Health Tech PR Firm Publishes Case Study on PR and Advertising

By Luke Hannan

The health tech PR firm, Macias PR, has just published a case study that takes a closer look at how public relations compares to advertising as a marketing approach.

The case study, PR vs Advertising vs Marketing, evaluates the two most popular methods that health tech startups use to acquire new business or downloads: PR and advertising. The paper evaluated three media campaigns Macias PR promoted for mobile apps and a local event. The PR campaigns led to nine TV stories in New York, Phoenix, Tucson and San Antonio, as well as news stories with local magazines, newspapers and online publications.

A Quantitative Look at the Value of PR vs Advertising

Researchers with Macias PR calculated how much these clients would have paid for this exposure under an advertising campaign. They applied local ad market rates from Golden State Media Concepts to determine the equivalent cost for this exposure under an advertising buy. They also applied the average cost for a mobile app download, $2.73 per download, according to SuperData, to determine how much these media campaigns would have cost as advertising buys.

According to Golden State Media Concepts, the average TV commercial in San Antonio and Phoenix, ranges from $500 to $3000 for only 30-seconds of air time. In San Antonio, Macias PR secured TV segments with KENS 5 and KSAT 12 in their 10pm newscast – the most expensive advertising program of the day, while in Arizona, the PR firm secured five TV segments on local TV in Phoenix and Tucson.

Under advertising standards, the media campaign in San Antonio would have needed to purchase eight commercials for the equivalent airtime of these two TV segments on KENS 5 and KSAT 12, costing roughly $24,000 for the eight minutes of airtime. In Phoenix and Tucson, the TV airtime would have cost more than $30,000.

Online Media Campaigns – Mobile App

The case study also evaluates a media campaign Macias PR led for the mobile app, Blush No More. That publicity campaign led to news stories on Channel 11 in New York, The Daily Mail in the UK, Channel 3 in Phoenix, GQ Magazine, The International Business Times and other online news outlets. Blush No More had 1,833 downloads after only one week of publicity with stories the Daily Mail in the UK and a TV segment Channel 11 in New York City.

Those downloads would have cost $5004 under an advertising campaign. This cost does not include the news stories and TV segments that publicized the mobile app with future news stories. It also doesn’t include the SEO influence that branded MACIAS PR as a “top tech PR firm” and pushed the New York-based PR firm to the first page of Google under this search term.

You can read the entire case study by clicking here.