The difference between Marketing, Advertising, and Propaganda

All three of these words are very closely related and yet have entirely different in meanings.  They can all be conveyed as getting information out the general public to promote their side or position on a subject.  The real difference is how they are able to get their message across or what the intent is behind the way they do it.  The easiest way to understand how these words are different is to break each of them down to their definitions and an example of each.

We'll start first with advertising.  The definition reads that advertising is "The paid, public, non-personal announcement of a persuasive message by an identified sponsor; the non-personal presentation or promotion by a firm of its products to its existing and potential customers."  An example of advertising is the ads you see on TV, radio or around town.   (Dictionary.com) Next is marketing, and it states that marketing is "The systematic planning, implementation and control of a mix of business activities intended to bring together buyers and sellers for the mutually advantageous exchange or transfer of products." (Dictionary.com)  Advertising is more of a part or the marketing strategy.  For instance, the plan that a big company would make the show their stock holders how they are going to make profits and help get new investors.   Advertising is just one little section of it where marketing can include a lot of other pieces.

This brings us to propaganda.  Propaganda is "Information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc." (Dictionary.com)  Propaganda is a little bit different but not by much.  When people think of propaganda they think of war time and the governments trying to lie to us to get us to go to war, for example, the Nazi régime in WWII to convince the German people to rise up against the Jews. 

These three words are close and yet very different and when you break each one of them down you start to see how they vary but still see why they can be confused with one another.  Even after the definitions and examples they will still be confusing to some and will still be misconstrued for a while.