Brand Building or Advertising?
In times of economic uncertainty, many businesses wonder if enlisting an ad agency to create a brand for their product is worth the time and expense. My response? It all depends on how successful they want to be, and for how long. Print ads come in two varieties, the branding ad and the sales ad. Branding ads are those that try to position a company and its product in a specific niche. If successful, they should identify with a particular target market and reach out to those to whom the brand is intended. The sales ad works off of the brand positioning and makes specific product or service offers to a well-defined audience. Both types of ads are important parts of selling a product or service, but I would argue that the sale can’t come before the brand. In my experience, too many companies try to jump immediately to the sales ad without spending the time building a brand. As consumers we see these ads every day. Unfortunately for the advertiser, few actually catch, or keep, our att...