VISUAL MARKETING VS ADVERTISING???

Some of you might be thinking to yourself, what is the difference between visual marketing and advertising? At the very least, isn't all this visual marketing stuff just a subset or a category within the overall advertising spectrum? My answer, maybe. You could look at it that way, but there are a couple things to consider when comparing these two, in order to make a case for their separation. The American Marketing Association defines advertising as:

The placement of announcements and persuasive messages in time or space purchased in any of the mass media by business firms, nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and individuals who seek to inform and/ or persuade members of a particular target market or audience about their products, services, organizations, or ideas.

There are a few parts of this definition that do not work for visual marketing, as we have discussed it. The first being that advertising is "announcements and persuasive messages," while visual marketing is subconscious brand messaging. The second biggest area the two concepts diverge is that advertising looks to "inform" and "persuade" the consumer to act upon the brand being advertised. Visual Marketing has no call to action in its purpose, and is more pointed at brand awareness and future action by the consumer. So by definition there are some easy ways to distinguish the two from each other. However there are some other things to consider when discussing why it is important to keep these two concepts seperate.

The world of advertising is, and has been, changing rapidly. One of the oldest and most tried and true forms of advertising is the television commercial. With the onset of the DVR, though, commercials are becoming less and less important to advertisers, and things like product placement are becoming more popular in the realm of TV advertising. Another area of marketing that has been booming in recent years is event marketing. Event marketing almost didn't exist some 10-15 years ago, and now it stands as the fastest growing form of marketing used by companies today.

With all of this change occurring in and among the marketing landscape, it is all that much more important for visual marketing to carve out it's niche, and stake it's claim to being a more recognized form of promotion. Visual Marketing works closely with event marketing, and as one grows, I believe you will see the other grow as well.