Marketing Changes
Marketing is quite difficult to define. So, few people understand what it is. Ask ten people what marketing means and you’ll get ten different answers with a bias towards the highly visible aspects of consumer marketing. Their answer depends on their point of view on a very vast domain spanning from high-level objectives in a corporate strategy to minute details of implementation tactics. Introducing new breeds of high-technology products in an embryonic market is quite different from promoting consumer commodities in a mature category. Explaining the benefits of a revolutionary technology has little to do with designing a new package for grocery items. Determining the right price for a service is far away from organising a hot line for customer service.
Many companies also have problems understanding and organising marketing. We all know by now that change is a ‘constant thing’ in business. Yet, in the last thirty years, the organisation of the marketing function hasn’t changed very much in many corporations. This is quite paradoxical given that a key change is the U-turn from product focus to customer focus.
It is surprising to see how few marketers really understand that marketing is, above all, about communicating with people.
Henri Aebischer
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