Can You Launch A Brand Solely With PR?

Launching a brand with public relations (PR) and launching a brand with advertising are two entirely different things. If you think the shift from one to another requires little, you are wrong. You have to change the entire approach. A few pointers:

Define the enemy

Defining your enemy allows you to focus your strategy on being totally different from that of your enemy. So when Procter & Gamble launched a new mouthwash, they zeroed in on the enemy "" Listerine, the bad-tasting mouthwash. P&G positioned their product Scope as the good-tasting mouthwash and it became a strong No 2 brand.

The original title of our latest book was The PR Era. But then we asked ourselves, "Where's the enemy there?" In changing the title to The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR we created an enemy, and thus a publicity potential.

Advertising works quite to the contrary. Consumers hate it when you single out a competitor to attack in your ads.

Leak the story

A PR programme usually starts with a leak of it to key reporters and editors. Newsletters and Internet sites are the favourite targets. That's the way the Segway (a high-tech scooter) was launched. About 11 months before its formal introduction, the product was leaked to Inside.com.

The formal launch saw Segway being introduced on ABC's Good Morning America where Diane Sawyer and Charles Gibson gave it a spin. Naturally, Segway made it to all the evening news shows as well as most of the nation's newspapers.

An advertising programme, on the other hand, is normally launched like a D-day attack. It is usually kept a top secret until the day the first ad runs.

Start at the bottom

With PR, there's little choice to do it differently. Unless you have an earth-shattering invention on your hands, you start slowly and hope the media coverage will gradually expand.

In advertising, you start the programme with a "big bang", sometimes with a Super Bowl ad. And since consumers tend to ignore advertising messages, the new ad programme has to be big, bold and catchy enough to get above the "noise level" and get noticed.

Recruit allies

Why do it alone when you can get others to help you? The slow buildup of a PR programme allows enough time to recruit allies to your cause.

When we wrote The Fall of Advertising, we also thought about the natural allies for such a book, the obvious ones being the independent PR firms that have been losing business to the PR subsidiaries of the big advertising conglomerates.

So we sent advance copies to the 124 largest independent PR firms in the country and followed up with media stories about the book. These mailings generated a lot of response along the lines of "We'll buy copies to send them to clients and prospects."

Advertising programme has a difficult time recruiting allies. The problem being issues about time and money. With a big-bang launch, there is usually little time to line up supporters. Also, advertising alliances usually fall apart over the question of who pays for what.

Roll-out the programme

You have to crawl before you learn to walk, and you have to walk before you can run. The media works on similar lines. You need to start small, perhaps with a mention in a newsletter, and then move on to the trade press.

From the trade press, you then move up the ladder to one of the general business publications. And eventually, you might see your new product or service on NBC Nightly News. So your brand creates its own momentum as you move up the media ladder.

You can't do that with advertising. The idea here is to launch the campaign with a big bang and follow up with smaller "reminder" advertisements.

Modify the product

Feedback is an important element in a PR launch. By launching the public-relations programme ahead of the actual product introduction, there is an advantage of having enough time to modify the product before it goes on sale.

Advertising works differently. Once an advertising programme is launched, a company is committed. There is little feedback and no time to change the product or service.

For instance, Apple launched the Newton MessagePad with a traditional big bang advertising campaign including TV commercials. But because of its flawed handwriting-recognition software, the product received scathing reviews.

Especially devastating was a full week of Garry Trudeau's cartoon strip Doonesbury mocking the Newton: "I am writing a test sentence," came out as "Siam fighting atomic sentry."

Palm Computing took the Newton idea and simplified it into Palm Pilot that went on to become an enormous success. A slow rollout of the Newton could have helped Apple do the same thing.

Modify the message

Which one attribute should you focus on when you launch a new product? Volvo spent years advertising the durability of its cars. Yet the media fell in love with the safety aspect of Volvos.

They carried stories about Volvo's invention of the three-point lap-and-shoulder seat belt, the collapsible steering column, front and rear crumple zones and so on.

Volvo finally threw in the durability towel and switched their advertising to the safety issue. Little surprise that the sales took off. So forget focus groups. Why pay consumers for advice when the media will give it to you for free?

However, an advertising campaign is cast in stone. It's embarrassing to change messages in the middle of an advertising campaign.

Launch "soft"

How long should the PR phase of a new product launch take? It all depends. That's why we recommend a "soft" launch. The new product or service should be launched only after the PR program has run its course. But neither too soon and nor too late.

In advertising, a programme is usually linked directly with the product's availability and the first ad runs on the very first date the product is available for sale.

Can you launch a brand solely with PR? Yes, but for that you have to change your marketing philosophy.