Advertising, Public Relations and Advertorials

Listed below is a simple checklist highlighting the main difference between PR, advertising and advertorial.

Advertising

• Advertising is paid for by buying space in the various media available.
• Advertising is something a company says about itself. It can say almost anything it wants to as long as it does not infringe advertising codes or laws.
• With advertising a company has control over what and when it will appear.
• With advertising, you get as much as you pay for.

Public Relations

• Editorial space is not paid for. It is only available on merit.
• PR is all about disseminating information about a company; correctly projected it will reach a wide audience.
• Editorial material is based on information that has been supplied or that the media has obtained independently. You have no control over what happens, so don’t ask!
• The amount of space a paper or publication devotes to a story is purely an editorial decision. One favourable paragraph or short story can be worth a whole page of advertising - and it’s free.

Advertorials

Advertorials offer a number of benefits including guaranteed coverage, control and image enhancement. Research shows that advertorials do attract good readership. They can, however, prove expensive as you actually buy space in the publication. Unlike an actual advertisement, your information appears in the form of an editorial - usually in a highly visual format. You can command a high degree of influence over the content, both photographically and editorially. The publication, in close cooperation with you, will produce the copy to retain their editorial style.