Many people think that “advertising” is part of “marketing.” But this is an unfortunate misnomer. Because strictly speaking, “advertising” is part of “SALES” not Marketing.
Marketing is a series of strategies and actions where are dedicated to “getting the word out” or “raising awareness.” Marketing is a more broad activity than advertising and contains many functions that are NOT advertising, including creating promotional material.
Advertising is more nuanced. It comes from the Latin words “ad” and “vertere” which means “to direct something towards” or “to turn something towards.”
Now the question becomes: when we speak of advertising, WHAT is being turned toward WHAT?
It’s very simple.
Advertising is about turning customer ATTENTION toward an OFFER and CALL TO ACTION.
Period. End of story.
It’s not about “raising awareness” “brand identity” or “getting the word out.” It CAN do those things, but that’s not the purpose of advertising.
The purpose is to produce a CONVERSION by turning ATTENTION toward ACTION – the same as a sales person does when working with a customer.
And that makes advertising a form of sales. Not marketing.
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
