It’s complementarity these days, rather than advertising

Rory Sutherland

What comes first, the advertising or the brand? Does the consumer buy into just one of these, or both at the same time? A good advertisement is complementary to the brand – a study by psychologists has shown that consumers paid more attention to ads for the car of their choice after they bought it than beforehand.

It's complementarity these days, rather than advertising

Rory Sutherland

When consumers like a particular campaign, it is facetiously observed that they are ‘buying the advertising’ as well as the brand. Rory Sutherland examines an economic theory that suggests this may be literally the case: that advertising itself has a value that complements the product

Every time anyone takes over the presidency at the modestly named Institute for Practitioners in Advertising, they receive a small flurry of letters and emails suggesting a change of the IPA's name. Often, but not always, it is the 'advertising' bit people think should...

WARC subscribers can sign in to keep reading

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands