"The genie is out of the bottle," says Bruce Philp branding guru to ING Direct and co-author of The Orange Code. "Advertising is not branding; it's just a thing a brand does." And mostly it's just showmanship—and the dazzle isn't enough to cause consumers to become loyal to your brand.

The big question is: How does advertising fit into your marketing mix? Here, in the first of a series of interviews, Philp digs into the answer:

Brand & Strategy: What do you mean by "disingenuous" advertising?

Bruce Philp: Consumers know that you have chosen to don a costume and mount the stage to try to affect some sort of cognitive event. Advertising is, by its very nature, a contrivance. It's not our brand's voice, and everybody knows it.

So how should an organization integrate advertising into its plan?

Advertising has to work authentically within this consensual understanding and respect it. Marketers and advertising people both need to let go of the idea that a purchase decision is an event, and to think of it instead as the end of a process. Then remember what advertising is actually good for in marketing strategy terms.

And what is that?

With so many other ways to influence the consumer's decision making process, advertising could hardly be said to sell anything--at least not very cost effectively (Snuggies aside). But it's very good at beginning the dialogue that might lead to a sale (what advertising people rather dryly call "awareness"). Advertising can knock on the door, suggest an emotional promise relevant enough that the consumer might open it, and then be respectful and interesting enough that they'll leave it open for the next opportunity to influence them.

I think that advertising should be purposed specifically with that in mind.

Any caveats about advertising?

We need to both expect more from advertising, and less: More in the sense that it can and should do better than just amuse people, and less in the sense that it shouldn't presume to be able to go from zero to closing the sale in 30 seconds (Snuggies, again, aside).

If I were going to knock on your door to sell you a vacuum cleaner, I wouldn't put on a puppet show in the hope that you'll like me so much you'll buy my Electrolux. Nor would I open by throwing the machine at you and screaming that your floors are filthy.

Advertising is a powerful and important tool for marketing. What's changed in the last few years is that advertising is now a more specialized tool. Keep that in mind, and its inherently disingenuous nature will never be a problem.