Here is a common, but incorrect, definition of Marketing…

“Marketing is the process of getting people interested in your company’s product or service.“

Laypeople see marketing as just marketing communications, described as “Promotion” by properly trained marketers, one of the 8Ps that proper marketing executives understand, intimately, to do their job well.

Promotion (Marketing Communications) is NOT enough, because:

  1. No amount of advertising and promotion can support a product that is just rubbish, doesn’t work, works badly, no one wants, or competes against another that is significantly better.
  2. No amount of advertising and promotion can support a product that is priced far too high to make it affordable, or far too low to be believable.
  3. No amount of advertising or promotion can support a product if it’s not available on the shelf for people to buy! Or if they can’t find it in the way they normally expect or prefer to buy that type of product.
  4. No amount of advertising on promotion can support a product if the process is in obtaining that product is so perplexing, confusing, inadequate, or self-defeating that the intention to buy is overcome with complexity.
  5. No amount of advertising or promotion can support a product at people don’t believe they want or need.
  6. No amount of advertising or promotion will overcome missing, aggressive, rude, ignorant, or offensive service.
  7. No amount of advertising or promotion can circumvent the combination of adverse politics, economics, sociocultural pressures, technological issues, legal compliance constraints, ecological concerns, ethical responsibilities, and demographic realities.

About 10 years ago there was a heated debate, on LinkedIn with thousands of participants, all discussing their own definition of the word, “marketing”.

So, what do you think marketing is?

This was my first question in lecture one when I was taking teaching marketing management to MBA students. Many had “marketing manager” as their title on their business card, 10 or more years of commercial experience, and about 1/3 possessed a business degree; but not one single student, in six years of lecturing, was able to give me a concise and accurate definition of the word! That was the first 10 minutes of a 3-hour lecture of a series of 13 lectures, excluding readings and study of a textbook thicker than your wrist! After the course, they understood the real definition of the word, Marketing…