The primary purpose in the fields of marketing, advertising and public
relation is creating and developing the best public perception for your
client, be they a Fast Moving Consumer Goods company, a Hedge Fund or a
theatre company.
Public relations is, simply stated, the art and science of building
relationships between an organization and its key audiences. Examples
include: Corporations use Marketing Public Relations (MPR) to convey
information about the products they manufacture or services they
provide to potential customers to support their direct sales efforts.
Typically, they support sales in the short and long term, establishing
and burnishing the corporation's branding for a strong, ongoing market.
Corporations also use public-relations as a vehicle to reach
legislators and other politicians, seeking favorable tax, regulatory,
and other treatment, and they may use public relations to portray
themselves as enlightened employers, in support of human-resources
recruiting programs.
Non-profit organizations, including schools and universities,
hospitals, and human and social service agencies, use public relations
in support of awareness programs, fund-raising programs, staff
recruiting, and to increase patronage of their services.
Politicians use public relations to attract votes and raise money, and,
when successful at the ballot box, to promote and defend their service
in office, with an eye to the next election or, at career’s end, to
their legacy.
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.
The American Marketing Association suggests that Marketing is "the
process of planning and executing the pricing, promotion, and
distribution of goods, ideas, and services to create exchanges that
satisfy individual and organizational goals." Another definition,
perhaps simpler and more universal, it the process of moving people
closer to making a decision to purchase, use, follow, refer, upload,
download, obey, reject, conform, become complacent to another person's,
society's or organization's value. Simply, if it doesn't facilitate a
"sale" then it's not marketing.
However, the most widely accepted definition of marketing on a global
scale comes from the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) in the UK,
which is the largest marketing body in the world in terms of
membership. The definition claims marketing to be the "management
process of anticipating, identifying and satisfying customer
requirements profitably". Thus, operative marketing involves the
processes of market research, product development, product lifecycle
management, pricing, channel management as well as promotion. However,
marketing is more of a process-oriented cross function, not a direct
decision maker in these processes. It is one of the company's
management tools to ensure that products and services are developed
according to market requirements, and that they are profitable.
