PR Writing and the Three Basic Types of PR Articles

The purpose of writing a PR article is to promote a product, a brand, or communicate a particular message—that is obvious enough. Put more directly, it essentially means writing advertising content. Nowadays, advertising articles and PR articles often overlap and blend into one another, so either term can be used. Why is that? Let’s take a closer look.

People working in the industry generally recognize three common types of articles:

1. Advertorials
2. Editorials (this is the original form of a PR article)
3. Testimonials (interview- or verification-based articles)

According to the original meaning, the first type, the advertorial, is usually written by copywriters at advertising agencies. Its content directly promotes a product or brand according to the company’s requirements. At the end of the article, the source is typically identified as the company or business. To publish this type of article, the company must pay to purchase advertising space, and the article is clearly placed in the Advertising section. In terms of objectivity, readers can easily recognize that it is an advertisement because it is explicitly categorized as such.

The second type, the PR article (editorial), is written by a journalist and is not influenced or directed by any company regarding what to write about its strengths or weaknesses. This type of PR article is highly objective and credible to readers. The key requirement is that it must tell an interesting story, be suitable for the newspaper section in which it appears, and provide objective information that is useful to readers. How the story is presented depends entirely on the journalist.

If PR is done skillfully, this type of article may be published free of charge and will not be classified as advertising. Naturally, the journalist’s byline appears beneath the article.

The third type, the testimonial article, is an experience-based article that may rely on statistical data as evidence, customer interviews about their experiences with a product, accompanying photographs, or statistics from a reliable survey to provide persuasive proof for customers.

This type of article has two aspects: objective and subjective.

An objective testimonial may be written by a journalist who gathers information, interviews users, and then presents an overall evaluation on a particular topic. For example, an article evaluating the percentage of users of different technology brands might report that Acer accounts for 50% of users, LG for 30%, and the remainder belongs to other brands. Because the article is objective and based on reliable data, the brands that genuinely hold a stronger market position will naturally receive greater recognition and benefit from the exposure.

From that advantage, the brand may further develop the story by using those positive findings to create articles specifically about its own brand. At that point, the article begins to shift toward a subjective perspective.

When the article remains objective, the brand does not have to pay for publication. However, once it becomes a subjective article—that is, a PR article with an advertising orientation—the company will need to pay for it to be published.