Franklin and Advertising
In good times, companies spend a great deal of money on PR and advertising, most of it poorly thought out and saying nothing of value to the market. In bad times, like those we have recently been through, advertising gets cut back and public relations carries the brunt of marketing messaging. But with lower advertising revenues, publications go out of business making editorial pages scarce and making competition for PR stronger. It is crucial that companies change their conventional marketing wisdom in communicating to the customer. So, let's start with some basics, like the purpose of advertising. The conventional wisdom on the purpose of advertising is to increase sales. That is wrong. Increasing sales is the product of good advertising, not its purpose. The purpose of advertising is much different. Advertising is a relatively new thing in the history of the world. The first known paid advertisement was in a New England newspaper in 1704 (Make th...