For a long time, companies did not care about their image, putting marketing of products first among the goals of advertising companies.
“Image is a purposefully formed image designed to have an emotional and psychological impact on someone with the goal of popularization, advertising.” (see 5) i.e. image – this is the general impression that people create about a particular person, company or company. The image is always socially determined, has an active impact on public opinion, and dramatically affects the results of business activity.
- Ogilvy explains the need for a good and stable image as follows:
A brand with a stable reputation provides a constant volume of production and revenues growing from year to year. A stable brand is unusually tenacious, and this property gives huge savings over time.
- Brands with a stable reputation provide higher prices in the market and good sales.
- Stamps with a stable reputation are more resilient. In the competition of prices, they survive much easier than unstable brands. They have little to lose with the advent of a new “star” and quickly regain their authority as soon as the element of newness of the appearing toavar begins to weaken.
- Stamps with a stable reputation give more than expected
They bring significant profits for every dollar invested in them.
- Brands with a stable reputation are always ready for the offensive. They can always expand their spheres of influence.
- Brands with a strong reputation are especially loved by wholesalers. And not only wholesalers, but also everyone else – distributors, customers, trainers …
- Brands with a strong reputation increase the assets of the company that owns them.
- Brands with a strong reputation work to save you time, money and energy. ”
They will help you deal with temporary setbacks.
To achieve the highest efficiency, public relations and advertising activities should be centrally coordinated. According to S. Black, a company is able to achieve “quite satisfactory results” if the head of the advertising department is at the same time the head of the PR department. If the company has 2 autonomous departments, then a strong relationship should be established between them and the developed marketing strategy should be coordinated with each department. The best option is when both departments are subordinate to the same director or collegial governing body.
Some researchers believe that advertising is an integral part of PR, because “The fact that advertising is paid does not change the essence of its definition. … Since advertising is one of the means of communication with the public, there is every reason to attribute it to PR …” (see 1) “PR is the art and science of achieving harmony through mutual understanding based on truth and full awareness” (see 1) R. Harlow gives a slightly different definition “PR is one of the management functions that helps to establish and maintain communication , understanding, located I and cooperation between the organization and its public. “
Communication with the public is a term that is often misinterpreted and described by them as any activity, starting with marketing and ending with the holding of “open door days”, while in reality this is a very specific process. Each company, organization, association and government body has groups of people who are influenced by everything that this organization does or declares. These groups include employees, customers, shareholders, competitors, or simply consumers. Each of these groups can be defined as the public of the organization. A process known as public relations (“public relations”) is used to manage public relations.
In short, the goal of all that is known as public relations is to influence public opinion. In one case, the goal may be to gain public support, in another – public understanding or neutrality, and in the third, a normal reaction to press requests.
Advertising is understood as openly sponsored and paid by the seller relationship between him and the buyer. Of course, as with public relations, the purpose of advertising is to influence public opinion. However, this goal is usually achieved through open efforts to sell the goods or services of the company. “Advertising is a printed, handwritten, oral or graphic awareness of a person, goods, services or social movement, openly coming from the advertiser and paid for in order to increase sales, expand clientele receiving votes or public approval. ”
As a rule, when they say that advertising is in the PR sphere, they mean corporate advertising. There are several types of corporate advertising, including public relations advertising, company advertising, advertising to create a distinctive image and advertising to attract fresh energy.
Advertising public relations is a type of corporate advertising and is used in cases where the company wants to directly contact its customers to express their feelings or emphasize a point of view. When a company decides to change its name, logos, trademarks or company spelling, as well as in cases of mergers with another large company, it uses advertising to maintain corporate identity. In 1986, the two giant corporations Barrows and Sperry merged into a new company, which was decided to give the name “Uniziz”, and the task of corporate advertising was to bring this news to the attention of employees, current and potential customers.
The print company was accompanied by television advertising in news programs and sports issues, as well as postal advertising activities. According to rough estimates, the cost of the advertising company was about $ 20 million. A few more examples can be listed when the renaming of a company was accompanied by huge expenses for corporate advertising: the renaming of Amerie Harvester to Neyvistar, the change of the name of the Consolidated Foods corporation to Sara Lee Corporation.
In recent years, the term “corporate advertising” began to be called the entire range of advertising, not related to a particular product, but designed to improve the image of the company. Traditionally, this type of advertising was called branded. Companies and even advertising professionals themselves have always questioned or simply misunderstood the effectiveness of corporate advertising. Retailers especially were of the opinion that corporate advertising has its merits, but it doesn’t make the cash register work faster.
This was because,
- Firstly, corporations do not define the goals of their companies.
- Secondly, they do not measure results. In a recent poll conducted by Gallagher Report, only one in four of American advertisers said they assess changes in public opinion after a corporate advertising campaign. Most work blindly.
- Thirdly, only a little is known about effective corporate advertising methods. Marketing departments and advertising agencies are very familiar with product advertising, but when it comes to corporate advertising, they turn into amateurs.
- Fourth, only a few advertising agencies are familiar with corporate advertising. For them, this business is not core. They know how to sell toilet paper to housewives, or make an ad for chewing gum, or how to sell beer to workers. However, corporate advertising requires professionals who feel at home in a big business. “