Is Advertising Marketing?

As deliberated upon in the previous entry “Just what is not marketing”, it is now timely to apply some sort of meaning to the question, “Is advertising . . . . . marketing?”

From the barrage of advertising spend to so promote or induce consumer trial or generate brand purchase; it seems to be the common assumption that “advertising is marketing” and vice versa; as advertising helps to market products and services & brings it to the consumers. The current practice seems to suggest that. Take a look at the picture below.

The advancement of technology these days, has brought products closer to home (i.e. television) and to personal self via Internet and of course, email and SMS mails both pictorially and verbally. This thrust of technology advancement, had begun a very serious mis-perception & misconception, of what advertising and its role is! Based on what the previous marketing Guru’s have taught before this technological advancement, advertising is merely a tool and is used to help relay information about the brand’s purpose of existence.

The chase for profit taking has further accentuated this misconception as a large part of the Advertising & Promotion budget is coerced to spend on chasing after sales volume.

Advertising in our opinion and in line with the past marketing Gurus advocate, is fundamentally a marketing tool, to be used wisely to further the advancement of the BRAND. The age old rule & role of advertising is to build consumer believability, trust and endeared in the mind of consumers. That should be nothing more and ultimately nothing less.

So to sum it up, is advertising marketing? We certainly don't think so, but that maybe contrary to the beliefs of a lot of advertising companies out there. Till the next time... take care.

S.L. Liew

About the author: The post above is from one of my contributors Mr. Liew Siew Loong. Mr. Liew has been in the marketing field for the last 40 years dealing in FMCG products to food products and even high fashion. To find out more about of his profile, log on to http://www.viscreative.com/

Shopping bags and more

Recently, I have been doing a lot of thinking about my next entry into the blog. Little did I know it would have to do with something so simple which we use in our everyday lives.

It all started as I was looking at the paper bags which I had lying around my office. It suddenly occurred to me that these paper bags did 1 thing fairly well which was to advertise their own brands.

However, I noticed that these paper bags did not communicate as to how an individual could get better connected to the brand on the paper bag.

Imagine this, here you are sitting at a nice little cafe having a latte when all of a sudden someone walks by with this really interesting paper bag (i.e. as per above). You think to yourself, “what an interesting design but unfortunately there's no way I can contact this company / brand.” You then say to yourself, “ I'll probably google the brand when I'm next on line...”

Here's the truth of the matter...I'm pretty sure that in today's uber busy lifestyles, many of us would probably have forgotten about “googl-ing” that brand and probably gone on to do other things when we next get in front of our PC / Mac's.

So I was thinking to myself, why won't companies put their contact details (e.g website) on their shopping bags? Would that not make it easier for potential customers to interact with their brand? After all what other purpose does that bag have other than to expose potential clients to your brand? I imagine it would look like this bag which I found in Hong Kong.

Thus, It is my strong belief that more and more companies should take as many opportunities as possible to communicate their brand presence to potential customers. God knows we get so little opportunities to interact with customers these days... So companies out there, I think the above shopping bag has set an example for us all to follow.

Signing off for now.