Abstract:

This paper is concerned with interrelations between public relations and marketing. This relationship has always been ambiguous and controversial. The chief controversy hinges around delineating the respective roles of the two functions. Both marketing professionals and academics have tended to treat public relations as a subset of the marketing mix - a subset largely concerned with simply generating publicity in support of marketing goals. This view largely ignores the more strategic role envisioned for public relations and espoused by public relations practitioners and academics who see public relations as fulfilling a mediating function between an organisation and key stakeholder publics within its environment (Grunig and Hunt, 1984; Grunig et al, 1992; Kitchen and Moss, 1995). The first part of this paper performs the role of literature review and commentary upon the development of public relations. The second part of the paper describes the research design and the findings obtained from a qualitative study, carried out with seven major fast-moving consumer goods firms in the United Kingdom. With each firm, responses were obtained from both senior public relations/public affairs AND marketing executives - the aim being to compare and contrast the responses. In the event differences between the two groups were minimal suggesting that there is not, as yet, a clearly identifiable and established relationship between the two functions within this sample of firms, but rather that substantive differences exist both within and between firms. These differences underline the ambiguous nature reflective of research in this unexplored yet highly critical area - essential to communications of both types in today's turbulent competitive environment.