AMC’s “Mad Men” is a favorite show of mine.  The below clip is a great illustration of why…

This is the difference between “marketing” and “advertising.”  Marketing creates ideas.  Advertising talks about them.  In the above clip, Don Draper names the product.  But the product came first.  The product was relevant.  The product was good…it met a need…it scratched an itch.  If it hadn’t come first or met a need or scratched an itch or been relevant, then no amount of advertising spin was going to make it sell.

Advertising is only a sliver of all that marketing involves.  In fact, it’s pretty clear in today’s environment that marketing has to come before the product, not after.  As Seth Godin writes:

If someone comes to you with a ‘great’ product that just needs some marketing, the game is probably already over.

So true.  It’s always a red flag when a prospect comes to our conference room and regales us with tales of how wonderful their product is…and how misunderstood it is…and that if we could only help them explain it in the right words, their bottom line would improve.  They should’ve started with a better product, not tried to advertise themselves out of the hole.

Advertising is always good, never bad.  Marketing can be bad, ideas can be bad, and products can be bad.  But good ads don’t help bad ideas or bad products.  Good marketing must come first.

In branding, the egg always comes before the chicken.