What is the difference between advertising and marketing?

To many people, it may seem there is no difference between advertising and marketing. Both share common goals – to raise awareness or visibility of products or services for consumers to buy. Indeed, many marketers and advertisers use the terms interchangeably. However, despite being related, the two have some differences.

In this post, we’ll look more in detail at what each one is and the key marketing and advertising differences. And if you would like to explore each one further, or are thinking of a career in these sectors, you should consider a programme such as Degree in Advertising or a Master in Marketing at Universidad Europea.

What is marketing?

In short, marketing is the process of making sure a product or service are compelling for consumers to buy. It includes various aspects such as product research, value propositions, finding out more about the type of customer or audience, and the pricing levels of each product or service. It is probably the broader of terms between marketing and advertising, and involves many stages before something is even brough to market.

Indeed, before any product is launched, a marketing strategy is defined. And in every marketing strategy, the very basic elements need to be covered – Product, Place, Price, and Promotion. They are known as the 4 P’s.

• Product: This is the service or product that a business or organisation offers that is being demanded by the market, customers, or consumers.
• Price: This covers the amount that customers will pay for the product or service. It also helps to dictate how profitable a business will be.
• Place: Covers the aspects of where and how your customers are able to find and access your products and services. Examples include retail or resellers, distribution, franchising, and others.
• Promotion: This is how a company or organisation communicates the advantages of the product or service, and convinces customers to buy. And this is essentially where advertising comes in.

What is advertising?

Advertising can be considered as a subset of marketing. It includes actions that raise awareness of a product or service to an audience. These actions can take place online, such as social media ads, sponsored posts, and ads on Youtube. And it also covers offline activities such as billboards, and posters.

A variety of media are used in effective advertising campaigns to create excitement around a product. Advertisers might utilise Instagram, Twitter, and other social media sites, for instance, to market a product aimed for a younger demographic. Other customer groups might react to radio, television, and print advertisements more favourably. In order to find the best combination for attracting the correct audience, advertisers must experiment with media placement. Marketers must also communicate frequently if they want their campaigns to stand out in a media environment that is extremely crowded.

Difference in advertising and marketing

Now that we have defined what each one is, let’s take a look at the main differences between the two terms.

1. The main aim of marketing is concerned with fulfilling or addressing the unmet desires of customers. It attempts to provide value and satisfaction to the customer through its products. Advertising is a structured and authorised form of public communication that involves promoting ideas, products or services by a company or organisation.
2. Marketing can be considered a discipline, while advertising is a subset of marketing.
3. Marketing is intended for the long term. It aims to create the value of the company and its products in the customer's eyes. However, advertising is primarily intended for a limited timeframe: any advertisement that a company runs on multiple media is intended for a specific duration only. Additionally, advertising is intended to have a specific goal.
4. Marketing is concerned with creating a product or service that consumers demand. Advertising is more focused on brining attention to that product and driving sales.
5. Marketing is a process of creating a unique selling position and strong arguments to buy that product or service. In contrast, advertising involves placing ads on various media channels including television, newspapers, billboards, radio, online ads and social media.

We hope that this post helps to understand the main differences between marketing and advertising. There are of course many other differences – this is just the starting point. If this area is something of interest to you, check out the programmes available in Marketing and Communication at Universidad Europea.