Those who worry that advertising is ineffective usually misunderstand marketing.

Most disputes over advertising exposure and effectiveness have to some extent misunderstood the essence of marketing . Brand marketing promotion is not a matter of a TVC, an event, or a screen-sweeping event.

Advertising exposure and conversion effects always seem to be a matter of having your cake and eating it too. There are tens of thousands of marketing cases in the world, but not many can be called classic cases that are both critically acclaimed and commercially successful.

A long time ago, the classic debate about exposure and effect was to ask, "Who is the brand that wrote 'A diamond is forever'?"

Because compared to this well-known slogan, not many people know that this is a jewelry brand called De Beers.

In the past two years, the issue of brand and conversion has been brought to the fore again from time to time. For example, people have repeatedly revealed that Pechoin ’s long-form graphic ads have very low conversion rates, Jiang Xiaobai has large traffic but poor sales, and Vatti’s World Cup marketing has attracted enough attention but has little impact on sales…

Quantitative measurement of brand advertising effectiveness has always been a problem and will continue to be a problem. Advertising can be calculated using indicators such as the number of people covered and the amount of exposure , but it is impossible to measure the impact it has on the target consumers. You don’t know whether your target audience will forget the story after reading it, or remember the story but forget the brand, or remember the story and the brand but not take any purchasing action.

Most people have this confusion about exposure and effect because most people view marketing activities in isolation and separation.

In theory, the psychological transformation of consumers during the brand consumption process is: awareness-understanding-trust-purchase-recommendation (different theories have different divisions, but they are basically the same). It is certainly unrealistic to expect that a China Merchants Bank TVC "Tomato Scrambled Eggs" or a long one-shot picture and text "1931" by Pechoin can complete the entire psychological transformation loop of consumers. So most of the debate about effects vs. exposure doesn't really mean much.

Marketing promotion is a combination of punches, which is also the theoretical basis of integrated marketing. The final sales result is not only the effect of the integration of various marketing methods, but also the product of the comprehensive strength of the company such as marketing, products, and supply chain.

Behind the success of China Merchants Bank's "Scrambled Eggs with Tomatoes", there must be a series of other marketing actions of China Merchants Bank that can support the theme promotion of a marketing cycle. If we only look at the TVC alone, there will naturally be false propositions such as whether to focus on brand or effect.

Precisely because marketing is a combination, different media play different roles.

Take TV advertising for example. If we talk about sales conversion, today's TV advertising can never compare to Taobao Direct. After all, one is aimed at the general public in front of the TV, and the other is aimed at e-commerce users with more specific shopping needs. But the advantage of TV advertising is that it can build trust and quickly increase brand awareness, which is very obvious for users in small cities.

"Ever seen an ad on TV? It must be a big brand that you can trust."

Many users in small cities have this kind of thinking. Therefore, after the TV advertisement is released , it may not have any effect at all, but it will become much easier for the brand to carry out subsequent ground promotion , investment promotion and other activities. In any case, it also has value in public relations and business.

Advertising is mainly divided into brand advertising and performance advertising. Media channels can also be roughly divided into media responsible for building an image and media responsible for conversion. Different media have different characteristics and assume different responsibilities in communication, just like the military combat, with different arms performing their respective duties.

Generally speaking, the more popular the media coverage, such as outdoor and television, the more suitable it is for image advertising, which mainly focuses on brand favorability, brand value transmission, and strengthening brand symbols; the more precise the media audience, such as e-commerce platforms and vertical websites, the more suitable it is for performance advertising, such as promotional coupons, new product launches, marketing activities , etc.

But there are also special cases, such as: content marketing . Our common public account tweets and soft advertisements can serve as both image advertising and performance advertising. This is especially true with the awakening of the awareness of "brand and effect integration" today.

In a closed marketing loop, if there is an obvious situation where brand exposure is large but conversion is low, it is generally because the auxiliary marketing means responsible for conversion are not prepared enough and fail to effectively guide exposure traffic to product sales. This is also a defect in the entire marketing plan.

Of course, the cases we are familiar with and discuss are all the "happy troubles" of the brands, because whether it is the long picture and text advertisement of Pechoin or the phrase "Diamonds are forever", the communication effect far exceeds the cost expectations of the brands, and it is understandable that they cannot plan more conversion paths in advance.

From the perspective of conversion and promotion, it may be regrettable, but from the perspective of cost-benefit, a lot of free media exposure was gained, which would be worth a lot if converted into media publication rate.

In short, most disputes over advertising exposure and effectiveness have misunderstood the essence of marketing to some extent. Brand marketing promotion is not a matter of a TVC, an event, or a screen-sweeping event. If we look at this debate from the perspective of a marketing cycle or a marketing closed loop, perhaps we will have a different view on this debate.

Source: Spread Gymnastics (ID:chuanboticao)