People today do not realize that there is a difference between public relations advertising and marketing and that is that public relations emphasize mainly cultivating relationships between an organization, individual, and key public figures in order to manage the client’s image. Marketing on the other hand emphasizes the promotion of goods and services for revenue purposes. Advertising is a tool of communication used by marketers to get customers to buy into the benefits of the product.
Impact of Advertising
Advertising is very useful, not just to producers but customers as well, and even the society at large. Advertising performs many functions in the society such as, giving information about the benefits of a product or service, which influences, targets or aims the attitudes and behaviours of customers by using different media outlets to capture their attention. For instance, an average American sees hundreds, and even thousands of advertisements in a day. Therefore, advertisement plays a very important role in shaping opinions of products and politics.
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Also, it supports many institutions, such as news outlets, the television industry, search engine companies, and social media websites. For example, advertising contributes up to 80 percent of revenue for newspaper, and therefore is critical to maintaining the circulation of the press (Newspaper Association, 2014).
It is also used in convincing customers to buy new products that are introduced in the market, while also giving the existing customers of a particular product a reason to continue buying the product. It also works the other way by, trying to persuade the customers to switch from the existing brand they are using to another product. For example, giving the customer reasons why a brand or product is better than the other. For instance, Milo and Ovaltine, or Omo and Sunlight.
It helps in educating people, for instance there are some social issues in which advertising deals with like child labour, liquor consumption, female child murders, smoking, family planning education. In other words, advertising creates awareness in society not just on convincing people to buy products, but also informing about social issues around them or in the society.
It also serves as an art form or way of communicating with the customers. This deals with communication skills and convincing power. This helps in increasing demand of products on the side of the producers, at the same time increasing sales.
It is highly used especially in this age whereby competition is very high. So, it helps one to know, one’s competitors and plan to be able to meet up with the competition.
Advantages of Advertising
Advertising plays a very important role in the society; be it the producers, the traders or consumers. Some advantages to customers:
- Awareness: Advertising enables customers conscious and aware of what is new in the market or an existing product. If the products are not advertised customers will not be aware of what is going in the market;
- Advertising also helps customers find the product that’s best for them. When they get to know about the range of products, they are able to compare and buy what is best for them;
- Advertising is also vital to producers or sellers of the product;
- Advertising helps increase in sales of a product;
- Advertising helps companies aware of their competitors in the market and how they can better their product;
- Advertising is the foundation for any company to launch or release a new product;
- Advertising helps create customer loyalty;
- The demand for a product is a result of advertising.
Advertising not only helps customers and companies or producers but also the society at large. Advertising helps in tackling social issues and educating the public on these issues. Social issues like child labor, human trafficking, ('MSG Management Study Guide')
Disadvantages of Advertising
- Advertising costs a lot of money to advertise. Most manufacturers have to pay out of their pocket just to meet up with the cost of advertising their good which puts them at a loss;
- Sometimes the adverts may mislead the customers for instance a buyer could see an advert and buy the good but feel cheated after using the good then come to the realization that the advert does not really give the right information on the good;
- Adverts tend to undermine social values they blur the line between reality and fantasy in such adverts the buyers would get these goods without enough detail on what this could do to them;
- Adverts also encourage the sales of inferior or bad goods there is no filter for the kind of good that is advertised, so both the good ones and the bad ones are all advertised to customers;
- Some adverts could be derogatory or insulting to certain audiences. In order to gain recognition from a certain audience they could consciously or unconsciously hurt another audience to get their way.
Brief History of Marketing
Marketing is a relatively young discipline it began in the early 1900s. before this time most issues that are currently associated with marketing were assumed to fall under concepts of economics, advertising, or in most cases, they were not yet explored. ('History of Marketing', 2019)
Under the leadership of marketing scholars from several major universities, marketing was largely motivated by the need to break down in greater detail relationships and behaviors that existed between buyers and sellers. The study of marketing caused sellers to recognize that using certain strategies and tactics could strengthen the seller/buyer relationship. Before the 1950s this often referred to identifying tactics and strategies for selling more goods and services with little or no regard for the consumers wants. This led to companies embracing a “sell-as-much-as-we-can” philosophy with little concern for building strong, long term relationships. ('History of Marketing', 2019)
However, starting from the 1950s, companies began to notice that the old ways of selling goods were becoming outdated amongst consumers. Competition began to grow stiffer amongst most industries, organizations then began to look to buyers of the transaction for ways to better improve. What they found was a new philosophy whereby the success of marketing was built on understanding the needs of the customers. This new Marketing concept meant that decisions of marketers would first go from knowing what their consumers want and only then would the organization initiate the process of developing and marketing goods and services. ('History of Marketing', 2019)
Impact of marketing
Marketing is used to develop satisfying relationships that benefit the customer and the organization. At the organization level, it is a vital business function that is necessary for nearly all industries whether the organization operates as a profit or non-profit organization. For the profit-making organization, marketing is responsible for most tasks that bring revenue. While in the non-profit organization, marketing is responsible for attracting customers needed to support the non- profit’s mission such as raising donations or supporting a cause for both types of organizations it is unlikely they can survive without a marketing effort.
It is also the organizational business area that interacts most frequently with the public and what the public knows about an organization is determined by their interactions with marketers. It helps to create a competitive environment that helps lower product prices, as well as building demand for products that require organizations to increase their labour force which serves as a means of employment.
Furthermore, it sets prices in the sense that marketing helps in setting the correct price for one’s product or service which is done through the trial and error which is a form of market research. Marketing also sells the product or service in the sense that it helps in matching the products to the customers by determining the needs and wants of your customers base and being able to respond with the correct or appropriate products at the right time frame and right price.
Advantage of Marketing
Marketing is simply the promoting and selling of products or services. Advantages of marketing:
- Marketing helps to draw the wants of the consumers locates in untouched areas and find out the possibility of selling a new product;
- Marketing helps both the producers and the public or consumers. It helps the producers know more about the demand of the consumers while it also helps consumers get what they want from the producers;
- Marketing raises the standard of living in a country. With the provision of more items, products and amenities; even the poorest section of the society will get something out of it. Paul Mazur says “marketing is the delivery of a standard of living to society”. ('Top 10 Advantages of Marketing', 2015).
Disadvantages of Marketing
- The main disadvantage of marketing is the cost as money and other factors determine the success of a marketing project;
- If one does not do proper research then one may lose a lot of money. One could target the wrong audience or use an inappropriate medium of marketing and this would be a costly mistake;
- There is also an issue of time. Researching proper marketing strategies, designing, writing, getting the work published, dealing with responses after all require a lot of time. So, an unsuccessful project could be very risky;
- Marketing campaigns are consistent and ongoing which means more cost and more time spent and research has shown that consumers of goods need to see a piece of information about 3 to 30 times before they get it;
- A marketer may advertise a work but unless they are able to pay for a full page in a magazine, newspaper or any media outlet the marketer would be competing with other marketers who are also trying to gain recognition for their goods;
- The cost of attaining a magazine or newspaper with wide audience is extremely high and could be too expensive for some businesses.
Brief History of Public Relations
Public relations dates back to the revolutionary war as far as the United States are concerned. The tactics and strategies used to increase the ranks of patriots dedicated to the revolutionary cause and the staging of the Boston Tea Party are examples of early public relations. President Thomas Jefferson first used the term “public relations” in 1807. In His “Seventh Address to the Congress,” he replaced the words “state of thought” with “public relations.” (Inforefuge, 2009)
However, the knowledge of public relations has not always been positive. P.T. Barnum became a master publicist by creating articles for his circus in the 1800s. His exploitative publicity method and “public be damned” ideology however caused a lot of criticism of the profession. (Inforefuge, 2009)
The Creel Committee of the first world war was a significant component of the development of the profession. Edward L. Bernays who later came to be known as the father of public relations, was a member of this committee and was part of a massive verbal and written communication effort to gain support in the war. According to Bernays it was the first time in American history that information had been used as a weapon of war. (Inforefuge, 2009).
References:
- History of Marketing. (2019, August 20). Retrieved January 16, 2020, from https://www.knowthis.com/what-is-marketing/history-of-marketing/
- Inforefuge. (2009, October 30). History of Public Relations. Retrieved January 16, 2020, from https://inforefuge.com/history-of-public-relations
- MSG Management Study Guide. (n.d.). Retrieved January 16, 2020, from https://www.managementstudyguide.com/objectives-importance-of-advertising.htm
- Public Relations Management roles. (2019, May 1). Retrieved January 16, 2020, from https://www.agilitypr.com/resources/pr-glossary/public-relations-management-roles/.
- Top 10 Advantages of Marketing. (2015, May 15). Retrieved January 16, 2020, from http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/marketing/top-10-advantages-of-marketing/53152
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