A Clarity on Marketing vs Branding vs Advertising
Let’s get this straight, marketing, branding and advertising are not synonyms. They are three completely different aspects of a business that are heavily dependent on each other. Any successful business owner understands the difference between the three and plans the entire business strategy by harmoniously integrating these components within the business.
Branding
A brand is created to provide a unique identity to the firm and its products and services. It is also used to differentiate the firm from its competitors. It can have the firm’s unique selling proposition integrated within its identity. Once a company decides how it wants to be perceived by its potential buyers and how it’s going to set itself apart from the competition, it creates a branding strategy and performs brand management to create awareness about its existence to the world.
Branding is solely the company’s identity, and it consists of elements such as the logo, symbol, name and design of the company. It is a collection of things an audience expects and experiences when they come across the company. A good brand belongs to a respectable company.
An important role of successful branding is to create a positive association between the potential buyer’s ideals with the product’s (as well as the company’s) characteristics.
Marketing
All the steps a company takes in the form of business activities to bring together buyers and sellers for the exchange or transfer of products is called marketing.
Marketing is a broad business function. It involves the activities that aid in developing and communicating messages promising value to customers, clients and the community. It includes all forms of business communication with the public. The marketing process starts with market research like learning about the marketplace, developing marketing objectives, strategies, message formation and delivery.
Marketing is often referred to as Marketing Mix. The marketing mix includes marketing tools used to meet marketing objectives. The “Four Ps” of the marketing mix of a product include:
- Product
- Price
- Place
- Promotions
These 4 Ps of marketing are all those activities that come under marketing, which is why it is considered a broad term.
We could go further for each of the 4 Ps of the marketing mix, but let’s leave that for another day. You need to know now that the 4th P- promotion has a very important aspect that we need to address. Firstly, the promotion mix consists of the following;
- Direct marketing
- Sales promotion
- Personal selling
- Public relations
- And last but certainly not least, advertising
Now is a great time to clear out the greatest confusion of modern entrepreneurs. What is the difference between marketing and advertising? We’ve already discussed the basics of marketing. Let’s move ahead with a later aspect of the confusion.
Advertising
Advertising is any paid form announcement to the public by a firm that aims to persuade potential or existing consumers to buy a product that is in existence. Advertising is a more specified aspect of a business when compared to marketing. A company’s advertising plan is usually included within its marketing strategy. It usually involves putting the word out about a product in an engaging manner through the various paid forms of media such as newspapers, posters, television, radio or in the Gen Z age, through the Internet, most notably through social media websites among various other areas. It essentially promotes the company’s product and the predefined brand that the company constructs.
In other words, advertising is the preconstructed message you send to the target audience through a medium that conveys the message. One of the main benefits of advertising is that you can control your message and when and where it appears.
They’re all interconnected
Marketing, advertising and branding are not the same, though all 3 work together. A business can not be successful without even one of these. The interconnectivity of the three can be seen when;
- Advertising increases the brand’s awareness to the target audience, while branding drives the style and direction of the advertising campaigns.
- Marketing handles a brand’s accountability and uplifts its reputation. While it also promotes advertising campaigns.
- Branding creates loyal customers who further engage with the company’s marketing practices and advertise its products via word of mouth recommendations.
The Analogy
For this analogy, we’ve taken something that everyone loves— Cake! After all, associating good things with the subject results in a better understanding. For this analogy, think of yourself as a baker who has baked a cake.
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Branding is how people perceive the cake. A good brand has a positive impact on people’s decisions regarding eating the cake based on what they see. This also depends on how much of a positive impact you’ve had on them. So if you are a polite and likeable person who has baked a cake that looks delicious, people are going to try it for sure. But if you’re someone who has lied or deceived people in any way, then they would obviously not want to eat your cake, as they do not trust you as a person.
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Marketing is all those efforts you make that makes a cake presentable. It also includes all your efforts to let the people know that you baked the cake.
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Advertising is how you grab the attention of the people and describe the cake to them, its flavour, its nutritional benefits and the rest of the things that make it special, which will eventually provoke them to taste the cake for themselves.
Hopefully, this analogy, along with the rest of the information given above, has given you a clearer understanding of the difference between advertising, marketing and branding.
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