The Identity Crisis That is Marketing

In a strange paradox, the industry of "marketing" has become a victim of its own poor branding over the past couple of decades.

Stephen Brown's diatribe characterizes marketing as having a “mid-life crisis,in decline; failing; anachronistic; being abandoned; no longer appropriate; in an unprecedented state of crisis; delivered nothing of value; failure; confusion; misunderstanding; occasional inexplicable hitting of the jackpot”.

Seth Godin's book "All Marketers are Liars"  plays on the popular impression of marketers being pathological con artists. No Logo, The Corporation and others have all put forward some unreasonable and reasonable cases on why we should hate marketers.   

In the UK, one of their trade associations is trying to redefine what marketing is and by all accounts their new "big tent" definition fails to achieve it, in fact it may be muddying the waters. Wait for this brand speak:

The strategic business function that creates value by stimulating, facilitating and fulfilling customer demand.

It does this by building brands, nurturing innovation, developing relationships, creating good customer service and communicating benefits.

By operating customer-centrically, marketing brings positive returns on investment, satisfies shareholders and stakeholders from business and the community, and contributes to positive behavioural change and a sustainable business future.

That took some calories to spit that out. Now explain it to a 12 year old.

On a daily basis, I hear the terms "marketing", "branding", "advertising", "promotion", "communications" brandished about as synonyms.  For a guy that's been doing this for 15 years, even I find the lines blurring and also find myself using the terms interchangeably depending on my audiences.

So without a clear mandate, how is a CEO, who tend to pre-dominate from a financial suite, supposed to support, fund and get behind this mercurial and conflicted function called marketing.

Let's look at the classical American Marketing Association definition established in 1985 and pretty much adhered to for the previous 50 years:
“Marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives". Woh, that's a mouthful and has its 4P adherents but really glosses over some post-modern thinking on marketing's connection to the customer.

AMA's definition changed in 2004 to "Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders." Well, it now importantly recognizes the role of customers play, it tries to carve out a role for marketing -noble but man is it wordy and still speaks to the command-and-control model of doing business. Agencies would have a tough time  writing  an ad to this.

I found this definition from Marketing Profs 5 years ago:
"Marketing is, in fact, the analysis of customers,   competitors, and a company, combining this understanding into an overall understanding   of what segments exist, deciding on targeting the most profitable segments,   positioning your products, and then doing what's necessary to deliver on that   positioning." Perhaps their opinions have changed over the interceding 5 years but this perspective is decidedly old school and conjures up scenes from popular new TV series Mad Men of  greedy, narcissistic suited men managing their customer base like professional Geppettos manipulating consumer  Pinnochios.

Here is the U.K. Charter Institute of Marketing's definition:
"The management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably."  At least it's shorter and customer-centric but where's the magic and is all that we do just  for profit?

Some better definitions:

Drucker's point of view stands the test of time:
"Marketing is not only much broader than selling, it is not a specialized activity at all It encompasses the entire business. It is the whole business seen from the point of view of the final result, that is, from the customer's point of view. Concern and responsibility for marketing must therefore permeate all areas of the enterprise." Bang on. The only problem is that in Drucker's world, organizations bought into this approach happily, marketers were free to run rampant across an organization bulldozing functions to get their way. It was marketing's golden age and was also the era that started dissent for the unaccountable marketer. That condition no longer exists and so if marketing is everything a company does can  it exist as a separate function.

One of my New Zealand peers Simon Young redefines the roll of marketing for the modern ages using a definition from Vargo and Lusch,
“To collaborate with customers and partners to create and sustain value.” That's better, particularly now in a Western economy that sells a lot more services than it does products - now if only it could circumscribe what we actually do.

How 'bout:
"To collaborate with customers and partners to create and sustain value, by: 1) nurturing an inspiring company brand culture, 2) innovating product and communication, 3) optimizing customer experience, 4) bridging customer and influencer relationships and 5) tapping compelling customer insight".

Not perfect either but at least I find it more motivating, more customer-focused and more of an attempt to parse out what we do and not trip over sales or operations. Your turn? 

Once we've mastered this, we'll attempt  to define our industry's other 5 over-jargoned segments - CRM, PR, 2.0, Brand Activation and Integrated marketing.