SEEKING CLARIFICATION

Two weeks ago I wrote about three things that the CEO should demand from the CMO. Since then, I have been asked to expand — not on the CMO’s function, but rather on what marketing really is and what its key concepts are, because there appears to be some confusion.

Adding to this uncertainty is that, very often, what should be credible sources erroneously speak of advertising and marketing, or marketing and PR, and make such a sharp distinction between sales and marketing that you would believe that they are bitter enemies.

A COMMON PRACTICE

In many companies, a product is developed with no input from marketing. When the product is considered ready, marketing and sales are called in as if to work magic, for they must now ‘market’ and sell that product or service, with little understanding of what customers need and want.

Marketing then goes off and designs advertisements and promotions; PR may plan an event to launch the product; and the sales department immediately makes price comparisons and passes judgement on market acceptance. While that may be the practice in many companies, is that what marketing really is, or should be?

WHAT IS MARKETING?

Noted advertising academics and practitioners Wells, Moriarty, and Burnett (2006) define marketing as, “The way a product is designed, tested, produced, branded, packaged, priced, distributed and promoted.”

Over time, a marketing framework has evolved consisting of what is commonly known as the seven Ps. These are product, price, place/distribution, promotion, people, processes and physical evidence.

We also need to be very clear, despite the protestations of many, including my friends over at mass comm that, like advertising, public relations and personal selling are elements of the integrated marketing communications mix or promotion just mentioned.

FOUR KEY CONCEPTS IN MARKETING

The practice of marketing is still evolving, but at the heart of it you will find four key concepts: the marketing concept or focus on customers, the concept of exchange, the concept of branding, and the concept of added value.

Let’s now quickly look at each of these four concepts.

1. The marketing concept: focus on customers

The practice of companies developing a product and giving it to marketers to find a market for it, that is, customers who will buy it, didn’t work so well, so that gave way to the marketing concept.

And why not? For now, the marketer steps up in life from being a mere implementer to being a policymaker. The marketing concept suggests two marketing steps. First, determine what the customer needs and wants. Second, develop, manufacture, market and service goods that fill those particular needs and wants, that is, create solutions for customers’ problems.

But there are dangers with this marketing concept because, as Steve Jobs famously declared, “Customers do not know what they want.” Equally important is getting marketing research right, because many customers cannot think beyond what already exists. Remember Henry Ford and the “faster horses” story?

2. The concept of exchange

Marketing helps to create exchange, that is, the act of trading a desired product or service to receive something of value in return. In addition to economic exchange, marketing also facilitates communication exchange. For example, advertising provides information as well as opportunity for customer/company interaction, and as everybody knows, nothing happens until somebody sells something. By the way, does this mean that medical doctors, architects and attorneys-at-law also need marketing to some extent? I’ll leave you to answer that one!

3. The concept of branding

Branding is the process of creating a special meaning for a product, one that makes it distinctive in the marketplace and in its product category, just as your name makes you unique. Branding transforms a product into a brand. How many Jamaican men have been sent back to the supermarket because they brought home something other than Grace Tomato Ketchup! And global giant Gruppo Campari knows only too well that rum in a cask is a product, but the Appleton brand name on a bottle of that product is everything.

4. The concept of added value

The reason advertising and other marketing activities are useful, both to consumers and to marketers, is that they add value to a product. For example, the more convenient a product is to buy, the more valuable it becomes to the customer, or the higher the price, the greater the value in the eyes of many consumers. For every Jamaican knows that anything too cheap nuh good!

A DIFFERENT TYPE OF MARKETING

Allow me one final perspective on marketing.

Many years ago, a marketer lived in the hills overlooking Montego Bay. One morning, he offered a distinguished but unschooled gentleman a ride into town. They struck up a conversation and the distinguished passenger, in describing his occupation at a small hotel near to Cornwall College, mentioned that he went to the Charles Gordon Market three times per week to purchase all the fresh fruits, vegetables and ground provisions for the hotel. Beaming with pride he declared, “In fact I do all the marketing for the hotel.”

Now that’s a different perspective on marketing!

Written by Herman D Alvaranga of the Caribbean School of Sales Management, the region’s first specialist sales, marketing and brand management college. E-mail hdalvaranga@cssm.edu.jm.