Advertisement Vs PR

Advertisement is defined as a paid form of communication where a sponsor controls the message.

Public Relations is defined as generating goodwill in order to promote a product, service, company or person.

While launching a new product the question always remains as to the amount to be spent on Ads Vs amount to be spent on PR. Launching a product with Advertisement takes a totally different route in comparison to launching a product with PR. Letting go of the advertisments is not so easy for the managers. The big bang theory of launch is so ingrained in them that they would seldom go for a PR based launch. But wisdom suggests that a PR launch would help build the brand much better than ads. The PR launch involves seven steps

• The Leak
• The slow build up that increases curiosity
• Recruitment of allies (Enemy's enemy)
• The bottom up rollout
• Product modification
• Message modification
• The soft launch or the test market

But often market dynamics and the threat from competitors necessitates a quick launch of the product where PR is beaten hands down by the Ad approach. So more often than not the PR approach is seldom followed. But if pursued the probability of sucess of the brand increases multifold.

Origin of Brands

While writing my first post what better to write about than the first marketing book that I have read in my life - Origin of Brands. The book by Al and Jack Ries compares the Darwinian theory of Divergence with the current scenario of brands and how companies that have failed to adhere to the same have lost out in the game of survival of the fittest.

The author takes numerous examples to illustrate how in the long run products diverge into various categories to give rise to new brands just like how nature diverged into various species. She also shows how convergence as a concept has gained so much ground without any sucesss story to back the claims.

After forming a base elucidating the importance of divergence he moves on to showing how the first mover advantage is critical in branding. It is not important to introduce a new brand first but it is of the utmost importance to be the first in the minds of the consumer. In a perception dominated world all wars are won in the minds of the consumer. She takes examples of how McDonald's as the first hamburger chain, IBM as the first mainframe computer, Microsoft as the first software company, Coke as the first Cola captured the minds of the consumers and have never looked back.

The author does not discount the Survival of the second player, only that he mandates staying away from the leader rather than copying and staying close to it. He suggests that positioning a second brand as an enemy to the current leader provides a better chace of success than a copy cat posoitioning.

The major learnings from the book have been that, to build brands :

• One should think category first, and come up with generic name
• Create a small brand name and capture the minds of the consumer
• Try to be the first in the category - Survival of the firstest
• If late, try to go for an opposite positioning - survival of the secondest
• Create an enemy to the brand so as to create a stir
• Finally remember that brands always diverge to give rise to more brands and never converge unless convenience mandates it so.