Hearing these terms together may sound like they all mean the same, but that is far from the truth. Many people, who don’t understand them may use them interchangeably as well. Asking a person, the difference among them or just listening to them talk about it is a great way to judge if the said person is actually knowledgeable on this topic or not. Hint: use this tip while hiring people to do similar work for you. There are a lot of people out there ready to scam you into thinking that they are the experts of a certain or all these fields while not even being able to define themselves clearly.
But how can you do that if you don’t know the difference yourself? Well, worry not. I am going to clear out all your doubts about them once and for all in this write up. So if you want to prevent yourself from falling into the scams or just wish to expand your knowledge and understand the ins and outs of these works, then jump down the rabbit hole with me.
Branding is the process of giving a meaning to a specific organization, business, product or services by creating a unique image in the brains of the consumers. It is the process of giving a merchandise or facility a specific narrative that becomes its identity. In the simplest terms, it deals with the perception of people about a company and how they see the product or services offered.
So if this is what branding is, then branding agency must be the people who deal with this, right? Well technically yeah, but do you want to know what they really do?
What does their work consist of and where do they come? Well, they are the builders of the building blocks. They lay the foundation on which all the other agencies stand and continue with their work. That means they come at the very beginning and are there only for the initial period.
They work on detailing the core and deciding on the thing like what your brand stands for, your goals and objectives and how to communicate it in the right way with the right audience. They will help you develop a strategy to grow your brand and help you instill the purpose, values and identity of your brand into your organization. They help you decide your logo, visuals, website- UX, UI as well as content.
“Creative,” the word itself is a bit explanatory. It means to create something. Most of the times we expect this creation to be unique or at least different from others. We usually assign the adjective creative to people who have an out of the box thinking.
But when we are talking about it in context to the business world we mean the designs that we see on a day to day basis in regards to any brand. All the colorful or attractive images that we are surrounded by that have any connection to a business is called a creative. That means the creative agency are a group of people who do this, right? Well technically again yes. But they do so much more. So why don’t we take a look in depth?
Creative agency is a group of artistic people who make things pretty meaningful to look & read. We are talking about the people who make any information look simple and attractive to catch the eye of your target audience. It can include anything from creating your logo to the visuals or the verbal communication for the brand. They are the people who understand and build brand strategy that also involves building your brand style guide.
Anything related to designing & messaging, may it be visual or auditory; these are the people who work on them. Of course, the final say is of the client a.k.a. you, but they are the ones who help you in deciding the right tone for your brand. They are the ones who help make your brand approachable, likable and relatable in the eyes of your consumers.
Marketing is one of the most commonly used words in the field of business and yet it is one of the most misunderstood term. People think that marketing pertains to increasing awareness about their brand that will lead to an increase in the sales and hence cause an increase in revenue and profit for the company.
While this is true and the basic essence of the term, a lot goes behind achieving this which is beyond the understanding of many people. There are a lot of people in the industry who call themselves a marketing consultant or a marketing expert but are not aware of the work that goes in creating a successful marketing strategy. Because people, it’s not just a few things here and there that can make marketing effective, you need a plan that should be executed with a high level of accuracy. And that is why you need an entire team of experts to make it happen.
So what is marketing agency all about? Well, they are the group of people who do all the ground work for you. They are the market experts who actually understand the market trends and how to use them for you and your company’s benefits. They will do a thorough market research including critical analysis of your competitors all while understanding the interests of your ideal customers.
They basically help you find a gap in the market that you can fill and be seen as useful to the consumers. Because let’s face it, people will only buy something if they find it useful. So they help you in positioning yourself in your industry. Also, once this has been decided, they make a plan about how to get the word out to the audience about your presence and execute it in a precise manner to generate more exposure for your brand via paid or organic methods.
Advertising is a term that everyone is well aware about. It is basically a paid method of letting your audience know that you are here with a new product or service. It is basically done in order to gain more sales and to increase the profits.
But what people don’t understand is that a lot goes behind creating an advertisement. And that is the reason why many ad campaigns do not work in the favor of the businesses. There are n number of things that need to be taken into consideration to guarantee a return of investment, which basically means that an advert will actually generate a business in proportion to the amount of money spent. But since this knowledge is not common, you need a group of experts to help you navigate through this.
Like everything else, advertisements also need a strategy that needs to be followed. To do this a lot of research goes into what is currently working and what people are not ready to accept. This can be understood by looking at your competitors and analyzing their work along with the trends. Once the research has been conducted, the advert ideas are pitched to the clients, i.e. you or your company and then the advertisements are created and distributed.
The making and distribution of ads are also huge responsibilities. There are a lot of variables that need to be taken into consideration like media, budget, target audience, etc. These variables are also researched and worked upon before any advertisement is launched for the normal public to see. All this work is done by your advertisement agency.
Now that we have understood the work of all the agencies, why not make it even more clear by understanding how they differ from one another.
Branding agency is only there for the initial period. Once the basics of your company is established and the plans have been set in motion, this team takes an exit. They may come in again if you are launching something new or need a refurbishing of your brand entirely. But other than that, once the ground work is laid, they will take a step back and let the other teams work.
Creative agency on the other hand stays on throughout the process of marketing and advertising as well. They are needed to create any and all “creatives” may it be imagery, write up, audio or video. Their input is of utmost important in any and all the steps while interacting with the audience.
These two can be thought as the twins, one of them is more inclined towards artistic and creative side, while the other is more prone to think technically with logic and numbers.
Creative agency is responsible for producing all the visuals and audio communication. Marketing agency on the other hand is responsible for correct distribution of these communications. They both play hand-in-hand to get the right message out to the target audience. If one of them slacks off their work, the other will fail as well irrespective of their efforts. That’s why this set of twins need to have a good communication and understanding between them.
They can be considered as two friends who have bonded over same interest. Creative agency will sit down together with the script writers and visual artists from the advertising team to discuss and decide the core concepts like plots, storytelling, etc. in order to convey the message.
Once the basic idea has been created and approved, the advertising team will work on jotting down the plan and create a budget for the production and distribution of the said advert. Both these agencies need to work in a harmonious manner to get on the same page, before anything can be decided.
These two agencies have to work extremely closely but without stepping on each other’s toes. Once the final advertisement has been created, both the agencies will sit down to decide the mode of distribution through all the traditional and social media.
They may distribute the work among themselves or may collaborate and assign work to teams with members from both the agencies, depending on their tuning. The difference comes here as the marketing agency usually takes upon the organic launch while advertising agency will usually take up the paid part of things depending on the agency's capabilities. Their basic goal is to achieve the numbers right and make the maximum out of any and all the advertisements created. Marketing team may also help in narrating the message if required.
So as you can see, these agencies are not at all interchangeable, but yes they do collaborate to get the best possible result for the client. But in today’s world there are some agencies that will provide either all the work or have tie-ups with different agencies to get your work done. So if you are confused about which agency to choose or where to start, why not give us a call and we can help you start creating a plan suitable for your needs.
After this call, you will get a clear understanding of the next steps that you need to take in order to build consistent communication & reliable marketing strategies.
This call is perfect for professionals who want to,
