Difference between Marketing, Communication, and Advertising

Difference between marketing, communication, and advertising!! Do  they differ?

Of course, you may have heard about these concepts a lot: marketing, communication, and advertising, and you may have used them many times interchangeably, but in reality, they are not the same thing. So let’s continue reading to understand each of the following:

let’s get started!

 What is marketing?

First, let me tell you that in recent years, the word marketing in some contexts has been used almost negatively, as if it were as if it had a negative connotation.  How many times have you heard or used the expression, I didn’t like that book, it was just a marketing gimmick!

Actually, over the years this concept has evolved much more.

Let me tell you that there is no single definition of marketing, there are several, where everyone gives a different point of view to define it. But in this blog, I have chosen the best four definitions of marketing that will help you understand its real meaning.

If we start from the word definition, the translation of the concept, that is the verb to market in English, it means: to place on the market, but this translation is very rough; marketing should not mean that. 

So, let’s explore the best 4 definitions for marketing to understand the difference between marketing, communication, and advertising.

 

1- The first one I want to share with you is that of the American Marketing Association, which says marketing is the activity of creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offers that have value for customers, partners, and society.

I selected this definition because I really like the fact that it brings together different concepts, it talks about creation, communication, delivery, and exchange of offer, but then everything revolves around the concept of value, so the value that there is for end customers.

In reality, then it also talks about a broader ecosystem and therefore talks about the partners,  of the company and in general the impact that this has on society.

2. Another very nice definition that I caught when I was doing the research is that of Investopedia, and it defines marketing in this way: marketing is the discipline that involves all the actions that a company takes to acquire customers and maintain relationships with them. 

And this is beautiful because there is a focus on the relationship.

 So on the one hand, obviously they are actions that lead you to acquire clients, but then they are also the actions that lead you to build a relationship with them and therefore to maintain it over time.

3- One of my absolute favorites,  is that of Sergio Ziman, former historian SIEMO of Coca-cola, and he defines marketing in this way, marketing is selling more stuff to more people, more often, for more money, in a more efficient way.

So, there are five factors, there is:

• • quantity,

• • people,

• • frequency,

• • price

• • efficiency.

And I like it because, in my opinion, it covers several aspects that sometimes escape perhaps in definitions that are a little more academic.

4- The fourth definition that I want to give you is that of Philip Kotler, the father of modern marketing, as Philip Kotler defines marketing!  He describes it in this way: marketing is the science and art, of understanding, creating, and offering value to satisfy customers’ needs and make a profit. 

In this one of Kotler, there is the concept of value at the center, but the concept of value alongside satisfying the needs of customers.  Obviously to make a profit, because otherwise, you are doing something else, if you are not profitable, probably, so to make a profit, but it has this objective of creating value for someone, solving a need, a problem, a need of some kind.

so if we wanted to try to put these definitions together a bit, and give them an extra one,  a fifth definition, let’s put it this way, which then I don’t want to say that my definition, because I certainly haven’t invented anything new, but let’s say in my vision, my definition of marketing, I have always seen it as that process that helps us to find the match between on the one hand, the products and services of a company,  and on the other hand, the needs and desires of customers.

In my opinion, the intersection, this matching, that process, that activity that makes us find this matching, and therefore that there in the middle finds the intersection, where on the one hand we have the products and services that the company offers, on the other hand, we have the needs and desires of customers.

 

And now that we have asked better what marketing is, let’s try to understand the difference between marketing, communication, and advertising. 

It happens that these two terms are used interchangeably, because sometimes we say marketing and communication as if they were the same thing, or marketing and advertising as if they were the same thing, in reality, they are not.

Now that we have defined what marketing is, we have seen that it is a set of activities, it is a discipline, it is a process, so it is a series of actions, we can start to unpack it, and we can start to disassemble it.

To do it we go and take a famous framework, not very recent in marketing, which are the 4Ps.

Some might be scandalized because they say that we are in 2024 and these concepts are outdated, but in my opinion, certain concepts are not outdated, we have to contextualize them in a different era, obviously with different tools, with different tests and so on, so the 4Ps then became 7, then they became the 4Cs, but let’s say the C is there remains the same,  Let’s understand each other.

 

What are the 4Ps?

For those who don’t know, it’s a, let’s call it a model, a framework conceived in the 60s by McCarty, which was made famous by Kotler, are the four elements, if you will, that are present within marketing.

These four elements start with the P, they are product, place, price, and promotion.

Here, the fourth P of the four Ps, this fourth P, promotion is the world of communication.

Let’s start detaching a rib.  Imagine this big circle that is marketing, inside there is a smaller circle that is communication, so it is one of the four, if you want, of the four elements, or if we want to use more modern frameworks one of the seven elements and so on and so on, but let’s say it is a sub-element, it is a branch of what marketing is, and it is this thing called communication.

And be careful, because within communication there are different activities, communication contains activities such as PR, public relations, activities such as the content we produce, activities such as defining the tone of voice of a company, and then the activity of paid promotion.

So, let’s tighten the circle a little more, so we have this outer circle which is marketing, inside there is a smaller circle which is communication, inside again there is a smaller circle which is advertising.

So if you want, it’s a small piece of communication, we said that communication inside has several elements, and one of these elements, one of these activities is the advertising part.

So is it a subset of marketing?  Yes.

Is it a subset of communication? Yes.

And if we see marketing as a big puzzle, advertising is a small piece of this puzzle.  And advertising so what it is, at the end of the day, is to involve a third party to get our message across, hence the message of the company that is selling that product and that service to someone else.

Who is this someone else? They are our audience, they are our ideal customers.

And then we do that through various means, through various channels, so from more traditional things like TV advertising, newspaper advertising, radio advertising, etc., etc. to more modern means like Facebook advertising, podcast advertising, advertising on, I don’t know, on X (previously known as Twitter),  etc.

So, to sum up:

We have the outer circle that is marketing, it is a series of activities, to make the match that we mentioned earlier, where on the one hand, we have our products and services, and on the other hand, we have the needs, and requirements of our customers.

Inside this large circle, we have a smaller circle, this smaller circle is one of the 4Ps, it is the communication part, ok, what in English is called promotion, which is within various types of communication that we do, among which there is a communication that involves a third party, we do it for a fee very often, and this part is the advertising part, so it’s advertising. 

So don’t say communication and marketing thinking it’s the same thing, don’t say marketing and advertising thinking it’s the same thing, because, in reality, they are not at all.

I hope this article helps you understand the real difference between marketing, communication, and advertising.