Saturday, January 21, 2012

Disparities of Marketing, Advertising, and Propaganda

Although marketing, propaganda, and advertising are all given individual separate names, overall they are all quite similar in principle. Marketing is the most generalized, with advertising and propaganda being integral parts of effective marketing. Although I believe advertising and propaganda are parts of marketing, they can not always be mentioned together. In order for marketing to be as effective as possible, it is necessary for all three seperate aspects to work collectively to achieve success.

Marketing is in essence, how an organization portrays their product to the consumers. There is a lot of research and strategy involved in this act, and an organization is only as successful as their marketing strategy allows them to be. It is impossible to sell product if nobody is aware that it exists. As time goes by, marketing strategies develop and change, as well as markets. The internet, which is arguably the largest marketing tool currently available was nonexistent just twenty years ago. This is why billions of dollars are sunk into innovating marketing strategies, because if you are not expanding you will not be able to sell product.

With the ability to acquire similar products, it is imperative to distinguish your product from other product. Propaganda is one way that a company can distinguish themselves from their competitors. Propaganda is simply portraying possible outcomes that will result from using a specific product. A great example used in class this past week was, if you use Axe body spray you will get desirable girls; which could potentially occur in some situations. But, in most situations this is highly unlikely. In simple terms, propaganda is a form of manipulation that the consumers often times overlook which leads to selling units of product.

Advertising is simply enough put as, portraying and giving an image to your product. Propaganda is a big part of advertising effectively, by in theory "manipulating" your consumers. Advertising can be done in many ways, and there are endless ways of making your product known to your consumers. Advertising methods and strategies are constantly changing, as they need to be as human nature and society are infinitely changing. Advertising overall is an underrated part of a business because it is crucial to a company in order to flourish in a capitalist, free market economy like we are fortunate enough to live in.