I think advertising is to marketing as space travel is to rocket science. An ideal situation for space travel is to be able to teleport anything anywhere, but that's not possible yet, so they build rockets to travel as fast as currently possible. Similarly, an ideal situation for advertising is to read each person's mind, determine exactly what products they are looking for but aren't yet aware of, and make them aware. But that's not possible yet, so they use marketing spam to make aware as many people as possible.
> Similarly, an ideal situation for advertising is to read each person's mind, determine exactly what products they are looking for but aren't yet aware of, and make them aware.
If marketers had that power, that's not how they'd use it. Instead, what they'd do is deploy a powerful analytic system to determine what your touch points are, in order to learn how to more effectively manipulate you to make you want whatever it is they happen to be selling.
Or, to use currently fashionable marketer-speak, they'd use it to move you through the funnel more efficiently.
Yes, I understand they aren't identical (I consider advertisers to be less problematic than marketers), but they both are working toward the same goal.
except the goal of marketing is not inherently to meet a person's needs.
At the macro level, it's maximising needs met, but at the micro level this is done by both initiating and implanting desires that otherwise aren't present or necessary, and by creating problems/pain points (which then, as a second order effect, create a need, which is met by the product).
In economic terms, advertisers aim to maximise locally measured utility, but they do this by externalising the costs of the dis-utility they deliberately create.
Like the proverbial glass salesman, garbage man, or mafia, they provide a theoretical good, but they've found business booms if they can generate their own demand by throwing rocks through windows, trashing the town, or partaking in their own crime to sell their protection services.
In our instance, the town is our own psychological and social state, and while we don't account for these externalities andnegatives, they will keep actively damaging us because its in their interest and locally optimal from their pint of view...
Every single person responding to my comment is conflating advertising with marketing. They are not the same thing!
Advertisers are putting customers in touch with marketers for products. Marketers are trying to convince those customers to buy the product. If the advertiser somehow magically knew a priori that nothing a marketer could say would change a given customer's mind, it's in everyone's best interest to not waste any resources on that customer.
> Every single person responding to my comment is conflating advertising with marketing. They are not the same thing!
> Advertisers are putting customers in touch with marketers for products. Marketers are trying to convince those customers to buy the product. If the advertiser somehow magically knew a priori that nothing a marketer could say would change a given customer's mind, it's in everyone's best interest to not waste any resources on that customer.
I agree with the point, but not the rationale. The difference between advertising and marketing is simply a syllogistic fallacy.
All fat men are men, all men are human, therefore all humans are fat men.
All advertising is paid media, all paid media is marketing, therefore all marketing is advertising.
Marketing is a superset of actions that contains elements of direct advertising, paid influence (PR, influencers, "brand ambassadors", employee advocacy...), product development and market research, events and announcements, sales, and distribution.
I'm a marketer - my main job at the moment is advertising (which I hate, but am stuck), but it's not the only element to the role of a marketer.
You might conflate all of the above under "advertising", but even if you think it should all be burned to the ground, it's still helpful to segment is so you can choose the order in which you set it alight.
well, firstly, no, under that definition, it's not in the advertiser's interest to get the marketers to stop spending money (that generates the advertiser's profits) even if its not doing anything.
secondly, if we take your definition (and call me crazy but if everyone in a conversation is using a certain definition I generally find it more amenable to participating in a conversation to adopt that definition), you've got it completely backwards.
Marketers use advertisers to get marketing into peoples heads. Advertisers exist to make money by meeting the needs and desires of marketers. Consumers are not, as a general rule, paying to see ads.
The idea that advertisers exist to try 'deduce peoples wants and then met them' and they're the ones just 'using marketing because they haven't found a better way' is so..., and I try to keep things civil here on Hacker news but can think of no other way to convey this thought..., naively stupid that it's borderline offensive and disrespectful to the people on the other side of the conversation.
