The Difference Between Marketing and Advertising

If you ask the person next to you about the difference between marketing and advertising, there’s a strong possibility you won’t get a clear answer. That’s because for many people, there’s only a subtle difference between marketing and advertising that’s often difficult to explain.

To be honest, advertising and marketing are closely related disciplines that have much in common. Yet they differ in many ways too. To see the differences and how each can benefit you as a small business owner, you must first understand the basics of both.

The Difference Between Marketing and Advertising

What is Marketing?

Marketing, in simple terms, refers to the means of communication between a company and its target audience. The American Marketing Association defines it as “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

Marketing involves techniques such as market segmentation, target group identification and market analysis to adopt the right strategy for customer engagement and product promotion.

Four primary elements that form the crux of marketing include Product, Price, Place and Promotion. These elements were introduced by marketer E. Jerome McCarthy. See the breakdown for each of these elements below.

Product

A product is seen as an item that addresses a consumer demand/need. It could be a tangible good or an intangible service.

Price

This is the amount customers pay for the product. Price determines the company’s profitability and thereby whether or not the company will succeed.

Place

Products must be located at a place where consumers can access them. Place involves strategies such as selective distribution, franchising and exclusive distribution.

Promotion

All means of communication that a company adopts to provide information about the product are considered promotion. Promotion may include elements such as public relations, advertising and sales promotion.

Let’s now try and understand what advertising means.

What is Advertising?

Advertising is defined as a form of marketing communication used by companies to promote or sell products and services. In essence, advertising is one of the components or subsets of marketing. In other words, if you think of marketing as a pie, then advertising will be an important slice of that pie.

The primary goal of advertising is to influence the buying behavior by promoting a product, service or company. To achieve this goal, advertising focuses on creative positioning and media. In doing so, advertising spreads awareness about what you have to offer.

According to the “Hierarchy of Effects” model  put forth by Robert J. Lavidge and Gary A. Steiner, a buyer moves through six stages when making a purchase. These are awareness, knowledge, liking, preference, conviction and purchase. These six stages are further divided into three categories: Awareness and Knowledge (Cognitive), Liking and Preference (Affective) and Conviction and Purchase (Conative).

These three categories are explored a bit further below.

Cognitive

At this stage, consumers process the information provided to them through the advertising communication. Advertising should, therefore, present information on the product benefit to pique the interest of the target audience.

Affective

When consumers are in the affective stage, they should be able to start associating with the brand. Advertising should, therefore, resonate with the audience’s emotional aspects.

Conative

The conative stage refers to a stage where buyers are either actually making a purchase or simply showing the intent to purchase. At this stage, advertising evolves into a method of expediting the purchasing process.

How Do Advertising and Marketing Differ?

Now the big question is how do marketing and advertising differ? As mentioned above, marketing presents the overall picture of how a company promotes, distributes and prices its products or services. Advertising is a component of this overall picture.

Apart from advertising, a marketing plan includes other components such as public relations, sales and distribution strategies. All these elements are expected to work both independently and interdependently. All must work together to support the same marketing goal.

What’s interesting to note is that advertising typically accounts for the largest expense in most marketing plans. It’s not difficult to understand why. A well-executed ad campaign is run on multiple channels and at a high frequency to create the desired impact.

It’s also worth mentioning that creating a marketing plan is typically more time-intensive than creating an advertising campaign. Since marketing involves various disciplines such as market analysis, marketing research, positioning and segmentation, it includes more strategizing than does advertising.

In other words, advertising supports marketing by creating the right buzz about a company’s product or service. It generates curiosity in the minds of the target audience, but ultimately works to support the overall marketing plan.

Blurring the Line Between Advertising and Marketing

In the digital era, the thin line that exists between marketing and advertising is getting increasingly blurred.

With search engine marketing (SEM) and display advertising, digital marketers are now working in the online ad space. And social networking is turning out to be the most preferred channel for most of these marketers who are pairing advertising with marketing to achieve best results.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good thing. Here’s why.

Many believe social media is a powerful marketing channel that should be used cautiously for advertising purposes.

Ted Rubin, Chief Social Marketing Officer at Collective Bias explains in a guest blog on IBM.com, “Ads have their place, but too many brands try to “advertise” within their social communications to drive immediate action. Not a good scenario, because over time that misuse of the medium diminishes trust and efforts to build relationships.

To leverage social media in the most optimal way, marketers need to have the right strategy for advertising and marketing. To begin with, it’s important to understand what customers want. Do they use social media to be bombarded with adverts and gimmicks? Or are they looking for information presented in an interesting way?

Brands that have checked the pulse of their target audience know how social media can benefit their integrated marketing communications strategy. Keeping that in mind, they know how to leverage it without overusing it.

For businesses, the key thing is to really understand how advertising and marketing work together to bring about the right results.

Read the complete Small Business Advertising Guide:

• • Introduction to Small Business Advertising
  • How Can Advertising Help Your Business?
  • What Is The Difference Between Advertising And Marketing?  
  • Where Can You Advertise Your Business?
  • What’s The Cheapest Way To Advertise?
  • Where Can You Advertise For Free?
  • How Much Do Small Businesses Spend On Advertising?
  • How to Plan your Small Business Advertising Campaign (Checklist)   
  • 50 Small Business Advertising Ideas  
  • How to Advertise Your Small Business Locally  

  Marketing/Advertising Photo via Shutterstock
  

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