I am preparing to welcome a new co-hort of students into the MSc Marketing programme, and decided to search online for a couple of quotes about Marketing, to generate some discussion.
This is what Google auto-complete had for me:
Thoughts???
I am preparing to welcome a new co-hort of students into the MSc Marketing programme, and decided to search online for a couple of quotes about Marketing, to generate some discussion.
This is what Google auto-complete had for me:
Thoughts???
Ana Canhoto 
On Google, instead of typing “Marketing is” try “Definition Marketing” 🙂
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Yep, I do have the standard definition – AMA’s, for instance: https://www.ama.org/AboutAMA/Pages/Definition-of-Marketing.aspx But I was actually looking for a quote, or a statement by someone famous…
Instead, I got what S Dupont, on Twitter, called an ‘Identify Crisis’ 😀
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From what I see operationally…
Marketing is organizing events – arranging for people to speak at venues co-ordinated by PR firms with audiences that don’t have influence (If they had influence they would be DOING something not sat in a midweek conference)
Marketing is about outsourcing mail-shot campaigns to generate leads that then need to be sorted out of leads/SFDC databases because they have no value
Marketing is focused on the sales numbers – correlating buzz with revenue. Neither correlate with sustainable value.
Marketing is keeping away from customers – because they speak a different language and have pain that our ‘impressions’ do nothing to alleviate.
Im not cynical about marketing – I just don’t think what is labelled as marketing is actually marketing. Id admire some practitioners – but not many.
(Got that sounds negative… I don’t mean to be!)
James
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I have to say: it does sound a bit depressing.
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Well, at least Google seems to have a balanced view, with the same amount of positive as negative suggestions.
To me, marketing should be more about being on the edge of innovation, constantly pushing beyond the known boundaries. Marketing is about understanding what the consumer wants to have tomorrow, or next week. And making sure they get it in the most sustainable and planet, people and profit respecting way.
Marketing that relies purely on old metrics like views of an advert, or considering 0.1% of response on a spam campaign as ‘worth the effort’, should maybe be dead.
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Hum… there seems to be a big gap between your description of what Marketing should be doing and James’s description of what actually happens.
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Maybe that’s also because marketing is not clearly defined?
Or: is it because marketing supports business functions during the whole product life-cycle; from helping to sell the last bits of stock of obsolete products, to helping through market knowledge to understand which products need to be developed for future consumers?
Or because there are people and companies that do that well (maybe Nike and Patagonia, to name some), and others who really make a mess of it (those that keep calling you at dinner time to sell you something you really don’t need)?
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Could be. Could also be because we are taking a long term view, but managers’ performance are judged in the short term by impatient shareholders – like taking a medicine that will mask the symptoms but not make you healthier.
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