The Three Cases For Advertising

Advertising can feel like a complex, brain-squishing task.

But not today. Today, we’ll keep it simple.

We came across a useful theory of advertising by Alex Greifled, and she brings up an interesting point.

Alex says there are only three use cases in advertising:

#1 – Demand generation, when you want to create demand for a new product. You’re talking to people who probably aren’t interested in buying what you’re selling until you convince them.

This is also known as awareness stage or “top of the funnel” advertising.

#2 – Demand capture. Once you’ve increased brand awareness, you can start capturing the high-intent audience that took interest in your product.

These campaigns are intended for conversions, as you’re using ads to help close a sale.

#3 – In-market demand capture, when an audience wants to buy a specific product or service and they’re “brand agnostic” – not showing preference for any particular brand.

You should intercept these people to alert them that you’re selling what they want. Of course, you need to convince them that yours is the best.

Okay, simple enough. So what’s the issue? Alex says the main problem is that everyone wants to do all three at the same time effectively.

And that’s difficult, and often wasteful.

So instead of putting your paid ads under the unrealistic pressure of doing everything all at once, pick just one of the three and go all in to see results. And repeat.