Branding Vs Advertising – Is There a Difference?

Branding Vs Advertising: Just like most agencies, people generally tend to think they are smarter than the average persons. Many think that their work is always better and more effective than the work of others. Perhaps it is a natural human trait. All of us have tendencies to represent ourselves as a bit special than others, unaware of the fact that we are just doing the same old thing as the others. Similarly, this human nature has also caused much confusion when it comes to defining advertising and branding. Some people tend to interchange these words thinking that these are plain synonyms thinking that they are well-versed on the field.

A few decades ago, advertising agencies have claimed that they do more than just advertising. Many of them started to claim that they also act as marketing consultants. Apparently, these advertising agencies represented themselves as builders of brands. The other players in this industry have also adopted the concept, but many remain confused on the difference of Branding Vs Advertising.

Generally, branding is such a broad concept. When compared to advertising, branding seems to cover more. In branding, the entire process of building an image and establishing the uniqueness of a certain product are necessary. Branding happens in the marketplace for a certain period of time. Meanwhile, advertising is one tool that companies use for them to establish their respective brands in the market. Essentially, advertising aids in creating a brand.

Brand and Branding Defined

Brand may refer to a certain company’s phrases, symbols, slogans or other relevant items that one can associated with the said company. Whenever people see the symbols or words related to a brand, they immediately come up with feeling or thoughts about their meaning. There are companies that strive hard to create an image of high quality, while some opt to create a brand popular for being affordable or environmental-friendly.

Branding starts when a new business concept arises as company owners choose the symbols and names to be associated with the brand. This is crucial since it can make or break the new business concept. On the other hand, advertising is more concerned on how to covey the brand to the target consumers. Advertising comes after branding has started.

Functions of advertising

Small Business Advertising is an essential aspect of maintaining a victorious brand. One of the first foams of advertising is promoting brand awareness and recall. Some of the forms of advertisements known to many include visual imagery, jingles or other forms that can create strong messages about a given company’s brand. An important part of the process is effectively communicating messages in order to entice more customers to try the products being sold.

Here is another definition by Marshall Strategy

Importance of creative branding

Selling a service or product always requires creativity including creative writing. This is a vital part of an effective branding. Experts even tag creativity as the soul of branding. For advertising messages to be creative enough there should be a good mixture of concepts, visual effects, sound and color depending the chosen media to be used. Many companies have built successful brands with advertising even if there is a great challenge of promoting an “uninspiring” product. When advertising and branding efforts are creative enough, one can surely sell products or services.

What creates the confusion?

The confusion begins when those who work in advertising mix up some objectives of their own projects with processes they use. It may seem hard to understand at first. But there are cases when advertising agencies try to move up services, and get paid in doing marketing consultancy for companies. However, many clients think that their employees can work on this matter more effectively so they decline to pay for any extra services. When this happens, the clients may just see the agency as a mere service provider who do clerical works of an advertising project that give plans on how to go about the campaign. On the other hand, agency staff members often consider themselves as strategic partners. Apparently, there is a difference on how they view the tasks of an ad agency, and this is where confusion begins.

Once advertising agencies give ideas to new clients, they consider themselves as branding partners, which is more than just a hired service provider. But clients see otherwise.

Understanding the difference between branding and advertising is important for one to come up with effective and creative ideas to promote a company’s products or services in the market.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiKW2BTMgJ4