The Importance of Advertising to Marketing

Public relations to the left, advertising to the right: marketing strategy in the transitional era

More and more critical consumers and more complex competitive games endow marketing with a dialectical theoretical height: when a product faces ever-changing consumer psychology, what kind of marketing method can be effective?

We must admit that an era of marketing transformation is coming. On the one hand, the high surplus of commodities intensifies the fierce competition. Chasing limited consumption power with surplus goods forces enterprises to innovate constantly and attract consumers by various marketing means; On the other hand, the consumer market is becoming more and more rational, and the consumption choices are constantly changing. Many marketing strategies under the guidance of classical marketing theories are at a loss, and enterprises need to seek new marketing strategies to guide future market development.

In the past twentieth century, the power of advertising has influenced marketing for almost a whole century. Whether it is the launch of new products, the expansion of the market, the investment of enterprises, the construction of channels, and the blow to competitors, advertising has swept all fields of marketing with its fierce offensive. The omnipotence of advertising causes people to subconsciously think that advertising is omnipotent.

Just as the application of any marketing theory has its specific market background, advertising, as a single marketing method, also corresponds to a specific marketing era-in a society where competition is insufficient and the seller's market is dominant, enterprises can only attract enough consumers by advertising some product introductions. However, with the explosion of information, the renewal of consumers' consumption concept and the change of market competition situation, the credibility and arrival rate of advertisements are weakening day by day, and the emergence and prevalence of public relations can make up for the shortcomings of advertisements. Through the cooperation of the two, marketing can calmly face the complex consumption environment and play its due role.

If marketing is compared to a circle, enterprises/products are located at one end of the circle and consumers are at the other end. In marketing promotion, public relations turned to the left, and through news reports, symposiums, forums, public welfare activities and other means, the distance between consumers and enterprises/products was narrowed; Advertising goes to the right, pushing the information of enterprises/products to consumers through beautiful pictures, incisive advertisements and simple and clear information release. The perfect cooperation of the two makes marketing play the greatest role in product promotion, product brand building and product crisis management.

Product promotion: Public relations assists advertising penetration.

For those products that are not well understood by the public and have poor trust, it is difficult for simple advertising marketing to open the gap in the market, and it is also difficult for target customers to directly accept relevant information. Products with strong professionalism or products with low public attention, such as industrial supplies and drugs with too much false information, all belong to this category. Therefore, in this case, advertisements often need the assistance of public relations to carry out effective marketing promotion.

When Shi Yuzhu promoted melatonin, he typically adopted the strategy of public relations turning to the left and advertisements turning to the right: through seven scientific and technological soft articles with strong readability and extremely secret advertising information, he introduced the efficacy and function of melatonin to the public beautifully, and slowly engraved the uncommon term melatonin and its amazing curative effect on the public impression; Then, the overwhelming advertisements are used to continuously strengthen the impression and mention rate of melatonin in public memory. Although the marketing strategy of melatonin has been criticized, we can't deny its success in marketing effect-the objectivity and authority of public relations have effectively helped the penetration of advertisements and finally captured many blind consumers.

Apart from melatonin, in many successful product marketing cases, it is easy to find such marketing strategy settings: public relations turn left and advertisements turn right, each playing a good role and a bad role, conveying product information in a multi-angle and multi-way three-dimensionally, and finally achieving the ideal marketing effect.

It can be said that the main function of public relations is to establish a good public opinion environment for the brand, expand its influence and image reputation from a certain aspect of the brand, and create momentum for the brand. The function of advertising is to output the core value, positioning, USP and added value of a brand or product. From this point of view, the relationship between advertising and public relations is a complete marketing circle, and the close combination of the two makes the information transmission watertight, and the marketing results naturally follow.

Brand building: public relations is the pull, and advertising is the push.

The influence of brand plays a great role in product marketing. If the brand is essentially a consumer experience, then public relations is a container to build a consumer experience brand, and advertising is an explanation to tell consumers how to experience it. The two complement each other and jointly promote the brand building movement of enterprises or products.

Ogilvy & Mather, an internationally renowned brand manager, believes that a brand is mainly composed of six assets: product, image, goodwill, customers, channels and vision. Its 360-degree brand management is to publicize the brand of enterprises or products at all points of contact with consumers-public relations spreads the benign information of enterprises or products in a gentle, objective and quiet way, while advertisements repeatedly tell consumers the information simply and clearly, deepening consumers' impression of brands. Through the pull of public relations and the thrust of advertising, Galanz is an outstanding representative in this regard.

In the fierce competition of small household appliances industry, advertising marketing is one of Galanz's natural marketing strategies. Through a series of advertisements, Galanz transmits the benign information of Galanz's product characteristics, technical advantages and price advantages to consumers one by one, so that they can continuously receive all kinds of latest information of Galanz, maintain a certain degree of attention to Galanz, and at the same time build the popularity of Galanz in the industry, media and the public.

While using advertising marketing to penetrate information, Galanz uses its deep grasp of the media to spread the benign information that Galanz represents the latest technology of the industry, guides the future direction of the industry and brings rich returns to consumers through reporters' writing, news reports and special presentations. At the same time, the deputy general manager of Galanz personally attended various fortune forums, industry summits, corporate dialogues and other special meetings, talked about various topics related to Galanz, and constantly created news points for the media and the public.

Through excellent news and public relations, Galanz has shown the charm of a mature enterprise to the society from many angles and aspects: for competitors in the same industry, Galanz is a powerful opponent that accounts for more than 70% of the global microwave oven output; For consumers, Galanz is a responsible enterprise that constantly explores technological progress and reduces product costs through large-scale production; For the business community in China, Galanz is a successful model for China enterprises to enter the world competition stage. ...

More importantly, with the help of the communication antenna of news and public relations, Galanz successfully transformed the enterprise from a professional industry brand into a popular brand with extensive influence, and with this brand influence, Galanz successfully extended its brand to other white goods such as air conditioners, creating new profit growth points.

The essence of marketing is not product competition, but cognitive competition: what a product is in consumers' minds is far more important than what it is actually-this determines that the highest level of competition among enterprises is not the competition of product functions, but the competition of enterprise brand power. The "pull" of public relations and the "push" of advertising help consumers overcome various cognitive obstacles, strengthen their trust in enterprises/products, and thus shape the firm brand influence of enterprises/products.

Crisis management: PR gains trust through communication, and advertising brings us closer.

American cigar manufacturers once faced a huge industry crisis.

Because the government legislation explicitly prohibits cigarette manufacturers from publishing advertisements with obvious advertising nature in many public media, and the voice of anti-smoking among the people is growing day by day, one large-scale anti-smoking demonstration after another pushes cigar manufacturers into a dilemma and is besieged on all sides: the negative image of cigars in the public's mind is constantly strengthening, but the benign information of new products cannot be conveyed to the public. In just three months, the sales of cigars in the United States have dropped by 30%, and the whole industry is in danger of shrinking.

The American Cigar Federation understands that in the face of the current social crisis and public distrust, in order to regain the public's favor and win market recognition, it is necessary to implement new marketing strategies, and through a series of targeted and effective public relations and advertising plans, while narrowing the distance between cigars and the public, it is necessary to turn the tide and reverse the negative views of society on cigars. What determines the future life and death of cigar manufacturers is not other factors such as policies, regulations and competition, but people's views on cigars and their image in people's minds. In order to change people's negative impression of cigars, establish a good social and product image of cigars, and establish an emotional connection between cigars and the public is imperative. This requires starting with a series of public relations programs such as activities, communication and events, completing emotional communication with the public first, supplemented by a series of public service advertisements, and strengthening the establishment of a positive image of cigars in the public's mind.

In the public relations scheme, the cigar association first highlights the essential relationship between cigars and life humor, shows the courage of cigar lovers to laugh at themselves and face adversity calmly, and more importantly highlights the deep-seated function of cigars: smoking cigars is the best performance of mental relaxation. In view of the above themes, they have adopted a series of public relations activities with clear themes but clever performances. For example, holding "Tween's Night" shows the same optimistic and brave personality of cigar lovers by imitating the image of a famous writer-a brave, intelligent and humorous cigar lover, and arouses strong voices from target customers.

Mark it with the public? Twain's love and respect, the Cigar Federation skillfully extended this emotion to cigars, which greatly inspired the inner dignity of cigar lovers, and also expressed the idea that only successful people would smoke cigars, which triggered the inner voices of many cigar lovers and even non-cigar lovers.

For a long time, America has an ancient folk custom. Men who have just become fathers will give cigars to relatives and friends around them to express their psychological feelings of excitement and tension, but this tradition is gradually declining. Therefore, the Cigar Federation seized this ancient folk custom, injected it into modern emotional expression, and held activities such as "Relax and have a cigar" and "Cigar Valentine's Day", positioning cigars as the best way for people to relieve their emotions. These activities not only attracted a large number of participants, but also aroused some nostalgic complex hidden in many people's hearts.

With the help of activities, news media and cigar lovers, the cigar association expressed to the public the indispensable role of cigars in life-bread is the food for the body, while cigars are the food for the spirit. These propaganda have been recognized by many cigar lovers.

While gradually eliminating the public's aversion to cigars, public service advertisements and image advertisements about cigars were launched in the cigar association, which further narrowed the psychological distance between the public and cigars. Less than three months after the implementation of the plan, not only did the public's voice against cigar smoking weaken a lot, but cigar sales in the whole United States also surged by nearly 30%. The perfect cooperation of public relations and advertising has saved American cigar manufacturers from a serious crisis.

The organic combination of public relations and advertising: the direction of future marketing

Both public relations and advertising have irreplaceable advantages and disadvantages. The essence of public relations is to control public opinion, so that public opinion can create publicity effects in a direction that is beneficial to the image of enterprises (brands). The disadvantage is that the arrival rate is limited. The essence of advertising lies in promoting the information of enterprises and products in a simple and clear way, and the disadvantage lies in the decline of credibility.

The successful promotion of marketing lies in the organic combination of public relations and advertising-through close cooperation with each other, giving full play to their respective advantages and strengths, using various means, publicity methods and three-dimensional tracking of target customers, so that they can not escape the tangible or intangible encirclement and influence of information.

This is the future development direction of marketing-public relations to the left and advertising to the right. The cooperation between the two is drawn into an invisible circle, which allows information to be seamlessly connected with target customers and target customers to effectively and fully absorb information dissemination.