What is the difference between marketing, advertising, and PR?

In advertising, you pay someone to show your ad to their audience.

Marketing is about presenting your products and services to people who might be interesting in buying them. Therefore, advertising is actually one (out of many) different forms of marketing.

PR (public relations) is about using communication to build and maintain relationships with groups or individuals that are important to your organization, like voters, stockholders, journalists, employees, customers, etc.

Want a deeper explanation?

In PR, there are many sub-disciplines depending on which group you’re communicating with. For example:

• shareholders, market analysts = investor relations (IR)
• politicians, legislators = lobbying
• voters, interest groups = public affairs
• angry people = crisis communications
• journalists, influencers = media relations
• online followings = community management
• market influencers, stakeholders = corporate communications
• customers, prospects = marketing PR

So, only ‘marketing PR’ falls under marketing, while most other PR sub-disciplines don’t. Instead, most things in PR fall under communications. (This is why larger companies have separate marketing- and communications departments.)

In conclusion:

1. Marketing is the umbrella term for advertising and many other ways to present your products and services to potential customers via paid channels.
2. Communications is the umbrella term for PR and many other ways to communicate with important groups or individuals via owned or earned channels.

Brand Promotion options in Cinema Halls