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Advertising and Branding

Guest post by: Mash Bonigala

Article Overview: Branding is an important aspect of building a business. Every aspect of a business must contribute to the branding aspect in order to give a unified approach where all energies are focused on putting out a single image. Advertising is one of the most important aspects of branding. Advertising puts a face on what the brand does and how it functions to the general public, especially potential customers.

Advertising and Branding

Branding is an important aspect of building a business. Every aspect of a business must contribute to the branding aspect in order to give a unified approach where all energies are focused on putting out a single image. Advertising is one of the most important aspects of branding. Advertising puts a face on what the brand does and how it functions to the general public, especially potential customers.

Advertising concerns itself with the product image for the most part. They put together add campaigns, pinpoint target demographics, and perhaps most importantly conduct focus groups. The product image is the first characteristic advertising departs usually works on. This is in part creating a need for a product.

Creating a need for a product is what sells a product. If the target audience is reached with an exciting add it does nothing if the potential customer decides they do not need a product. There are various ways in which one can create a need, usually it has to do with showing the product in a desirable situation. But regardless of how it is created, it has to be there. This sets the tone for an entire advertising campaign. Once that tone has been set, this sets the entire advertising machine in motion.

Creating the need reflects on the brand image as a whole. Depending upon the route taken, a great deal of things can be inferred from the way a company chooses to create a need. This is where the second part of an advertising department comes in to play, focus groups.

A focus group is a small sample of a target demographic for a product, where in advertisers can see the effect or potential unintended consequences of an advertisement. These groups are shown the advertisement, generally more than once and then asked a series of questions.

There is no set number of questions or even any specific questions that an advertising branch might ask but there is set information these questions are designed to illicit. One of the primary answers which is taken from a target audience is of course, does this product/add appeal to you? If so then why, if not, why not?

This can give an advertising branch a more solid idea of what does or does not work in a given advertisement. From this knowledge, the advertising department can decide if they are going a direction with the advertisement which is profitable or not.

Another answer an advertising branch would generally try to get from a focus group is what the advertisement makes them feel. If the feelings from an advertisement are negative, the current direction of the ads should be stopped and started in another direction.

At the end of the day, advertisers want to give the public what it wants. The public usually wants a reputable product at what they feel is a fair price. This is a necessary illusion to create, which is created the vast majority of the time with any advertising campaign.

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Article Tags: branding, image advertising, logo design



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