Being a full-service agency, there are a lot of terms we can use to describe what we do. Marketing, advertising, communications, branding, etc. “But aren’t marketing and advertising the same thing?”

Do a quick search and you’ll find a variety of answers to this question. Some assert that they are completely separate professional fields, others say advertising is a subset of marketing.

The best way I can make the distinction is that advertising and marketing are different steps necessary to reach a larger goal.

The “marketing mix” is made up of four parts (four P’s):

• Product
• Price
• Place
• Promotion

The marketer develops the combination of those four elements to best achieve the client’s goal.

The advertiser’s job is to come up with the best way to get the client in the public eye.If advertising were to fit within the marketing mix, it would be in the promotion segment. Need some help visualizing this relationship? Check out this cartoon we whipped up:

What do  you think? How would you describe the relationship between advertising and marketing?