Publicity is the deliberate attempt to manage the public’s perception of a product or organization. The product could include anything from traditional goods and services, to celebrities, or works of entertainment.

From a marketing perspective, publicity is one of the variables that comprise the promotional mix. The other components of promotions are advertising, sales promotion, and personal selling. promotion is one of the variables that comprise the marketing mix.

Publicity is a tool of public relations. Whereas public relations is the management of all communication between the firm and selected target audiences, publicity is the management of product or brand related communications between the firm and the general public. It is primarily an informative activity (as opposed to a persuasive one), but its ultimate goal is to promote the organization’s products, services, or brands. A publicity plan is a planned program aimed at obtaining favorable media coverage for an organization’s products – or for the organization itself, to enhance its reputation and relationships with stakeholders.

A basic tool of the publicist is the press release, but other techniques include telephone press conferences, in-studio media tours, multi-component video news releases (VNR’s), newswire stories, and internet releases. For these releases to be used by the media, they must be of interest to the public ( or at least to the market segment that the media outlet is targeted to). The releases are often customized to match the media vehicle that they are being sent to. Getting noticed by the press is all about saying the right thing at the right time. A publicist is continuously asking what about you or your company will pique the reader’s curiosity and make a good story? The most successful publicity releases are related to topics of current interest. These are referred to as news pegs. An example is if three people die of water poisoning, an alert publicist would release stories about the technology embodied in a water purification product.

But the publicist cannot wait around for the news to present opportunities. They must also try to create their own news. Examples of this include:

• Contests
• Walkathons
• Art exhibitions
• Event sponsorship
• Arrange a speech or talk
• Make an analysis or prediction
• Conduct a poll or survey
• Issue a report
• Take a stand on a controversial subject
• Arrange for a testimonial
• Announce an appointment
• Celebrate an anniversary
• Invent then present an award
• Stage a debate
• Organize a tour of your business or projects
• Issue a commendation

The advantages of publicity are low cost, and credibility (particularly if the publicity is aired in between news stories like on evening TV news casts). New technologies such as weblogs, web cameras, web affiliates, and convergence (phone-camera posting of pictures and videos to websites) are changing the cost-structure. The disadvantages are lack of control over how your releases will be used, and frustration over the low percentage of releases that are taken up by the media.

Publicity draws on several key themes including birth, love, and death. These are of particular interest because they are themes in human lives which feature heavily throughout life. In television serials several couples have emerged during crucial ratings and important publicity times, as a way to make constant headlines. Also known as a publicity stunt, the pairings may or may not be truthful.

Publicists

A publicist is a person whose job is to generate and manage publicity for a product, public figure, especially a celebrity, or for a work such as a book or movie. Publicists usually work at large companies handling multiple clients.

Effectiveness of Publicity

The theory any press is good press has been coined to describe situations where bad behaviour by people involved with an organisation or brand has actually resulted in positive results, due to the fame and press coverage accrued by such events.

A good example would be Paris Hilton’s many antics, from lurid sex tapes to clumsy behaviour on TV shows actually increasing business at the family’s chain of Hilton Hotels.

Another example would be the Australian Tourism Board’s “So where the Bloody Hell are you?” Advertising Campaign that was initially banned in the UK, but the amount of publicity this generated resulted in the official website for the campaign being swamped with requests to see the banned ad.

Definition: Publicity is the means of using an external entity ( celebrities, people from the media, etc) to increase the awareness levels of the product, company, goods etc amongst the public and/or buying segment.

Links

• Publicity Resources
• MMA Publicity Resources – Australian focus

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Cheerleaders at a pep rally

Promotion is one of the four aspects of marketing. The other three parts of the marketing mix are product management, pricing, and distribution. Promotion involves disseminating information about a product, product line, brand, or company.

Promotion comprises four subcategories:

• Advertising
• Personal selling
• Sales promotion
• Publicity and public relations

The specification of these four variables creates a promotional mix or promotional plan. A promotional mix specifies how much attention to pay to each of the four subcategories, and how much money to budget for each. A promotional plan can have a wide range of objectives, including: sales increases, new product acceptance, creation of brand equity, positioning, competitive retaliations, or creation of a corporate image.

Example

The publicity for the 40th anniversary of the 1966 NCAA Basketball championship included

1. The renaming of a city street
2. A tie-in with an autobiography with the same title
3. The screening of a film with the same title
4. The release of a breakfast cereal box with coordinated materials
5. A pep rally on a university campus
6. Media coverage

Example 2: Veranda Park

A new residential development, Veranda Park, while under construction in Orlando, Florida, USA was promoted on-site using adverisements on the construction-site fence known as Fence Mesh. A brief look at how the marketing team met the basic marketing objectives:

1. Sales Increases

Prospective customers driving or walking in proximity of the outer perimeter of the new development were made aware of the real estate available for purchase.

2. New Product Acceptance

The public was made aware of the new construction a long time before it was finished. This gave the public a chance to gradually accept the new look of this area of the neighborhood. Rather than looking at piles of dirt and construction equipment, the fence mesh treated the public to a much more thoughtful view.

3. Brand Equity

The fence mesh built brand equity by prominently portraying the development’s name in a pleasing and artistic fashion. Compare this development to one without such a fence advertisement. Prospective buyers are much more likely to remember a development with fence mesh advertising over one which does not.

4. Positioning

The fence created an extremely distinct image of the high quality type of development under construction by use of images and text describing the available services and types of real estate.

5. Corporate Image

It would be fair to say that a corporation which cared enough about the appearance of their construction site to design, install and maintain a tasteful and artistic representation of their finished product on such a large scale might be perceived in a positive light.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

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Billboards and street advertising in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan, (2005)

Generally speaking, advertising is the promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas, usually by an identified sponsor. Marketers see advertising as part of an overall promotional strategy. Other components of the promotional mix include publicity, public relations, personal selling and sales promotion.

Online advertising is advertising on the Internet. This particular form of advertising is a source of revenue for an increasing number of websites and companies.

There are two sides to online advertising, a legitimate one and an illegitimate one. The legitimate side of online advertising includes search engine advertising, advertising networks and opt-in e-mail advertising. The illegitimate side is dominated by spamming.

Though the range of advertising options has expanded since in the commercialization of the Internet, the use of rich media and static images is extremely popular. The ever-increasing audience of online users will likely continue to be a major advertising market.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.