FITCH

The PR support
By : APRIL MAY TUDTUD-RAMOS
A LOT of companies these days are losing thousands of pesos worth of publicity opportunities each month. How? By placing ads without the support of publicity. To remind you the difference between the two, advertisements are paid and done in graphic-centered lay-outs while publicity is free and generated through stories.
Companies here in Cebu rely on the placement of ads to generate marketing exposure for their products or services. And that’s it. What they don’t know is; they could have supported such ads with news stories either through company created press releases or coverage done by members of the media.

When I handled a certain client, I encouraged them to maximize publicity in conjunction with the ads they intended to place. Their concentration was one newspaper loaded with oversized ads that failed to make the most of its space. I advised them to cut the size but to increase the frequency spread out in more suitable days of the week then spread out to more than one paper.
I introduced them to publicity management focused on press releases tailor-fit for individual sections in each paper – articles with business angles on the business pages; features of human interest for the lifestyle pages; and more generic informative press releases for the community pages.

Actually the dilemma of untapped publicity is multi faceted. First, you have to reassess your ad layouts and copies. One observation I have with print ads here in Cebu is that ninety percent of them are mere announcements, not true advertisements. What I mean is; there is clearly no graphic planning to speak of – the ads are mere text announcing an event or sale or sales and marketing promotion.
Maybe, from the looks of those ads, they are home-made. I would still advice the expertise of a good advertising agency in planning a company’s advertisement program. For companies who can’t afford them, find a good graphic artist and guide him towards the slant that you need.

Then plan your publicity in relation to your ad campaign. Remember not to fall again for Myth number 3 - PR is Advertisement & Promotions. Public Relations and its sub-specialty publicity are not advertising and vice versa. Neither is publicity inferior to advertising. In fact, it could be the opposite in this over-communicated era.
Honestly, do you believe the ads you hear or see these days? If you do maybe not hook, line and sinker. More often than not, you don’t even bother to read the copy. You just skim through it and look for more interesting stories.
I read an article entitled “The Power of Publicity” in the Toastmaster magazine dated September 2008 and in the sub-heading Publicity vs. Advertising it said: “…traditional advertising is becoming less and less effective, we are now hit with up to 5, 000 advertisements every day. Radios come with scan and seek buttons and TiVo allows consumers to fast forward through annoying chatter and ads… Most people focus on the stories…good stories… that’s why an article – a story – and its life-changing benefits is more effective than an advertisement.”
Hey, I’m not downplaying the role of advertising. That is the lifeblood of every media outfit. All I’m saying is don’t downplay the role of publicity. Le the two work together – and believe me the returns are endless.
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April May Tudtud-Ramos is an out-source corporate publicist since 1999. She is also an Advanced Communicator of Toastmasters International affiliated with the Queen City Toastmasters Club. For comments send e-messages to apriltudtudramos@yahoo.com.