I've heard very strong arguments that public relations is the way a strong brand is truly established and advertising is how the brand is maintained. In fact, not too long ago, authors Al and Laura Ries devoted an entire book, The Fall of Advertising & The Rise of PR, to reinforce and illustrate this idea (Harper, 2002).
If you think about this theory for a moment, it makes a lot of sense.
If a brand is successful in making a connection with people and communicating its distinct advantage then people will want to tell others about it and word-of-mouth advertising will develop naturally —- not to mention writers in the press will want to write about the brand. Once that type of differentiation and story telling is established in the market's mind, advertising can help maintain and shape the brand.
Just don't confuse organic word-of-mouth with "buzz" marketing or Paid-For Word-of-Mouth. If you have to pay people to talk about your brand, then what you are really doing is investing in advertising. Don't let the new-fangled agencies out there make you believe that it is anything else.
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