Marketing and advertising are not the same: strategy first, communication second

In 1960, professor E. Jerome McCarthy published Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach and popularized a framework that remains part of marketing education today: the well-known 4 Ps of the marketing mix: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion.

This model immediately helps explain why marketing and advertising cannot be considered equivalent. Promotion is just one of four major decision-making areas. Before deciding how to advertise a product, a company must determine what product or service it will offer, what need it fulfills, how it will be positioned, what its price will be, where it will be available, and how it will reach the consumer.

Contemporary marketing literature maintains that distinction. OpenStax, for example, explains that promotion includes advertising along with public relations, sales promotions, personal selling, direct marketing, and other forms of communication. In other words, advertising is a tool within promotion, and promotion is just one part of a much broader marketing system.

The definition from the American Marketing Association also emphasizes this breadth. The AMA describes marketing as a set of activities and processes related to creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for consumers, clients, partners, and society. That definition includes communication, but clearly is not limited to it.

That is why, when an organization says it has ‘a marketing problem,’ the solution is not necessarily an advertising campaign. There may be an issue with the product, pricing, distribution, segmentation, shopping experience, perceived value, customer retention, or any other variable that affects the relationship between the organization and its market.

A good marketing strategy begins by trying to understand what is happening. Before proposing solutions, we need information.

Research can examine consumers, the category, competitors, trends, buying behavior, historical sales, pricing, distribution, Internet searches, digital traffic, demographic data, geographic information, brand perception, and many other variables. Depending on the scope of the project, this can involve formal studies, surveys, interviews, focus groups, statistical analysis, social listening, analytics, or simply systematically organizing and analyzing the information the company already has.

The American Marketing Association itself defines marketing research as a function that connects consumers, customers, and the public with marketers through information used to identify and define opportunities and problems, evaluate actions, and monitor performance.

That definition is particularly important because it places research before execution. The purpose is not to collect data for its own sake, but to turn information into insights that support better decisions.

For example, knowing that sales fell 15% is information. However, that figure alone does not explain the problem. To begin understanding it, we would need to ask whether the number of customers declined, whether each customer is buying less, whether the price changed, whether a competitor entered the market, whether there is a distribution problem, whether the product lost relevance, or whether the messaging stopped connecting with the audience.

Strategic work is precisely about investigating those possibilities to get closer to the real problem.

Modern marketers have access to more information than virtually any previous generation of professionals. We can analyze traffic, searches, sales, transactions, conversions, audiences, behavior on a website, campaign responses, interactions, and a wide range of indicators.

However, having more data does not automatically guarantee better decisions. Data needs context and interpretation.

A company might discover, for example, that its website receives thousands of monthly visits but generates very few requests for information. At first glance, it might conclude that it needs to attract even more traffic. A more careful analysis might reveal that the real problem lies in the user experience, the form, the messaging, the value proposition, or the lack of information someone needs to feel ready to make a decision.

In that scenario, increasing ad spending could simply send more people into a process we already know is not converting effectively.

This is one of the most important principles of planning: before choosing a solution, we must correctly define the problem.

Suppose a company begins the process by saying, ‘We need to sell more.’

That may be an overall business objective, but it is not yet a diagnosis.

Why aren't we selling more?

Perhaps very few people know about the product. In that case, there may be an awareness problem.

Perhaps many people know the brand but do not clearly understand what it offers or why they should consider it. That could be a positioning or communication problem.

Perhaps there is sufficient awareness and interest, but the product is hard to find. Then we probably have a distribution problem.

Maybe people visit the website, add products to their carts, and abandon their purchases when they discover the shipping cost. In that case, increasing the advertising budget is unlikely to solve the problem.

It is also possible that the product is well known, available, and competitively priced, but there is a negative or inaccurate perception of the brand. In that situation, we could begin to identify a problem where communication plays a more significant role.

The point is that advertising cannot solve every business problem. Part of marketing's job is to determine which problems can be addressed through communication and which require changes in other areas.

Once we better understand the problem, we can set a more precise objective.

Saying ‘we want to grow’ offers little strategic guidance. By contrast, establishing that we need to increase brand consideration among consumers within a certain age range, increase the number of qualified inquiries from the website, or achieve greater penetration within a specific segment begins to provide much clearer direction.

Objectives also help us select appropriate indicators. If the main purpose is to increase awareness, metrics such as reach, frequency, branded searches, or brand lift studies may be relevant. If acquisition is the priority, we will probably be much more interested in leads, conversion rate, sales, cost per acquisition, or return on investment.

That is why metrics should be selected after the objective, not the other way around.

One million impressions is neither good nor bad on its own. Its value depends on what we were trying to achieve, whom we wanted to reach, how much it cost, and what happened as a result.

Another essential component of marketing is deciding which people represent the best opportunities for a particular offering.

Markets are rarely homogeneous. Different consumers have different needs, behaviors, income levels, priorities, motivations, and barriers. An effective strategy needs to understand those differences and select the segments where needs, the value proposition, and the ability to respond align best.

Segmentation can use demographic, geographic, psychographic, or behavioral variables, as well as variables related to intent and stage in the customer journey. Today, we can also complement those variables with information from searches, digital behavior, CRM, and first-party data.

This work matters for advertising because a message's effectiveness does not depend solely on its creativity. It also depends on who receives it and in what context.

An excellent ad shown to an audience that does not need the product will probably still be a poor investment.

Advertising begins when part of a marketing problem can be translated into a communication problem.

Imagine that research reveals a product has good distribution, a competitive price, and reasonable satisfaction levels among its users, but brand awareness is low within a high-potential audience.

In this case, marketing has identified an opportunity. Now we need to develop a communication strategy capable of increasing awareness and consideration within that segment.

This is where advertising disciplines come in: creative strategy, concept development, copywriting, design, photography, video, production, and media planning.

The question is no longer just ‘what problem does the business have?’ It begins to become ‘what does this audience need to hear, understand, feel, or remember for us to move closer to the objective?’

That is an important shift.

One of the most influential figures in modern advertising was David Ogilvy, founder of the agency that bears his last name. Although Ogilvy was a passionate advocate for the importance of ideas and creativity, his advertising philosophy was deeply focused on business results.

One of his best-known statements was:

‘We sell – or else.’

The significance of that phrase is not about reducing all advertising to an immediate sale. Not every campaign has that objective. Some build awareness, positioning, preference, or long-term reputation. What matters is the idea that commercial creativity should have a purpose and be tied to an outcome that has value for the organization.

Ogilvy represented a school of thought in which creativity and research were not necessarily opposites. Advertising could be memorable, elegant, or emotional, but it had to begin with an understanding of the consumer and what needed to be communicated.

That principle remains highly relevant.

Creativity does not replace strategy. It interprets it.

From an academic perspective, advertising can be understood as a form of paid communication through which an organization seeks to reach an audience and generate some type of response.

This means advertising is not simply ‘doing something creative.’ An advertising execution exists within a system in which an audience, an objective, and a strategy should already have been defined.

The creative concept transforms the strategy into an idea that can capture attention and be remembered. Copy turns that idea into language. Design creates a visual expression. Photography, video, audio, and other resources help build the experience. Finally, media delivers that communication to the people we want to reach.

Each of those decisions should respond in some way to the problem originally identified.

That is why a piece can be extremely attractive and still be bad advertising. It can capture attention without communicating what the business needs to communicate. It can entertain without changing perception. It can generate engagement without moving anyone toward a relevant action.

Creativity without strategic direction can end up being nothing more than decoration.

Another common practice is to begin planning by immediately asking how much will be spent on Meta, Google, TikTok, YouTube, or any other platform.

Media selection should happen after we understand the objective, the audience, and the message.

Search can be particularly useful when there is active intent. Someone searching for ‘corporate attorney in Puerto Rico’ is at a very different point in the decision-making process than someone discovering a firm for the first time while browsing Instagram.

Video can be useful when we need to demonstrate, explain, or build a narrative. Social media can provide reach, targeting, engagement, and discovery. LinkedIn may make sense in certain professional contexts. Radio, outdoor advertising, newspapers, events, and television remain relevant when the problem, audience, and context justify them.

Organizations have multiple communication tools available, and an integrated strategy can combine advertising, public relations, sales promotion, personal selling, direct marketing, and digital media.

That is why the right question should not be ‘which platform is trending?’ but ‘where are we most likely to connect this message with this audience in the right context?’

Conceptually, we can visualize the process as beginning with a business need. Research and analysis help identify a marketing problem. That problem helps establish an objective, define an audience, and formulate a strategy. When part of the solution requires changing awareness, perception, or behavior through communication, a communication problem is established.

From there, the advertising strategy can develop a message, a creative concept, and an execution framework. Media planning then determines how that message will reach the audience. Finally, measurement helps evaluate results and produce new information that feeds back into the marketing process.

That is why the model is not entirely linear. It is a cycle.

We research to plan. We plan to execute. We execute to measure. We measure to learn. And we learn to optimize again.

One of the major advantages of contemporary marketing is our ability to observe a substantial part of that process through data.

We can analyze how much it cost to reach an audience, which messages generated the strongest response, which campaigns drove traffic to the website, which users took specific actions, and which sources ultimately produced leads or sales.

In e-commerce, for example, we can analyze everything from the first visit to the product viewed, the add-to-cart action, checkout initiation, and the purchase. We can also study abandonment points and determine whether patterns suggest problems with pricing, shipping, the experience, or payment methods.

Advertising data can also feed back into marketing analysis. Perhaps we discover that a segment we originally considered secondary has a significantly higher conversion rate. Maybe a particular message produces a response we had not anticipated. Consumer searches might even reveal a need the company was not yet addressing.

In that sense, measurement is not just about proving that a campaign worked.

It is also a form of research.

Today's digital environment has introduced another source of confusion: equating advertising with content production.

A brand can post every day and still lack a clearly defined communication strategy. The number of posts produced does not determine the quality of the strategic thinking behind them.

A content calendar primarily addresses what we will publish and when. A strategy must first address why we are communicating, to whom, what we want to achieve, what message must remain consistent, and what role each channel plays in the audience's journey.

The execution may take the form of a Reel, a Google ad, a YouTube video, a billboard, an email, an activation, or a print piece.

The format comes later.

Strategy comes first.

As a general principle, yes. We first need to understand the market, the problem, and the objectives.

In practice, however, marketing and advertising should not operate as completely isolated departments. A creative idea can reveal a strategic opportunity. Media results can change our interpretation of an audience. A campaign can produce information that forces us to revisit an initial assumption.

The relationship works best when research, strategy, creativity, media, technology, and data communicate with one another.

That integration is especially important today because the customer journey is much less linear. Someone may discover a brand on TikTok, research it on Google, visit its website, read reviews, abandon a cart, receive remarketing ads, and finally make a purchase several days later.

Artificially separating each of those touchpoints can prevent us from understanding the full behavior.

At Alterno, one of the questions we consider most important before beginning execution is very simple:

What problem are we trying to solve?

When we jump straight to ‘we need some videos,’ ‘we want to run ads on Meta,’ or ‘we need ten posts,’ we are already discussing tactics before necessarily defining the strategy.

Maybe videos are exactly what we need.

Maybe Meta is the right medium.

But the real problem could also lie in the value proposition, the website, positioning, distribution, the conversion process, or even the product.

The role of strategy and consulting is to help us distinguish among those possibilities before investing resources in execution.

Marketing researches the market, studies consumers, interprets information, analyzes opportunities, segments audiences, sets objectives, and helps build a value proposition. It also considers decisions related to product, pricing, distribution, and promotion.

Advertising takes part of that strategy and transforms it into communication designed to generate a response. It develops concepts, messages, content, and experiences, and uses media to connect those ideas with specific audiences.

That is why we should not frame the discussion as marketing versus advertising.

The right relationship is marketing and advertising.

Research reduces uncertainty. Strategy sets direction. Creativity turns that direction into an idea. Media connects that idea with people. Technology enables execution and connects systems. Data helps us understand what happened.

And then the process begins again.

In an industry where new formats, platforms, tools, and technologies constantly emerge, perhaps one of the best ways to avoid chasing every new trend is to return to the fundamentals.

Before asking what campaign we will create, which platform we will use, or what content we will produce, we should start with something much more important:

What is the problem we really need to solve?