Advertising can come in many forms and, I feel, it comes under a heading of using this form of marketing as an activity to spread your message with the aim of making an impact.
In the current climate pretty much all organisations have a website of sorts to act as a place to provide more information as well as an online advertising, but advertising can also take the form of sponsorship. However, the medium itself is usually the message as there is often very little room for the message itself. For example a leisure company aligning itself (sponsoring) a well-covered sporting event.
Sponsorship could also be demonstrated by companies or brands being associated with people or celebrities who might typify the brand values the company is trying to create. A good example could be a certain George Clooney and Nespresso.
There is also PR as a form of advertising where you can target certain geographic sectors or areas with positive messages about your brand, but PR can be deemed as having a low signal power compared to other advertising activities. It can really achieve its aim via a sort of stealth marketing; hiding it’s actual sales message among in a press releases about a new product or award!
Whatever “advertising” you decide to explore, the evaluation of advertising and its effectiveness is tricky. Usually you have to rely on additional measures to compliment advertising unless a direct response mechanism is incorporated. This makes advertising as a marketing tool could be limited compared with something like a digital campaign where you can see “hits” and “visits.”
However, do not underestimate advertising in its many forms as something to include in your marketing mix. What your advertising should look like and contain is something for another article……
