I’m going to preface this by saying that I mean no offence to anyone who works in advertising. Some may say I fit into that mould, but unless I’m trying to get out of doing a phone survey (works like a charm), I will vehemently argue against you. I wrote a post a few weeks ago about Defining PR- this may be a bit of a follow-up as I continue on my quest to find the ideal universal definition. One thing that defines advertising is how blantant it can be; PR tends to be far more subtle. In fact the best PR affects consumers without them ever knowing it took place. Advertising on the other hand? It wants to be in your face. Advertising is often considered a success if it just gets you talking about it. So I’m playing right into their hands…

There are several things that bother me about advertising but one in particular really gets my goat: when one company puts down its main competitor in an effort to push product. Biggest offender? Pepsi. From what I can see, they seem to spend the majority of their advertising time and budget on putting down Coke. Now I haven’t seen their budget- I don’t know the figures and I don’t plan on guessing. I’m only going on what I see- but what I see isn’t so creative. If you have to put down your main competition in order to sell your product, somthing’s wrong with your approach. Just tell us why you have the better one. To me, it comes off looking pathetic. Same goes for the Pepsi Challenge, where kioks in malls and at events would have you guess which sip tastes better, hoping of course, that you’ll “unknowingly” choose Pepsi. So let me get this straight…you know Coke is better and you need to prove that we can’t tell them apart so that we’ll buy yours? Personally, I prefer Coke and as long as Pepsi spends their dollars putting Coke down, they will lose my money along with my respect.

A newer offender is Apple. Now I have always had a PC. I know them better, they work for me. I have worked on an Apple, however, and they are nice- nice looking, nice to use. No complaints. They worked magic with the iPod, everyone but me has one, good for them, it’s also a nice little gadget. They have done great things to revamp their image over the last few years and kudos for that. But as soon as they started their advertising campaign with the older, conservative “PC Man” and the young, hip and cool “MAC Dude,” they lost me. Find a more creative way to tell us why you’re better; don’t put down your competition to do it! If I was considering an iPod when my wonderful little Creative Muvo dies, I’m not now.

It’s advertisements such as those that make me proud to be in PR. We don’t put down the competition to push our product. We have to find more creative ways to get it in the media and on consumer’s radar. Blatancy doesn’t work for us. And while I know that advertising people work very hard, PR people don’t have the option of taking the easy way out.