For many people, marketing is synonymous with advertising. Even some marketers use both words interchangeably. But the truth is advertising is only a small part of marketing.
Want to make sense of it all and learn from various examples along the way? You’re in the right place. In this article, you’ll go through the following:
What marketing is
What advertising is
Difference between marketing and advertising
Five examples of marketing
Five examples of advertising
Let’s dive into it.
What is marketing?
According to the American whatsapp number list Marketing Association, “marketing is 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.”
I kicked this off with an academic definition for a good reason. (We’re getting back to human speech now—don’t worry.)
Did you notice any mention of promotion or advertising in the definition above? Me neither. From the definition, we can deduce that advertising takes place. But the point is that marketing is so much more than that.
So let me put together a more digestible definition of marketing:
Marketing is a process that starts with market research needed to develop a marketing strategy, which guides all communication that includes promotions and advertising.
So…
What is advertising?
Advertising is paying for exposure to your brand. It’s a form of paid promotion. Advertising enables organizations to communicate a message to a target audience at a certain time.
Unlike marketing, advertising isn’t such a vague term for many. We can clearly say, “This is advertising!” when pointing to the following image:
AWT ad
What is the difference between marketing and advertising?
Advertising is a product of marketing. It’s what the outer world often sees. That’s why many people use the terms interchangeably. But there’s so much more to marketing than just advertising.
In other words, all advertising is marketing, but only a small portion of marketing activities is advertising. It’s best to wrap this up with an image:
Piechart showing advertising is just a small fraction of marketing
It should be all clear now. Let’s move on to the examples.