The Difference Between Marketing and Advertising
Most of us have had these thoughts pass through our minds as we’re driving down the highway:
“What does that billboard even mean?”
“Who was that billboard made for?”
Or the heartwarming, “Why was that billboard so good? I’m laughing so hard. Thanks Geico!”
What we’re encountering when we have this experience is the clash between marketing and advertising.
Did you know there is a difference between marketing and advertising?
If you own or plan to own a business or organization, then knowing the difference is important.
In order to understand what a market is, we must first understand what an industry is.
An industry is a giant group of people and institutions that offer similar types of products or services. Think of the music industry, which has many labels and bands, and provides you with many different types of music.
Every industry is made up of markets. To make things easy, markets are like audiences. The music industry has an audience that likes Indie Rock and an audience that likes Traditional Jazz. Markets, because they are people groups, overlap and evolve over time with cultural shifts.
Now, that leads us to the definition of marketing. Marketing is the process of picking and choosing a market or several markets where you want to sell and make known your product or service.
Think of marketing as the business’ audience and their common interests.
For example, most older women like jazz. Now, before people break out their social soapboxes to argue with me, consider this thought. All statistics are stereo-typical. Stereotypical means a widely held and typically oversimplified image of a particular type of person or thing. Quality marketing is based off of stereotypical statistics, research and strategy.
If our Fedora wearing Jazz singer, Sinatra, was still around today, he would be marketing to a group of people who like Jazz. More specifically, if the above stereotype was correct, then he would be marketing to older women. If he spent his marketing dollars on marketing to younger men, then he would lose a lot of money. Choosing the right market is important. It is so cost effective that people often hire someone to consult on their market strategy.
Have you ever been on a long road-trip and seen a series of billboard signs that say “100 miles to the next gas station,” “50 miles until you can stretch your legs,” or the classic “Try our legendary bacon wrapped corn dog! In 10 miles” These are advertisements.
Advertising is the process of creating both digital and analog content and delivering it to your chosen market audience. Advertising is probably best understood as the commercials you see on youtube or you hear on your music streaming service if you haven’t given into the peer pressure of purchasing their advertisement-free subscription plan.
Here are a couple start-up tips.
1. If you don’t know your market, then you’re going to waste tons of money on advertising. If you don’t have a marketing plan or budget, then you’re starting your business with one foot on a banana peel.
2. Find out where your audience is hanging out. Businesses and organizations that purchase billboards think that their particular audience is spending a lot of time driving on a specific road.
The next time you drive down the highway and see a billboard that you simply don’t understand, now you can think of one of two things:
1. “That was a bad advertisement” or
2. “That was good marketing, because they knew their audience and I was obviously not their target audience. What is ‘Vegan Bacon’ anyway?”
Thanks for reading.
Fariss Ryan
Fryandesigns@gmail.com