We are “designers” when we speak about what we do professionally. We might also be artists, but in the context of web design for hire, we are “designers” creating a visual experience that communicates a message, a design reflective of a strategy. However, what we do and the world we work in there can often be confusion as to difference between the fundamentals of this communication such as “advertising”, “promotion” and “publication relations” – as well as the base understanding of “marketing” that is the bunch.
A website is often a marketing endeavor (most often), it is typically some form of advertising, promotion or public relations. Because of this, it is important to know and understand the difference between the three. The distinction isn’t always clear and we often question what it is we are actually doing, always in pursuit of better understanding the objective and tone of the message we are designing for.
There is a great quote that I remember from my early marketing courses that helps keep the distinction pretty clear in a real world context:
If the circus is coming to town and you paint a sign saying 'Circus Coming to the Fairground Sunday,' that's advertising. If you put the sign on the back of an elephant and walk him through town, that's promotion. If the evening news shows the elephant walking through the mayor's flower bed, and you can get the mayor to comment about it, that's public relations.
In this advertising and social media driven industry that was once the “information super highway”, things tend to be called or understood as “advertising” when they often are not. One thing that often gets lost is the fact that advertising is a “paid mass-mediated attempt to persuade”. That is the shortest and most direct definition, but the key components are “paid” and “persuade” – it is a commissioned message with the hopes of a returned action.
Three basic textbook definitions to help better understand these three concepts:
- Public Relations: The process of evaluating stakeholder attitudes, identifying a marker’s products and activities with stakeholders’ interests, and using nonpaid two-way communication to reach stakeholder audiences and build long-term relationships.
- Advertising: Any paid form of non-personal communication link, initiated by an identified marketer, to establish or continue exchange relationships with customers and, at times, with other stakeholders.
- Promotion: The mechanism whereby information about the product offering is communicated to the customer and includes public relations, advertising and sales, and other tools to persuade customers to purchase the product/service offering.
When designing our message it is good to know what the message is, in really understanding that communication and strategy that our designs ultimately derive from. Not all websites are marketing endeavors, but when they are (or facets within) it’s important for us to know the distinction between the various components and truly design for the strategic message at hand.
