Advertising can be very expensive--it requires research,creative input,shooting and editing the commercial or producing copy / artwork for a print ad.These costs can range in the millions of dollars to produce an ad campaign.Plus,once it is developed,there is the additional cost of purchasing the space or airtime,which is costly.By any measure,public relations is less expensive.The costs for PR typically consist of the time or salary of the PR professional and his / her out of pocket costs for travel,entertainment and some event costs--e.g.a news conference or product launch event.With public relations,audiences believe what they read or see on the news--because they assume the journalist has done the work to make sure the story is accurate and balanced.Further,while an ad covers most of the key variables,the critical one--audience attention--is not guaranteed.Current technology provides the viewer the option to skip ads or switch the channel and the ad's impact is limited as a result.