Stop advertising!?

Okay, I admit it. I got hooked by Mary Schmidt's latest post titled "Advertising does nothing for the brand". And while I'm not passionate about advertising, I will strongly defend advertising as brand building tool when used correctly. Fortunately for my blood pressure, Mary writes short and to the point, and the real gem was in her P.S., where she wrote:

"If you're a small company, you probably can't even afford effective advertising - so stop it. Spend the money on something that will get results, like better customer service, employee benefits or community support. "

I've been fortunate in some of my past jobs because I had generous budgets, and advertising was a key element of an integrated marketing campaign built on the brand. It was the linchpinpin in a system of events, event sponsorship, PR and other related brand building tools including face-to-face sales, promotion, facility tours, public affairs and customer support; but it wasn't the only thing we did.

If more organizations would take Mary's command to heart, I believe we'd have more successful brands and fewer commodities.

Better yet: Imagine the impact if just a few newspaper, magazine, radio and TV ad sales people would first ask about the client's other brand-building efforts before they started selling their own product....

Technorati Tags: advertising, brand, brand management, marketing