Book Review:

The Fall of Advertising & The

Rise of PR
By Al Ries & Laura Ries

Submitted to:
Mushtaque Ahmed
Course Instructor: Integrated Marketing Communications

Submitted by:
Nazmus Saadat
Roll-115

Batch-19

Institute of Business Administration, University of

Dhaka
September 27, 2014

Selling your story yourself does not make you credible; its what other people say
about you, makes you credible. This is the true essence of this book.
The book is divided into 5 parts. The first part of the book has portrayed
advertising as a thing of the past. It is no longer the effective way to convince
customers. People do not trust advertisers. In a survey entitled Public Perception of
Honesty, advertisers are listed between insurance salesmen and car salesmen.
This is not a positive comparison.
Moreover, advertising has become more like a corporate art. Ad men no longer try
to sell products, they try to win awards. They seek creativity rather than sales
figures. But what is lauded and what works are quite often two different things. A
successful ad campaign should be translated into a corresponding rise in sales;
otherwise there is no meaning in doing it.
Ad also lacks credibility. When bad publicity comes in the way, running ads wont
solve the problem; after an airline loses a plane, it will generally cancel ads for a
month or so, just drop off the radar. You cant advertise your way back into the
publics good graces.
On the contrary, as the second part of the book portrays, Public Relations, the
ability to generate publicity and discussion in the media of your product, is the best
and perhaps the only way to truly and successfully launch a new brand. The
example of Starbucks is given here. It started out as an edgy, hip place to hang out,
popular among the young and attractive. They emphasized the quality of their
coffee, cultivated a very sophisticated, bohemian image, and quietly spread their
reach across the country. As they became more and more proliferate, a buzz began
to grow, and the media began talking. They were the first of their kind, a specialty
coffee store, and so captured the attention of the media as well as that of the
average consumer. The buzz only grew and grew, and so did Starbucks. Their
growth was not only despite of, but assisted by a lack of advertising.
PR marketing depends upon using third sources to sell products Going through
trusted intermediaries (journalists, spokespersons, influencers) rather than going
straight to the consumers.
There are 4 essentials to build a good PR campaign:
1. Slow Build Up: Growing the buzz slowly through a steady stream of
information from prominent & credible newsmakers.
2. New Category: Papa John portraying itself as gourmet pizza chain, Little
Caesar as a cheap one.
3. New Brand Name: Its best for a brand to mean one thing strongly rather
than many things weakly. Such as: razors for Gillette, rather than for it to
mean many things, like razors and toothbrushes.
4. A Credentialed Spokesperson: A spokesperson should be charismatic,
persuasive, but most importantly, trustworthy. Such as: Tiger Woods for
selling golf clubs, Michael Jordan for selling basketball shoes.
In this second part, criticisms about line extension and brand name extension
have also been made. Coca-cola is a sugary, carbonated drink. Coca-Cola Blak is a

carbonated coffee-based soft drink Coca-Cola Blak didnt succeed. Similarly, the
name Levi means jeans, so Levis Tailored Classics didnt do well but it did when it
changed the name to Dockers. In case of brand name extension, the original
brands reputation suffers.
The third part defines the new role for advertising which is maintaining brands and
keeping it on the right course e.g. Body Shop, offering all-natural cosmetic products,
was the first of its kind and generated all sorts of favorable publicity. However, there
was no sustained advertising campaign to follow up on its success. The brand has
now lost its leadership position to newer competition.
However, if the trend is weak, advertising does not help. If people arent driving
SUVs anymore and youre an SUV company, then you probably want to focus on a
new brand that can mean small cars rather than trying to change your old brand to
mean something new. Its much easier to make a new association rather than
change an old one.
Advertising is also useful for products which by their very nature receive very little
publicity, of little favorable publicity; things such as candy, cigarettes or grain
alcohol, which much as we love them, are rather bad for us.
The fourth part tells us about the differences between Advertisement and PR.
Advertising is the wind and PR is the sun. Advertising directs where PR convinces.
Advertising is spatial where PR is linear. Advertising takes place with a blast where
PR builds up slowly. Advertising is the visual where PR is the verbal. Advertising is all
encompassing. PR is targeted. Advertising is self endorsement where PR is third
party endorsement. Advertising is short lived where PR is not. Advertising is
expensive where PR is inexpensive. Its much cheaper to keep the same brand for
advertising purposes, but a PR campaign around a new brand is going to generate
much more buzz. Advertising relies on humor and entertainment, while PR simply
delivers information. Advertising is uncreative, while PR is creative. PR has to
position its product to appeal to consumers; position itself in their minds.
Advertising just tells them that theyre interested. PR is credible, Advertising is not.
This is simply a matter of trust. PR campaigns utilize trusted sources. Advertising, as
previously discussed, is not trusted. Advertising favors Line extensions PR favors
new Brands. Advertising is Brand maintenance. PR is brand building.
The book ends with three post-scripts: One for management, one for P.R
managers, and one for advertisers. The one for management stresses that the
dominant ideology in marketing should not be advertising, but PR. Public Relations
gets the ball rolling, advertising just keep its rolling. In addition, they stress that
creativity is overrated. Advertising should not have creativity as its first goal.
Advertisings goal is to serve a buttressing function, keeping the brand in the minds
of consumers rather than putting it there.
For Advertisers, they basically tell them why theirs is the dominant ideology. As the
more well-established and well-monied of the two disciplines, advertising reins

foremost in the minds of marketers because thats where the money is, and thats
where theyre told the influence is.
And lastly, for Public Relations, they remind that the brand is the end-all be-all of a
business. Industry serves a secondary purpose to design and marketing. And since
PR is about putting the brand in consumers minds, PR men and women need to
remember to take as active a role as they can in brand management. Advertising
hasnt fallen, as the title states, but PR has certainly risen.