How could the Democratic Party win the most votes in April's legislative election? How could a young party - founded in 2001 - defeat much older, better established parties like the Golkar Party and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P)?

"Public relations" seem to be the key words to understanding the victory, which was much expected simply because the incumbent president happens to be from the Democratic Party.

During the political campaign, all major political parties put advertisements in newspapers and on television and radio, but only the one which presented a positive image to the audience -the voters - could win the battle. In this case, the image of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as someone who can maintain stability and has lowered fuel prices three times in less than a year gave the advantage to the Democratic Party.

The victory of the Democratic Party can be understood better after reading a book released in 2002 titled The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR. While providing many insights both for students and those in marketing, this book presents some examples that believe can explain the power of public relations.

This book is very readable and allows those fairly unfamiliar with marketing and public relations to understand what the difference between advertising and public relations is (this information, however, is put far in the back of the book - in the fourth chapter).

The book also gives many empirical examples that give readers near first-hand experience in dealing with the marketing issues. Many examples are filled with information and data, allowing readers to better understand the important points of successful marketing.

In its introduction, the book compares advertising today with advertising a few years back. While advertising in the past was considered powerful ammunition to increase sales, its effectiveness today is questionable.

Advertising was, once upon a time, simply like a candle or a painting, the book suggests. Before Thomas Alva Edison invented lightbulb, a candle was a practical source of light. But following the invention of the lightbulb, the candle's function immediately transformed into that of art.

A candle is now used only during a candle light dinner or on other speical occasions.

The same can be said of paintings. They used to have a failry pragmatic function - to make a still frame of an event or images of past leaders or figures. Soon after the invention of photography however, the market to provide stills was taken over. Portraiture is now art only.

In The Fall of Advertising and The Rise of PR, Al Ries and Laura Ries begin their thesis with the same proposition. Advertising was a powerful tool used to stimulate the market, but today has been rendered art. Many images from advertisements are put in beautiful frames and hung on the wall of modern offices.

The conventional approach of marketing, as the book suggests, follows four steps: the company develops a new product or service, the company researches to ensure the new product or service benefits cosumers, the company hires an advertising agency to launch the product and the advertising campaign builds a brand.

According to Ries, there is a weak link with this approach. Instead of using advertising, the company should publicise any new product with a public relations campaign if it wished to build a powerful brand. The coauthors of the book claim all marketing successes have been public relations successes, not advertising success.

This book bases its argument on the following thesis.

An obvious example is the building of powerful brand in the automotive industry. The book points out that no industry depends on advertising as much as the automotive industry.

Seven of 13 largest advertising budgets have been for automotive brands (Chevrolet, Dodge, Toyota, Ford, Nissan, Chrysler and Honda). These brands spent US$4 billion.

These brands sold more than 11,000,000 cars in 2001 and for each car sold these seven brands spent $359 on advertising. While these brands spent a great deal of money, most people can't remember any commercial that drove them to buy a car. Advertising plays a minor role in selling cars.

Critics however, will be quick to judge the poor structure of the book. Inded, this book lacks good structure. The title of this book is The Fall of Advertising and The Rise of PR so the book should have immediately provided readers with information on the difference between advertising and PR. What is advertising? What is PR? What is the difference between the two?

Instead, the book talks about advertising for its first 88 pages, followed with information on public relations from page 89 to page 183. The new role of advertising is discussed on pages 197-223. Meanwhile, we can only find the difference between advertising and public relations tucked away in the back, from page 239 to page 265.

It is too late to discuss the difference between advertising and public relations after more than 200 pages of a book that the title would suggest is primarily concerned with advertising and public relations. Readers would be forgiven for expecting clues as to what advertising and public relations are as soon as they read the first pages.

Fortunately, the book's light structure makes it readable. Otherwise, readers would close the book and put it back on the shelf, deterred beacuse they can't find what is advertising all about.

In an article for The New York Times, Thomas Friedman criticized the failure of the US automotive industry which he said is facing catasthrope because it did not produce efficient and environmentally friendly cars, which consumers have been demanding.

With this in mind, I question if the success of Japanese carmakers Toyota, Honda and Nissan (compared to US carmakers General Motors and Ford) is simply because of public relations. I think the quality of products is much more relevant to this particular success story.

As a journalist, I also doubt the effectiveness of public relations, given the strict news judgment of newspapers. I doubt the approach by public relations professionals to the media will always bear fruit.

Some media people will find the approach of PR professionals to be very annoying. If they want news about their products or services published, why don't they just place advertisements?

Public relations work in some cases but not others. It depends on factors, including the professinalism of PR people, their personal relations with the media and the news judgments of the media.

Now is the time for the real battle, as Golkar chairman Jusuf Kalla has said. With less than 60 days to the presidential election, will there be enough time for the candidates to build a brand new image?

The Fall of Advertising & The Rise of PR Al Ries & Laura Ries HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2002, 2004 295 pages

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