What is the difference between PR and advertising?

Advertising	Public relations
1. The company pays for advertising space. You know exactly when that advertisement will be on air or be published.	1. The objective is to get free publicity for the company. Hence the focus is on getting free media exposure for the company and its products or services.
2. Since you are paying for the space, you have creative control on what goes into that advertisement.	2. You have no control over how the media presents your information, if they decide to use your information at all. They are not obligated to cover your event or publish your press release
3. Advertisements can be published or run repeatedly. An advertisement generally has a longer shelf life than one press release.	3. You submit a press release about a new product or about a news conference once. The PR exposure you receive is only circulated once and the editor will not publish more than once.
4. In advertising, you get to exercise your creativity in creating new advertising campaigns and materials.	4. In public relations, you have to have a nose for news and be able to generate buzz through that news. You exercise your creativity in the way you search for new news to release to the media.
5. If you are working at an advertising agency, your main contacts are your co-workers and the agency's clients.	5. In PR, the main contacts will be people in the area of publications and broadcast media.
6. You are looking out your target audience and advertise accordingly. You would not advertise a kid’s product in a business magazine.	6. It is generally not possible to segment, target or position the product or service.