Publicity

In marketing, publicity is the public visibility or awareness for any product, service, person or organization (company, charity, etc.). It may also refer to the movement of information from its source to the general public, often (but not always) via the media. The subjects of publicity include people of public recognition, goods and services, organizations, and works of art or entertainment. A publicist is someone that carries out publicity, while public relations (PR) is the strategic management function that helps an organization establish and maintain communication with the public. This can be done internally, without the use of popular media. From a marketing perspective, publicity is one component of promotion and marketing. The other elements of the promotional mix are advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing and personal selling. Organizations will sometimes organize events designed to attract media coverage, and subsequently, provide positive publicity; these events are known as publicity stunts. Publicity originates from the French word publicité (advertisement). Publicity as a practice originates in the core of Paris, where shopping, tourism and the entertainment industry met commercialised print media and a burgeoning publishing industry. Among the urban society, scenes of consumption and new consumer identities were circulated through advertisement. La Maison Aubert shaped the emerging discipline of publicity. In early 19th century Paris, the advertisements and publicity campaigns for consumer items, such as cashmere shawls, and retailers such as perfumeries soon attracted regulation on flyposting. 19th century US companies included not only pro-sales messages in their publicity, but also explanations, demonstrations and exaggerations. Patent medicine and cosmetics manufacturers in the US frequently described or even showed consumers before and after the usage of the product. The Blair Manufacturing Company was among the US companies that advertised its products by comparing old-fashioned consumers who did not use the advertised product with the progressive customers who did.