Shanna Mallon, marketing encompasses the process of promoting, selling or distributing a product or service which differs from public relations professionals who encourage public understanding and goodwill towards a particular company and its products and services. 

It is without a doubt that society sees the overlaps in the job roles of both marketing and public relations and as we continue to find new ways of doing things and technology input increases there may not be a need for both roles. I however believe that one department would not be able to do their job without the other. Without public relations the goodwill of a business would not be known by potential clients and therefore the product bypassed due to it being unrecognisable. Without marketing there would be no product design, no push for the sell, no job for PR. The two must go hand in hand.

Check out Shanna Mallon's blog for more differences between PR and marketing: http://www.blogher.com/what-difference-between-marketing-and-pr