Advertising ultimately is only as strong as the product
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Written by Atila on October 24, 2008 – 1:04 am
It is, however, important not to overclaim for advertising. Potential advertisers may overpromise and expect rapid results and be disappointed when advertising cannot deliver this. It is not a solve-all or universal fix-it for all business problems. The essence of advertising is that it delivers messages to audiences. There are limits to what messages can achieve.
Advertising ultimately is only as strong as the product or service it advertises. On the whole, an old advertising adage is correct: that you can sell someone a poor product once but not twice if the product fails to perform adequately. Advertising has a powerful but limited competence. Advertising helps problem solving, but there are some problems it cannot solve and there are, indeed, some situations where it is wiser not to advertise at all.
When labour relations are poor, or the company is undercapitalised, or when its research and development programme has failed or when its pricing is inadequate, or when its financial controls have failed, then a corporate campaign extolling the virtues of the company will lack credibility. You cannot advertise your way out of corporate failure. When the product is obsolete, its quality low, its features irrelevant to the market, or its specification of little value to customers, advertising cannot rescue it. You cannot advertise your way out of product failure.
All advertising can do is to buy a little time. If the product is not available, if the customer is unable to obtain it, if it has no backing from the distributor, if there is a breakdown of supply, advertising it may only inflame the situation. You cannot advertise your way out of distribution failure.
Advertising is indeed part of a wider marketing or corporate process. It is part of a chain of activities, where the links are mutually dependent and where each link is only as strong as the weakest link in the chain. Advertising cannot overcome poor price, poor quality, poor distribution or poor organisation.
It cannot create demand when other elements have failed. It also cannot create demand when markets are low or do not exist in the first place.
The public will remain indifferent. It is one of the factors that may help create a market, but markets are wider considerations, composed of a multitude of factors. Advertising can help stimulate a market, but this is usually a market that already has some being or some latent potential. In general, advertising cannot produce results when market circumstances are unfavourable and the other marketing elements are not functioning.
It has a more humble role to play than some of its more enthusiastic exponents would have us believe. It can only communicate what is possible to communicate.
