Publicity is a very different beast than advertising.DEFINING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PUBLICITY AND ADVERTISING
Dictionary.com defines Publicity as "Information that concerns a person, group, event, or product and that is disseminated through various media to attract public notice."
Dictionary.com also defines Advertising as "The activity of attracting public attention to a product or business, as by paid announcements in print, broadcast, or electronic media."
While two concepts seem very similar in nature, real difference lies in word "paid."
PUBLICITY IS NOT ALWAYS FREE
If certain resources need to be gathered together to launch a drive for publicity, then publicity cannot be thought of as free.
In fact, some publicity stunts can be very expensive to plan and to pull off. Additionally, press releases can consume a lot of time or money to get them to news sources that need to see them. Constructing an effective press release often requires a writing specialist to construct it. Then press release distributions can run $300 apiece if an experienced third-party vendor is contracted to get them delivered.
No matter cost of effective publicity, cost of same amount of media attention generated by advertising will always be much, much greater.
WITH THE RIGHT ANGLE, YOUR PUBLICITY CAN COST EVEN LESS
Joe Vitale has told story about how U.S. Parachute Association wanted to draw attention to one of their events. They had hired publicist Linda Credeur to help them to develop ideas to promote their upcoming event.
When Linda learned that elder George Bush had been only U.S. President to parachute from an airplane --- in WWII --- Linda thought it would be a great idea to "invite Bush to convention, and to even give him an award."
Although George Bush generally gets $50,000 an appearance, Linda was able to get Mr. Bush to attend event for free. Joe said that event was able to generate "wall-to-wall news coverage" with at least four camera crews in attendance for a week.
To read full story, please visit Joe Vitale's site at: http://www.mrfire.com/0018.html
LEARN TO SCALE YOUR PUBLICITY
Not all of us have resources to pull off an event on magnitude of U.S. Parachute Association convention. Despite fact that Mr. Bush attended and participated in event for free --- Bush even made an additional jump on his 75th birthday two years later --- convention still required U.S. Parachute Association to corral a lot of resources to make their event successful.