Advertising and propaganda are often used as synonyms. However, they are not. In this article we tell you the difference between advertising and propaganda and the similarities that can make you treat them in the same way.
Advertising and propaganda are two concepts that people often confuse with each other. Although they have some similarities, there is more than one difference between advertising and propaganda.
Both are communication actions that want to publicize and distribute a message. And, with this, being able to persuade an audience to react (for example, with advertising by buying a product) and/or change behavior (with advertising). But it is important to establish this difference between propaganda and publicity.
There are more aspects that separate them and it is key to identify them in order to successfully address your audience.
Therefore, in this article, we invite you to see what is the difference between advertising and propaganda. In addition, we are going to go through historical examples and analyze in detail what each one is.
What is an advertisement?
“Your role is to sell, don’t let anything distract you from the sole purpose of advertising,” said David Ogilvy in one of the seven commandments he proposed to define advertising. Perhaps that commandment concentrates the greatest difference between advertising and propaganda.
Let’s analyze first.
We can define it as a marketing strategy that, fundamentally, consists of the creation of persuasive messages. Remember that above we mentioned this as a point of coincidence between advertisements and publicity, but the difference is based on what each one persuades.
These persuasive messages want to position a product, that consumers acquire it and make it known.
In short, advertising, which is included in the famous 4P of marketing, is merely for commercial purposes.
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The key elements of advertising
Understanding the characteristics that make advertising is essential in order to later be able to identify the difference between advertising and propaganda.
Advertising can be carried out in various ways. These can be advertisements on television, radio, print, online, outdoors and even at the point of sale.
There are certain elements that, beyond the support, all advertising has:
- All advertising has an identifiable issuer (for example, a company) and a clear objective.
- The means by which the message will be transmitted must be established (this is related to what we saw in the previous paragraph).
- All advertising has a message that must be built based on the receiver. This is the public of consumers or users to whom we want to send the message to achieve our advertising objective.
These definitions bring us closer to understanding the difference between advertising and propaganda. Now let’s see what a propaganda is.
What is an advertisement?
The other side to understand the difference between advertising and propaganda is to define what an advertisement is. We said that one of the aspects that united propaganda and publicity was persuasion.
What happens is that advertising is not looking for the public to buy a product. Propaganda wants to persuade the audience to add supporters to its cause and/or influence the actions or opinions of its public. This is a difference between advertising and propaganda that is key.
Advertising is not for commercial purposes and is not associated with the communication of a product or service. Propaganda communicates themes related to political, ideological or religious issues. This is another important point to understand the difference between advertising and propaganda.
An example of political propaganda can be an electoral campaign. While we could analyze some ideological ones in terms of their issuers, such as NGOs or Armed Forces (keep this information when we see examples later).
In addition, propaganda can also have educational and awareness purposes. These purposes can be achieved with communications that come, as mentioned before, from a, for example.
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Examples of propaganda to better identify the difference between publicity and propaganda can be those about awareness of environmental damage. Or also some about racial discrimination.
And the examples of religious propaganda? An objective that they can pursue is the acquisition of faithful.
An essential point about political propaganda: do not confuse it with institutional advertising. The latter consists of messages that the Government takes to citizens to inform rights, obligations, promote certain behaviors. Although it is not a product advertisement, it does not seek to generate adherence to a cause.
Let’s continue with the characteristics of advertising in order to navigate the difference between advertising and propaganda.
Features that make propaganda unique
Just as there are key elements of advertising to identify the difference between it and propaganda, there are also key elements for the latter.
We have already seen that the main distinction to understand what propaganda is is in the objective: it is more focused on promoting an attitudinal, ideological or opinion change.
The elements that help make this goal a reality are mainly two.
- The ideological content, which is the one that is strongly positioned in the mind of the audience.
- The emotional content, since emotions play a very important role in ensuring that the ideological content is firmly positioned.
With the definitions on the table, we are going to see in depth the difference between advertising and propaganda. And why not, if they have more than the similarity of persuasion in common.
What is the difference between advertising and propaganda?
Understanding the difference between advertising and propaganda may seem difficult. Many people use the two terms synonymously, but in this section we are going to tell you in depth what attributes distinguish them.
If this is not your case or you are just starting out in the world of advertising, we suggest you see what the difference is between advertising and propaganda, starting, first, from their similarities.
Similarities Between Advertisements and Advertising
In addition to persuasion, there are other points of contact between these two concepts. The first is the most obvious: they are both types of communication. Each one communicates with different objectives, hence the difference between publicity and better-known propaganda.
The second is that both types of communication have a strategy behind them to achieve their goals and reach their audience. To get to that—and this is the third point of contact—they use artistic forms.
These are the ones that convey the concept that each one deals with in particular. They can use symbols, images, videos, sounds, music. The north is that advertising or propaganda capture the attention of your audience.
Another bridge that unites propaganda and publicity are the techniques that both use. Let’s look at three of the most used:
- Identification: a public figure (for example, a ) promotes a product or a cause. The character has an authorized voice to talk about the subject and aims to create a bond of empathy with the public.
- Repetition: beyond the difference between advertising and propaganda, this technique can serve both to anchor in the mind of the audience.
- : It is a very useful technique for the public to link certain ideas with a brand, product or ideology.
Seeing these similarities, we do not want to leave behind the difference between advertising and propaganda. After all, that is the main reason that brings us together in this article. Analyzing how they are alike will help us focus on everything that differentiates them.
What is the difference between propaganda and publicity?
The difference between advertising and propaganda has several areas to mention. Let’s get started!
1. Name
The most basic lies in its meaning and where each word comes from. “Propaganda” comes from “propaganda”, in the case of this type of communication, it would be to propagate an ideology, for example.
“Advertising”, on the other hand, is more associated with “advertising” or making certain information about a brand or product public.
2. Objectives
A second difference between advertising and propaganda is the objectives. We already talked about this, but we think it’s important to reinforce it. Advertising pursues mainly commercial purposes, propaganda, rather ideological.
In short: the first seeks to get a consumer to buy a product, the other to change a current one.
3. Dimension
Another difference between advertising and propaganda is that companies do not have the possibility of advertising within their reach. It is very difficult for a company to have the necessary means to activate a mechanism that results in a change of consciousness on its own.
4. Context
One more difference is the audience they reach. While advertising targets a specific context or moment, advertising targets a consumer audience.
Within this difference between advertising and propaganda associated with the target, we find the dimensions and areas that both touch. Advertising targets areas associated with the brand, business-to-business advertising and even .
Propaganda is more focused on political, religious, social and even war areas.
5. Temporality
Another area of divergence is related to its temporary validity. Propaganda usually has more durability than publicity because it aims to make your idea and your arguments remain in the minds of your public.
Advertising, on the other hand, has a more limited objective and, for example, the needs or behavior of the consumer may not be the same over time. Hence its durability is lower.
Advertising and propaganda: examples
To see in a practical way the difference between advertising and propaganda, let’s examine some historical and well-known examples.
What Google usually leads us to when looking for examples of propaganda, is this classic image:
But where does it come from? This propaganda was designed in 1917, at the time of the First World War, when more soldiers needed to be recruited.
During wartime, propaganda was a key instrument. In fact, the poster was so successful that it was used again in World War II.
This chart was designed by James Montgomery Flagg. Interestingly, it is the publicist himself who appears on the poster, although with a beard and some features that did not allow him to be differentiated.
In reality, he wanted to imitate Uncle Sam, who was the representation of the butcher who brought meat to the soldiers of the army in Upstate New York. Here is a technique that we saw: identification.
Now let’s look at an ad from the same decade:
This publicity serves us to observe how, even in similar times, publicity and propaganda aim at objectives…
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