Kristy has a great way of explaining the big picture differences between marketing & PR. Excellent response!

Marketing/PR

In many organizations, PR reports to marketing and has a smaller budget than marketing. There are many reasons for that, but an important one is that marketing reports ROI (return on investment) in $$$ figures (sales), whereas PR is much harder to evaluate and translate into $$$. We’ll learn a lot about measurement and evaluation in this course, and now you can see the political implications of being able to quantify & demonstrate the results of PR.

Advertising/PR

An important point to think about is credibility. Here’s a scenario:

Clemson PR prof pays for ad in The Tiger. Ad reads:

“Dr. X is the bestest, greatest, smartest, most wonderful professor on campus!!!!”

Compare that to an article in The Tiger about Dr. X. It might not contain as many superlatives, but it does provide in depth, positive coverage of this professor, and testimonials from students and colleagues.

Which one would you believe more? Why?