Industry Breakdown: Advertising vs. Marketing
From an outsider’s perspective, there seems to be no difference between Advertising and Marketing. While the lines may be blurred, there are some fairly significant differences between the two:
Marketing is defined as the process of preparing your product for the marketplace. Here you are identifying your potential customers and what they want from your product/service. The general process of marketing involves studying and identifying the desired target audience and their wants and needs. The direction of the strategy depends solely on who you are trying to reach with the message.
Advertising, on the other hand, is the process of making your product and service known to the marketplace, or spreading the word. Advertising essentially picks up where marketing ends because once a product image is developed and a strategy is in place, it’s advertising’s job to figure out how to best relay these messages through media channels and venues that will have the most effective reach for the message. Whether it’s Print, TV, Radio, Internet, or Social Media, advertisers try and find the outlet that will get their message to the most people.
These industries work together most of the time to provide something memorable. A great example of this is the advertising equivalent of the Oscars: The Super Bowl.
Behind-The-Scenes: Up for Whatever Pac-Man Bud Light Super Bowl Ad 2015
In Bud Light’s Up for Whatever Super Bowl spot, you can tell the two industries working together seamlessly for the creative spot. Marketers were behind the planning and setting up for the night, but it was advertising’s job to follow through with setting up the course and where the course was going to be, finding the contestant, finding the proper technology, and filming it all in one shot.
The differences between the two industries are blurred, but only because they so frequently work together towards the same goals.
