ÄPPLEN OCH PÄRON
Varför PR och reklam inte kan mätas på samma sätt
Inspired by the current debate over the effectiveness of Public Relations (PR), the authors of the following thesis have sought to analyze how PR and advertising differ in terms of how they affect consumers. The subject of the thesis was chosen due to the lacking knowledge of how PR shapes consumer attitudes and intentions. The authors wish to upset the institutionalized myths which dominate in the PR-business. One example of such a myth is that the effectiveness of PR can be measured by the number of press releases an activity produces and that PR?s superiority over advertising is due to its higher trustworthiness. In order to test this, a number of classic measures for advertising effectiveness have been applied to PR. These include the degree of satisfaction, perceived quality and purchase intentions. An interesting fact is that advertising and PR differ significantly in their effects on consumers. The analysis has studied the so called handicap effect. The effect implies that advertising, which is perceived to be expensive, leads to a higher perceived quality for the advertised brand as opposed to advertising, perceived to be inexpensive. There is a proven long term correlation between high quality and brand profitability.The results show that PR and advertising do not have the same effects on consumers and that the two communication tools can not be compared using the same measures. Doing this would be the same as comparing apples to pears.