BMAA's Hot Take: Our View on The Difference between Marketing and Public Relations

For as long as I can remember marketing and public relations have always had a constant debate on which method works best, what’s the need for one over the other, and what PR really does for your business that marketing cannot.

Marketing focuses on the buying and selling of a product whereas Public Relations focuses on the reputation of the brand (company) as a whole. The relationship between marketing and PR is that Marketing’s immediate goal is sales whereas Public relations immediate goal is mutual understanding or positioning of the organization with its key publics.

If we take marketing and PR from a personal brand perspective, think Colin Kaepernick. His platform in my opinion is one that shows the relationship between marketing and PR well.

While taking a knee cost him his marketing value in playing football. His PR team had to create mutually beneficial relationships with media outlets, brands within his key public to develop a story behind the movement to protect the overall brand of Colin Kaepernick. The PR strategy then became how do we set this narrative in a way for it to be optimistic to his career, not damaging, and still make him marketable.  

The debate about PR not being important should end simply because brands do not survive from buying and selling alone. Although possible, the difference occurs when the goal for the product or person is because not everything needs a PR strategy. However, PR drives conversation that pushes the marketing strategy even more. PR allows consumers to feel like they are a part of the family that just so happens to sell to them.

In an unbiased opinion, marketing and public relations need to stand alongside each other because each area of expertise is valuable to the next.