Are PR agencies better at ads than Ad agencies?

Editorial is a much more powerful tool in shaping people’s opinions than overt display advertising could ever be. People are more likely to take on the information as fact and use it to form their beliefs.

With the advent of all the new freesheets in the UK far more PR stories are making it into the editorial pages. Scamp has done a review of The London Paper and found that whilst ads were few and far between, there were plenty of PR stories included.

Scamp says:

“Victoria Beckham, AKA Posh Spice, buying a dress in Oxfam (second-hand clothes store chain run by a charity). Now, don’t tell me this is news. It isn’t. (How come there were cameras there?) It was surely originated by Oxfam’s PR agency.

“And it communicates brilliantly. “Hey, Oxfam clothes are so stylish, even Posh shops here.” I don’t imagine an ad could do the job better.

“Well, in a way this is an ad. It’s got a ‘visual’, with a small ‘headline’ underneath it. (Oxfam… the new Gucci? The Oxfam marketing department must be cock-a-hoop).

“But it’s way better than an ad. For a start, it’s ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE NEWSPAPER. Plus IT WAS FREE. Media spend zero. Plus it’s under the radar. It’s not ignorable like ads are.”