This essay tries to update the relationships between Advertising and public relations. With world crisis and the rise of new media these two concepts need new attention. We start with a historical review of the concepts of Advertising and public relations from a Catalan and Spanish perspective. From this point we define what should be understood as Advertising and public relation and their relationship. Convergences and divergences are found within these two concepts. After this discussion we try to confront Advertising and public relations concepts with some “emerging” concepts that seem to gain popularity between professional and academics. All these ideas are using the umbrella of communications, probably not because of the lack of meaning of Advertising and public relations but for professional needs of selling. Many talk about commercial communication, marketing communications, business communications, or sometimes just communications. We reflect, draw boundaries and classify these concepts. Advantages and drawbacks of use are discussed. We alert about the danger how some disciplines, as journalism try to invade the field of public relations, for example, reducing them to press releases. We try to summarize what we teach when we teach Advertising and public relations. In summary, this chapter is an essay about convergences and divergences of Advertising and public relations from a Spanish point of view, trying to clarify these concepts in contrast of the powerful concept of communication. The chapter mainly uses Spanish references to add an original perspective.

This exploratory cross-cultural study examines the experiences of women in advertising crea- tive departments in Spain and the United States. The study, an exploration of the creative environment and its impact on female creatives, is framed by Hofstede’s dimensional model of national culture (Hofstede 2001; de Mooij & Hofstede 2010) and signalling theory (Spence 1974). Interviews with 35 top female creatives suggest that the challenges women face are rooted in the ‘fraternity culture’ or ‘territorio de chicos’ of creative departments in both coun- tries. The data further suggest that the gender-bound cultural environment of advertising creative departments may be a global phenomenon, one that may adversely affect the creative process and impact women’s upward mobility.