PR v advertising

I was in Waterstones on Saturday and came across the advertising section. I have to say I was impressed. The quality of ideas is tremendous.

Nothing new there. However, advertising is sometimes seen as the arch rival of PR for budgets.

It is nothing new for me to hear that a company has spent thousands on advertising with no result and they might as well have given it away.

It is easy in a pitch to acquiesce and concede the point and that PR is wonderful and highly cost effective.

The point for me is that if advertising is creative and well targeted it can work well. It can really grab a reader's attention. There is no need to see advertising as a rival. Indeed, the impact of some of the advertising campaigns I leafed through could teach the PR profession a thing or two.