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Public Relations
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 Many people ask, what is Public Relations? Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft was quoted as saying:"If I only had two dollars left I would spend one dollar on PR."In a nutshell, it is the ability to promote one’s cause or client through the use of non-paid articles in newspapers and magazines, through interviews on radio or television and on the Internet. With advertising, you buy space or time in a print or media outlet. Therefore, you control the message you send. However, people know it's advertising. They know the print ad or broadcast commercial is biased in your favor because you paid for it.
Public relations, on the other hand, is the craft of getting your message across in a more objective way. Editors and producers decide whether their outlet will carry your message. There are no guarantees that it will get into that media outlet. Your message can be bounced by a "sexier" story at the last minute. With all these downsides, what's the upside of
 public relations? When an objective observer mentions your company, personnel, products or services,  your message gains more credibility. People know that you're not paying for this mention, so they now have an outside observer validating your message. Public relations reinforces the messages in your advertising and marketing work. As Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Airlines, told a reporter: "If your staff works enormously hard to create something they are proud of, it's foolish if you don't let the world know about it. Using yourself to get out and talk about it is a lot cheaper and more effective than a lot of advertising. In fact, if you do it correctly, it can beat advertising hands down and save tens of millions of dollars."Public relations and advertising objectives should be complementary components of one’s comprehensive marketing campaign. If you take a scattershot approach, you will have scattershot results. You shouldn't roll out your advertising until you've taken care of everything else, including such items as market research, pricing, distribution, customer-service routing and public relations.
BPR COVERAGE: In 2005 alone, B/PR clients were interviewed on CBS, NBC and ABC nationally and internationally. Coverage of DOXA Watches of Switzerland alone in a ten day period was valued in excess of $1 million dollars! Liz
 Smith wrote about B/PR clients in her internationally syndicated column more than six times in 2002 and 15 times in 2004. In 2005, B/PR clients appeared in US Magazine and on Entertainment Tonight, to name a few. Liz Smith’s column alone appears in more than 300 newspapers. The value of coverage in Liz Smith’s column alone in 2003 was more than $1,080,000.00 USD. Placement of public relations articles is valued at the rate that space would cost if it were paid for at the advertising rate. Since its inception, B/PR has
 handled international public relations for a variety of clients including Beiersdorf, Inc., parent company of Nivea Lotion; the Barrett-Jackson Auction; internationally best-selling author Clive Cussler; DOXA Watches of Switzerland, IHS, Inc. and other clients. As our world becomes more global, B/PR will remain at the forefront of international public relations. |
