Public relations (PR) and advertising utilize different foundational approaches. This distinction—one founders often miss—makes the difference when pitching journalists to cover your story.
After sending dozens of pitches, nothing is more frustrating than hearing absolutely nothing. The disconnect is a tendency to lump advertising and PR together, assuming they work in a similar fashion.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
As a founder, know this: PR and advertising impact customers differently. Ads are focused on your brand while PR is focused on your audience.
Ads vs PR: Different audience mindsets
Ads = look at me: Ads are a “look at me!” tactic. You publish specific features or values hoping to inspire action.
PR = look at you: PR is a “look at you!” tactic. You use resources or knowledge to bring value to your audience.
This distinction may seem small, or maybe confusing, but once you grasp the basics, it will change the effectiveness of your PR efforts.
Ads = Look at Me!
By their nature, ads are focused on you, your brand, your features, and your product.
The core of a successful advertising campaign sells your value to an audience that has existing awareness of that value or their need. This self-awareness part is key in successful advertising.
Advertising hinges on people already aware they need a solution and/or coming to the fast realization you could fill that need.
PR is very different.
PR = Look at You!
PR focuses on audience, their needs, their problems, their frustrations, and their fears. That’s PR’s starting point.
The core of successful PR campaign gives value to an audience that has no awareness of their need for your service or idea. Changing this lack of self-awareness is where PR shines.
If your target audience isn’t familiar with your brand, doesn’t trust you, or doesn’t understand their need for your idea, PR is magical. It brings them down the path to a point where they see a need for what you do.
Imagine standing on a stage with your audience in the seats, and do this quick exercise.
Say: PR is about YOU (point to audience) Advertising is about ME (point to yourself.)
ME vs YOU focus: does it matter?
Both advertising and PR (me vs you) can be effective, provided you understand your audience mindset. Pizza place patrons have a pre-existing understanding of the business. If the only thing separating the pizza place from competitors: ie. better ingredients, stuffed crust, organic dough, San Marzano Tomatoes? Ads are probably the only bet. Me. Me. Me.
That’s fine! Nothing wrong with that…
But if you have invented a new product and have little competition, audience ignorance is your challenge. You can preach all you want, but your audience has no basic understanding what problem you’re solving and has no existing framework to help them understand the answer to, “so what do you do exactly?”
For that, PR is needed. For PR to work, a “look at me” strategy will fail nearly 99% of the time.
As a founder with a novel idea, you must educate your audience of their need before you can address it. This is done by focusing on value for your audience. What does “value” look like? What does it mean?
Value is brand-agnostic.
Brand-agnostic value: your PR secret weapon
Journalists are after reads/clicks from their audience. So, how do you get their attention? By giving them resources to acquire more reads/clicks from their audience!
It sounds simple—even to an eye-rolling level—but most founders (and most PR folks) can’t see it.
“But Justin, what we’re doing has never been done before! Everyone will want to know about this!” I hear this a lot, but please listen to me when I say this: not only is this false, but journalists probably heard the same exact claims a dozen times.
I called this the founder-baby bias. Your startup is like your first child—you’re over-the-moon, but everyone else sees a baby. They’ll see thousands more. They kinda care, but kinda don’t.
That’s why it’s important to focus on brand-agnostic value. This framing helps considerably.
Brand-agnostic value is data, information, advice, or news, that is valuable to the journalist’s audience without you in the story. New research, new data insights, customer trends or behavior, breaking news, or expertise about trending news from qualified/titled people are good examples. That might look like…
- research that reveals previously unknown information.
- data about consumer habits.
- verifiable answers to questions people ask often.
- breaking news
- expertise from a PhD on a trending news topic.
A brand-agnostic pitch feels like you’re doing the journalist a favor. A brand-promoting pitch feels like you’re requesting a favor. It’s not easy. But a “Look At You” approach is the only way PR works.
If you’re struggling to get press wins, flip the script. Focus on the journalist and their audience.
