Public Relations vs. Publicity

Public relations is commonly confused with many things, one being publicity.  Public relations and publicity both get a person or companies name out in the public.  They both do help attract public interest and attract the attention of others.  While public relations and publicity do have some things in common, they are different in many distinct ways.  Public relations is concerned with making a company or person appear to have the best image possible.  It is not only concerned with getting attention, but making sure that it will be good attention.  For example, when Chris Brown won a Grammy, he tweeted an offensive statement to anyone who put him down, calling them some names and boasting about the Grammy.  A few hours later, he had taken it down and his publicist had taken over his twitter.  Publicity is more interested with getting a name out there, no matter the cost.  I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “there’s no such thing as bad publicity.”  Well this is said because memorable events, bad or good, will draw more attention from the public.  For example, the kiss between Madonna and Britney Spears was definitely strange, but it attracted so much attention from the media.  These are some of the similarities and differences between public relations and publicity.