Corporate advertising

Advertising that is more public relations than sales promotion. Its objective is to build a firm's corporate image, reputation, and name-awareness among the general public or within an industry. See also institutional advertising.

Corporate advertising is a promotional strategy that is designed to not only interest consumers in products and services offered by the company, but also to cultivate a positive reputation among consumers and others within the business world. The focus of corporate advertising is on the company itself, with the attention to the products produced by the corporation being a byproduct of the advertising effort. This type of corporate marketing is often employed along with advertising campaigns that are directly focused on the goods and services produced by the company.

The main function of corporate advertising is to generate and enhance a sense of confidence and appeal among vendors and consumers. Depending on the exact nature of the corporate marketing approach, the advertising may also be developed with an eye of enhancing the reputation of the company among its peers in a community or within a given sector of the marketplace. In any application, the idea is to build the most agreeable public image for the corporation as possible.

It is not unusual for a company to engage in corporate advertising as a means of dealing with some incident or factor that has damaged the reputation of the company. Factors may include unsubstantiated claims made about the business practices of the company, or some aspect of the quality of the products produced by the corporation. Corporate advertising campaigns may also help to restore consumer confidence when a takeover or merger involving the company takes place. From this perspective, a well-crafted corporate advertising campaign is a powerful tool for use in damage control situations, and may be capable or restoring confidence after the public perception of the business has been tarnished in some manner.

While corporate advertising does include some mention of company products, the object of this type of advertising is not directly aimed at generating sales. Instead, corporate ads focus on the strength and reliability of the company as a whole, the integrity that the business employs in all its business relationships, and how the company seeks to better the circumstances of the geographic locations where it operates. As part of this process, it is not unusual for one or more of the leading products to be mentioned, but there is usually no mention of pricing or upcoming discounts of products found within corporate advertising campaigns. Those are left to product advertising efforts that focus specifically on the goods produced for sale.

Corporate Advertising: It can be defined as paid use of medium that seeks to benefit the image of the corporation as a whole rather than its products or services alone. Because all of a company’s advertising contributes to its image, both product and corporate advertising should reflect a united strategy. Corporate image advertising should “brand” a company the way product advertising brands a product.

Product Advertising: It can be defined as paid use of media that seeks to benefit a certain product of the corporation, by increased sales etc.

Now to talk of a major difference between corporate and product advertising is who pays for each of the two types of advertising. A company’s marketing department typically is responsible for all product-related advertising and pays for such ads out of its own budget. Corporate Advertising, on the other hand, falls within the corporation communication area and either comes out of that budget or in some cases, is paid for by the CEO’s office.

There are mainly three types of corporate advertising. 
First type is the Advertising to reinforce identity or enhance reputation. Here companies use corporate advertising to strengthen their identities following structural changes. As companies merge and enter new businesses, they need to explain all their new developments like vision, strategy, etc

To constituents who may have known them well before but are not able to get along with their new status. Hence corporate advertising is used by larger organizations to simplify their image to unify a group of disparate activities. 
The second type is the Advertising to attract investment, this is one of the tool used by companies to enhance their images in the financial community is financial – relations corporate advertising. This type of advertising can stimulate interest in a company‘s stock among potential investors as well as buy-side and sell-side .analysts. 
Third type of advertising is the Advertising to influence opinions. This kind of advertising is called issue or advocacy advertising which is used by companies to respond to external threats from either government or special interest groups. This advertising mainly deals with controversial subjects.

The main outcome of Corporate advertising are increase in sales, next to create a stronger reputation as the best corporate advertising creates goodwill and enhances reputation by letting constituents in on what the organization is all about, particularly if it does beneficial things people are not aware of. Lastly to Recruit and retain employees where corporate advertising is an indirect way of building morale among employees. This type of advertising attracts the best and brightest both at the entry level and for senior positions and creates enthusiasm and excitement among potential and current employees.

The different types of corporate advertising include image advertising, opinion advertising and investment advertising. Determining the purpose of an advertising campaign is often the easiest way to distinguish between the different types because the labels applied can often be inconsistent. Marketing for corporations is different from product advertising and is concerned with messaging that affects the entire company, or the company's overall brand.

When people think of advertising, the first thing that comes to mind is often the consumer advertising that attempts to convince the public to buy a company's product. In this context, advertising type tends to equal the advertising format, such as whether the ad is in print, on the radio or on television. Corporate advertising, however, is a different category of advertising altogether. It is comprised of the advertising campaigns that a company runs to signal its position in the marketplace. Instead of focusing on one product or product class, the advertisement talks about the company generally, addressing broad issues such as strategic initiatives, financial strength or corporate philosophy.

Corporate advertising comes in three different types. Image advertising is a type of marketing that attempts to improve the company's reputation or increase the acknowledgment of its importance in relation to its competitors. It is the type of ad that educates the public about the company's leadership and market position in an attempt to show the company as a primary reason a particular industry is prospering or beneficially impacting consumers.

Opinion, or advocacy, advertising is corporate advertising that is primarily concerned with influencing public opinion on issues of importance to the company. The ad is educational, and may not even mention the company in a major way. These types of advertisements tend to give the impression that the corporation is doing a public service by bringing important concerns to the public's attention. Often, the ad does provide some public benefit, but it is also tied to the company's interests and bottom line.

Investment advertising is another type of marketing that is designed to attract investors. It focuses on the financial strength of the company, and the benefits of owning the company's securities. These ads typically appear in financial publications and other media sources that target the financial industry. Instead of presenting information on the corporation's products or its overall philosophy, investment advertising uses financial information, ratios and historical returns to make a case why investment in the company is safer and more profitable than other investment options.
Source: Internet