Can PR Campaigns Boost Credibility vs. Ad Campaigns? Yes, by as much as 76 Percent, Nielsen IAG Study Suggests
Categories: Advertising, Marketing, Media Relations, Public Relations, Publicity, SOAR Communications.
The headline from a recent news release from The Nielsen Company says
“Advertising Builds Confidence for Financial Brands in Crisis, Nielsen IAG Study Finds.”
In a nutshell, 55 percent of the study respondents said they had “complete confidence in the financial health and soundness” of their banks, insurance companies and investment firms IF “they had seen more advertising for their financial institution” during the previous six months.
This is a very exciting finding! I especially think it’s cool news for those in the advertising and marketing fields, especially since one of the main advantages of advertising is that you can completely control the content, delivery and timing of your messages in an advertising campaign. This is NOT the case with a PR campaign!
In addition, I also found what I consider to be an interesting nugget of information mentioned near the end of the release. Here’s the paragraph in question:
“When asked what factors would increase confidence in the safety and soundness of their financial institution, respondents cited:
- Seeing regular advertising for that institution (25%)
- Receiving regular mail or email offers from that institution (25%)
- Regularly seeing internet offers/advertising from that institution (21%)
- Reading positive stories in the press about that institution (44%)”
Note the last bullet point : 44 percent of the respondents said that “reading positive stories in the press about that institution” would (to quote from the opening sentence) “increase (their) confidence in the safety and soundness of their financial institution.
I’m not a math whiz by any means, but I know that 44 percent is greater than 25 percent. How much greater you ask? Seventy-six percent (76%) greater. [The difference is even greater vs. Internet ads/offers (109% greater), but I'll stick with the advertising comparison for this blog post.]
To me this seems pretty straightforward: PR changes attitudes and perceptions for more people.
Please understand – I am NOT advocating that companies stop advertising. As stated in the third paragraph above,
“. . . one of the main advantages of advertising is that you can completely control the content, delivery and timing of your messages in an advertising campaign.”
Unfortunately, when it comes to public relations (specifically media relations or publicity efforts), companies do NOT have such control — at least not in societies where a free and unfettered press is the norm.
In other words, once you
- get off the phone with a reporter,
- leave a journalist’s office,
- send out a news release,
- deliver a product for a review/evaluation,
- push “send” on your email to an editor,
- etc.
you have absolutely no control whatsoever that any story is going to be published about you, your company, product, service, issue or what-have-you, let alone whether said story will be positive.
You also have zero control over whether or not a story is going to be published at all. Or when or where said story might be published. Or its size/length. Or if it’s going to include artwork. Or anything at all — you have NO CONTROL!
However,
- if/when said story runs, and
- if it’s a positive story,
I believe that such media coverage generates significantly greater credibility than what you can produce through advertising.
How much so? Well . . . the Nielsen IAG study suggests that the difference could be as high as 76 percent greater.
[NOTE: There is no guarantee that the data from this research study can be extrapolated across industries other than the financial world.]
Nevertheless, if your goal is to boost credibility, public relations may be the way to go.
That said, please recognize that PR is not the right discipline for achieving every marketing and/or sales objective. That would be like recommending that the only tool you needed in your garage or toolshed is a hammer.
That’s why we always recommend examining all potential vehicles in the marketing communications mix and choosing the best mixture for the goals and objectives at hand.
Part of what’s got me so psyched about finding this Nielsen IAG study, however, is that I’ve been telling people for years that PR has a higher “credibility factor” than advertising (with a counterbalanced lower “control factor” than advertising). And for the first time, I now have some independent data that appears to support my claims.
Should anyone reading this blog post know of other studies/articles that similarly support such an idea, I’d love to know about them. Thanks.
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DISCLOSURE: SOAR Communications is the PR agency of record for three Nielsen properties: Outdoor Retailer, Interbike, and Health+Fitness Business Expo.
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