Branding, Marketing & Advertising: What is the Difference?

As branding and marketing consultants, we are often asked: “Is there really a difference between the two?” Throw advertising into the mix, and the waters only get muddier.

At Verv, we are intimately familiar with the differences between branding, marketing and advertising – because we live and breathe this stuff. It’s our passion and our playground. We know precisely how to differentiate between them and, more important, exactly how to apply the principles of each to meet your specific needs.

Let’s talk about what that means.

Branding: The Critical First Step

The importance of branding cannot be overstated, especially in a competitive real estate market like Vancouver. At its most basic level, branding refers to a name and a logo. But consider for a moment just how important your name and logo are. They are your initial interaction with the consumer; your first, and most important tool to build a perception in consumers’ minds about the qualities and attributes of your product.

Your brand is visually articulated through a design system that combines graphic devices, imagery and language, painstakingly crafted to create the desired effect. Successful branding achieves two crucial objectives:

• Differentiates you from your competitors
• Positions your product in the market

At Verv, we have developed a brand model to establish strategy, positioning and identity (detailed in an earlier post), culminating in a brand platform that is used as a touchstone for the lifecycle of your product – from preview to completion. Branding is the foundation of all marketing efforts, and it is critical that it gets done right.

Marketing: Feeding the Sales Machine

Technically speaking, marketing is all activity undertaken to create demand. More specifically, it is the activity whereby the right messaging is matched to the right audience. The goal of marketing is to increase sales and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. Only by understanding the needs and wants of your consumer (based on market intelligence and insights), then answering those needs, can marketing be successful.

Your marketing efforts will focus on active promotion and communication with your target audience. Integrated marketing plans (sales environments, collateral, PR, advertising, digital presence, etc.) will determine how and where your product’s “story” is told.

By communicating on-target messaging to key audiences in compelling ways, your marketing efforts will drive awareness, elevate the value of your brand, and ultimately deliver qualified leads for your sales team.

Advertising: A Powerful Punch

“Advertising” can be a misunderstood term. In actual fact, advertising is simply one component of the marketing spectrum. It is the action of using paid announcements to inform and influence your audience, and create awareness about your product.

Traditionally, an advertising campaign is developed based on your branding and marketing plan, and distributed across paid media channels strategically selected to reach your target audience.

Advertising is a major piece of the marketing puzzle. A bold and compelling campaign promoted in the right places can be a game-changer for successful real estate projects. It can be differentiator that gets your project sold – ahead of your competitor!

So, the short answer is that advertising falls under the umbrella of marketing, while branding is that critical first step of positioning your product and creating your visual identity before you can begin to flesh out your marketing plan.

Give us a shout if you have questions, or want to discuss what’s missing from your project. We could talk about this stuff all day. Actually, we do.

Image Source: Adweek

There is noise flying at consumers from every angle. Something clever, something practical, something interactive, something hilarious, something memorable. Something that creates value in the target’s mind. Statements linking features to advantages and positioning these as benefits (FABS). How can marketers be more clever than the competition?

Small Luxury Hotels of the World decided to do the opposite. Less visually appealing. No FAB statements. They’ve rolled out an unadvertising campaign. Beige headlines do anything but scream, they whisper. “Even the most exciting, glossy advert can’t seduce people who know what they want. So here’s a boring one.” “This ad is for people unaffected by retouched advertising images.” “A super slick luxury ad might have looked great, but it wouldn’t have swayed independent minds. So we didn’t do one.”

The campaign cleverly plays to consumers who consider themselves highly discerning. It’s ironic; the “free-thinking” audience is manipulated the opposite way other targets are.

The $1 million campaign media buy  includes Bloomberg, Departures, the Financial Times, Boisdale Lifestyle and Travel + Leisure.  These print and digital outlets clearly target the affluent traveler.

To read the original story, visit Adweek

Just last year, Instagram announced the new business model: the inclusion of mobile advertising. So what key moves have they made to reach 200,000 advertisers?

• They opened up advertising to 200 markets
• They established partnerships with dozens of marketing-vendors
• They introduced both carousel ads and longer-form video ads
• They broadened the call-to-action options (think app-install ads, “Shop Now“ and “Learn More” buttons)

The formats have attracted big names and small advertisers alike. Of course, Facebook encourages marketers to run paid promos on both Facebook and Instagram. This also boosts both engagement and ad recall.

Instagram continues to monitor ads very closely, to ensure quality. Companies are challenged to create compelling content that suits the platform. After all, users are very discerning about what they want to see, and will provide feedback as to whether an ad is relevant or not. This is money well spent for advertisers; relevant ads always perform better.

Source: Adweek