مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

Of late, the conversation surrounding advertising and public relations seems to be centered on the concept of integration. Recent popular web posts,for example, have included titles such as “Integrate or Die,” (Campbell, 2015) or “The New Frontier: Public Relations and Advertising working together” (Jeffrey, 2015). Whether or not this is simply the latest salvo in the IMC debate (which continues today) or if this is a new phenomenon remains to be seen. Clearly it is a topic of interest to both fields, and one which could benefit from empirical research.

As such, the purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of integration between public relations and advertising in terms of the perceived relationship between professionals in the fields, how each is managed (or should be managed) within organizations, and how education or training in the fields should be addressed. Another topic of particular interest is to determine who should be responsible for specific communication-related tasks within organizations. To accomplish this task, a survey of advertising (n = 384) and public relations (n = 692) professionals was conducted to determine the current state of the relationship between advertising and public relations.

The goal of this study is to establish a baseline for research that examines the relationship between the professions. It ultimately hopes to inform both the professional and academic disciplines of each field as to how practitioners are engaging (or not engaging) in integrative practices. While substantial research has examined the effect of integrated campaigns in both public relations and advertising, none have explored how practitioners in each field perceive the concept of integration from the perspective of the relationship between the fields.