Does Marketing Lack Credibility?

shepthedog

As the title says, do you think Marketing lacks the credibility that say, Accounting/Finance, Economics, hold?

It appears many people do not understand what marketing actually is and associate it the same as sales...

I am interested to hear ppls views on this?

Culchie

Nice topic Shep.

Having worked for several years in quite a big company, I have to say that at the end of the day, Marketing does lack credibility.

Everyone thinks they can do "marketing" ... every company has loads of marketing geniuses who think they have a great idea, or a great design for a poster.

You look at the senior directors of most large companies, there is rarely a marketing presence among them.
Accountants/Finance Directors rule the roost, and above any other species, they do not understand or even respect 'marketeers'

leftofcentre

Smart companies know the value of marketing.

Look at ryanair, apple, virgin etc. They are all marketing lead.

For me marketing needs to be at the core of a business.

Buglim

Hi

I'm afraid I have to totally disagree with you Culchie. In a modern global business enviornment, marketing is not only has major credibility but is essential in the developement and growth of a company.
The theory that anyone can do "marketing" is rubbish and can only come from the mouth of someone with a limited knowledge of modern business practice. ( marketing is made up of many skilled and specialised fields. In my company alone we have 2 strategic research personnel with degrees in mathimatical probabilities ).
In regards to an example of a CEO from a sales/marketing background ( the two are invariably linked no matter what people say) Maurice Pratt the CEO of C&C has such a background and today sold Tayto for 63 million ( well over the predicted market value).
As for its value compared to other departments, I think you will find that companies with strong marketing departments are often not only market leaders but also top of their fields in consumer R&D.

Culchie

Buglim wrote:

Hi

I'm afraid I have to totally disagree with you Culchie. In a modern global business enviornment, marketing is not only has major credibility but is essential in the developement and growth of a company.
The theory that anyone can do "marketing" is rubbish and can only come from the mouth of someone with a limited knowledge of modern business practice. ( marketing is made up of many skilled and specialised fields. In my company alone we have 2 strategic research personnel with degrees in mathimatical probabilities ).
In regards to an example of a CEO from a sales/marketing background ( the two are invariably linked no matter what people say) Maurice Pratt the CEO of C&C has such a background and today sold Tayto for 63 million ( well over the predicted market value).
As for its value compared to other departments, I think you will find that companies with strong marketing departments are often not only market leaders but also top of their fields in consumer R&D.

Hold on, you are taking me up wrong, for a start I personally think Marleting is critical and should have a central strategic role, but that's preaching to the converted.

However (unless I've taken up the topic wrong) the question is "Does Marketing Lack Credibility?"
And my belief is, amongst many of the decision makers and senior directors of many boardrooms is that it does.
Accountants, Economists, Engineering backgrounds are often found in the CV's of the senior personnel.

My 'anyone can do marketing' comment is the common perception, the same as 'anyone could manage the Irish Football Team' .... everyone has their opinions, everyone knows best.... This erases the credibilty of the job, it's not seen as specialised.

So, to be honest it is my opinion that in many many business, marketing does indeed lack credibilty.... that is a the challenge for the Marketing personnel, Institutes and Business Schools to confront.

shepthedog

I agree with Left of Centre that smart companies are using marketing effectively but I mean in the general that marketing seems to lack credibility..

Perhaps this will change as marketing continues to grow in importance but I'm not sure if I can see the day when its on a par with accounting etc..

Culchie

shepthedog wrote:

I agree with Left of Centre that smart companies are using marketing effectively but I mean in the general that marketing seems to lack credibility..

Perhaps this will change as marketing continues to grow in importance but I'm not sure if I can see the day when its on a par with accounting etc..

Marketing has to prove it's worth .... that's where the accountants ask the questions, and marketing (in general terms) doesn't have the answers.

Marketing is a soft skill, Accounting is not.

The advent of direct marketing and CRM are helping to sway the accountants because we can now calculate life time values of customers ....and therefore put figures in front of the Accountants, and they understand that...proving the worth, and showing return on investment.

Buglim

Guys I don't want to be rude but your understanding of marketing terrible. Not only am I a qualified accountant but I also have a degree in marketing. I'm sorry but both of you are talking from a point of limited understanding.

connundrum

Well thats ye told I guess.. :eek:

shepthedog

Yes indeed, that told us.. Perhaps it would be better if Buglim positively contributed to the thread and discussion without having to feel the need to prove his qualifications..
You might want to look into that inferiority complex of yours Buglim

mox54

Interesting thread - it's a pity some contributors need to !!!????, anyway - marketing is VITAL to the success of any business - simply put - your customers are you're business - marketing helps to identifty your customers and communicate with them to satisfy their needs, satsify your current customers and develop new ones etc etc.

Accountants are VITAL to a business also but you'd have no accountants without customers without good marketing - !!!.

The dificulty with marketing is how much of it is common sense and how much is expertise - my arguement is.....get the experts to tell you, i.e. marketers but make no bones about it, marketing is a very important business discipline and is ver credible indeed - it just depends on the size of your business :cool:

Buglim

Shep I did not insult you in any way, I just stated a point that your understanding was limited in this field. My contribution was from a professional view point and really if you can't take this sort of critisism, I doubt very much your field is very business orientated.

Sleepy

Of course marketing lacks credibility. Just think about the response someone gets when they say they're studying 'Morkoshing'...

In the mind of Joe Soap Public, marketing is associated with slick salesmen and spin doctors i.e. people who lie for a living.

Now, I studied marketing in college as part of my B. Comm so I know that's a pretty shallow and incorrect view of the marketing world. Thing is, most of my marketing lecturers would have lived up to the sh1t from brains stereotype of someone working in marketing.

I think it's the fact that many of the people in the industry and academic study of the discipline lack credibility that causes a lot of this perception. In fairness, I think some of this would also come down to the poor standard of business and systems analysts out there who fail to perform their role of middleman between the business and IT functions well. When you've a marketing person who knows nothing about systems involved in the design of a new product that the company's systems will have to support/handle, they need a strong analyst beside them to make sure the product can be supported and/or the system can be ammended to cater for this product.

Buglim

Sleepy, what the hell are you on about. That last post is complete nonsense and unreadable. If you have got nothing to say don't bother giving us a few quotes from your favourite lecturer kid and keep the cat poster philosophy for your college bedroom.

growler

Sleepy wrote:

Of course marketing lacks credibility. Just think about the response someone gets when they say they're studying 'Morkoshing'...

.

never had any negative response when I tell people i work in marketing.

It's not like you're an estate agent.


I don't believe that marketing lacks credibility, I think what marketing can and does achieve is poorly understood by both the public and "traditional" sales functions.

It doesn't matter if it lacks public credibility as the general poplulace are no more qualified to comment on the effectiveness and value of the "discipline of marketing" than I am to question the value of practioners of alternative medicines.

It's a bit more crucial that marketing is both credible (and profitable) internally. I think to a certain extent this hasn't always happened in ireland and that outside of the large consumer brands (with many exceptions) marketing is seen as a cost rather than a profit centre, is seen as a sales support role rather than a revenue generator. This may be because the marketing management aren't good enough, bright enough or experienced enough to know what they could / should achieve or because senior management / sales / accounting are unwilling to invest in the people and resources and risk necessary to deliver results when they could stick to the tried and tested means.

So, marketing may lack credibility in some circles, but those aren't the circles that would ever concern me as a marketer, the businesses and people who understand what marketing does have no such issues.

I'd rather be a misunderstood marketer than a loathed solicitor / estate agent / double glazing salesperson / cop.

The bones

Does Marketing lack credibility?

It depends on who you're asking and where they work.

Firstly it's important to get a clear definition of marketing, we know what accountancy is, what HR is but many people are confused about what marketing is thinking it sales or promotion or advertising.

Off course it covers all of these things but in its purest form in my opinion it is a "management process of anticipating, identifying and satisfying customer requirements profitably".

And so marketing is a philosophy that guides every business and not just a department that sends out glossy brochures.

Michael O' Leary, Bill Gates, Richard Branson are all marketers - without marketing qualifications - who continue to identify what consumers will want and give it to them.

All successful businesses are successful marketers.

"Marketing is too important to be left to the Marketing Department" Drucker

This is where a large part of the confusion arises. Often when people think of the marketing department they think of the dipsy blonde who talks up the next "fabulous" promotion.

That's not marketing, that's a small subsection of the overall area.

In its purest form Marketing involves getting close to the customer usually involving research in the marketplace (qualitative and quantitative, primary and secondary), identifying opportunities for new products or new positions for existing products by segmenting the market based on the information gained, targeting the ideal segment (which should be easily accessible and large enough to justify the expense) and identifying a defensible and (ideally) unique position within that segment (this is difficult to do and usually results in many me - too competitors thinks Red Bull/Shark).

Then the marketer must leverage the 4 p's of price, promotion (all forms of communication), place (distribution) and product to support the positioning strategy.

Lets take Low Low butter as an example - research identifies a growing consumer need for a low fat alternative to full fat butter.

Primary and secondary research shows the potential market is large and that the target segment should be 24-34 year old females who are the main grocery shoppers.

A new product (Flora) is developed, a potential price identified (again through research), distribution is secured (not an easy thing to do especially in consumer goods) and then a promotional (TV, press, outdoor, net etc) campaign undertaken during programmes/in magazines that the market market view (think desperate housewives). This campaign supports the product's position as the "low fat alternative to full fat butter for all the family" which will be the communication requirement in the creative brief.

The sales force's role in this will be purely in terms of place (helping to secure distribution), the marketeer is responsible for liasing with the research agencies, identifying opportunities, then working with the NPD teams (many of which now operate outside the company ie they make to order), working with the sales force and potential distributors to gain coverage, and then liasing with the ad agencies in the development of the creative message and media agencies in the placing of that message in places where the target market will be watching.

The accountant/Financier's role? To control the business, to ensure the product is priced properly (cost accounting, managment) and that budgets are properly managed but not to drive the business - that is the marketeer's role - he/she are the ones who must take the risk and go the boardroom pitching for resources to support the startegy. The accountant's deal with the financial successes/failure of the marketing strategy.

Does the above happen in every organisaation? off course not. Primarily in large consumer goods companies - P+G, Unilever, or drinks companies like Diageo or C+C. Marketing and brand management is the lifeblood of these businesses and these are the organisation in which marketeers and brand managers are king.

B2B - Distinction 1

In Business to Business the sales force are often the marketeers, using their close relationship with customers to identify what new products/services are needed or what improvements in processes are required. In technology companies account management and operations will frequently work together to satisy customers with marketing's role - if it exists - minimised to a very narrow function (as in my own place of work - brochures, arranging customer presentations/events, working with IT to develop internet sites and new routes to market) - so a much more limited role and an environment in which the accountant is very much king. In B2B the individual relationship is a key part in customer satisfaction (in addition to the product/service performance obviously).

Consumer Goods Marketing vs Services Marketing (to Businesses and Consumers).

Another quick distinction is that between consumer goods organisations and service organisations. While marketing is one step removed in consumer goods marketing in Services Marketing it must be involved with HR and Operations to ensure that as well as having the right products (eg financial products, 100% homeloans etc) that frontline staff are suitably trained in a way that reflects the brand (Company Brand marketing vs Product marketing) in their interactions with the customer.

Competition:
A final factor is the level of competition in teh marketplace. For decades
eircom didn't need a marketing department as what the produced they sold (the selling concept). As competition entered the market and began segmenting, targeting and position (eg Esat specifically targeting Business customers back in the mid 90s eircom suddenly realised the need to understand the marketplace better and to come up with better packages for the various segments - consumer, sme and large business and so teh importance of marketing - and by extension marketers has grown with the level of competition and competitors success in adopting the marketing concept.

Now I know I've gone a bit off topic but its a complex question if you think about it. So again if you're asking does the marketing department lack credibility then I think it does in organisations where it is not the key area that drives the business forward - primarily in B2B organisations and some consumer/service organisations.

So again the answer is it depens who you're asking and where they work!

.

stepbar

To me Marketing is one of many important functions with in the business. A company should be led by strategy first and foremost. The Marketing function enables the company to sell, communicate etc etc the strategy. So IMO Strategy and Marketing should work hand in hand to achive that goal. From that position, the other elements of the business can be built up, sales, customer service etc etc. Marketing has a role to play in most of the other elements e.g sales.

If you look at Ryanair, Strategy = Low Fares, Cost Leader etc etc, Comunicated by the Marketing guys as "Ryanair - The Low Fares Airline". Now Ryanair might not be the best example in the world (I believe their Marketing Dept is quite small) but I think that has a lot to do with the persona of Micheal O'Leary. Other companies like BMW are quite successful too, if you look at their overall strategy and how they have marketed that strategy over the years, not much has changed.

Rabobank is another example that comes to mind, remember the fanfare that they caused when they first entered the Irish market. There was a lot of interest surrounding their launch, that was all centred around the fact that they had the best interest rate in Ireland (where as in actual fact Northern Rock had a better one). But the marketing people in Rabo were able to put the message they wanted to communicate into people's minds i.e. "The straight talking online bank ... 3%, No fees, no interest charges, no minimum term". And so the focus was removed slightly from the interest rate that they were offering. It was the fact that they were "straight talking", no bull**** is what sold a lot of people. The approach that they took to advertising also helped.

tickledpinkfair

I can tell you one thing Marketing lacking Credibility penetrates down as far as college.

I specifically went to college to do a business course with marketing in year 3 after 2 years of general business you choose an elective from Accounting, Economics, Marketing, HR and Management and I can tell you as a marketing student we got a lot of stick form the Accountant and the Economics classes.

It seems that Marketing hasnt lost it old stereotype as a worthless area. The other classes just didnt think that we had any credibility whatsoever, they thougth we worked less, and our exams were easier and at the end of it when we came out with better results than some of the other individuals we were classed as the easy option.

We are fighting a prejudice but what these other areas of business need to understand without the marketing effort their product/service would not penetrate the market and therefore lack of awareness which means the product/service is not getting consumed. Lets face it Marketing is a key area for any business and its time it got the respect that it deserves!!!!!

growler

I think that the marketing taught in college (from my experience) was unworthy of any respect, out dated text book nonsense for the most part with little understanding or nuturing of the elements that make a well rounded marketeer.

What I learnt at college that was useful about marketing could fit on a stamp, what i learnt in the real world was a million times more valuable.

Sonnenblumen

growler wrote:

I think that the marketing taught in college (from my experience) was unworthy of any respect, out dated text book nonsense for the most part with little understanding or nuturing of the elements that make a well rounded marketeer.

What I learnt at college that was useful about marketing could fit on a stamp, what i learnt in the real world was a million times more valuable.

Well you could say the same about many disciplines. Selling well today. tomorrow and making a margin but planning responses to any sudden/subtle market conditions is at the core of marketing. IMO all profitable businesses are well marketed, but not all businesses are well profitable and marketing is a key difference.

In recent years, marketing has become blurred with Press Release/Advertising activities neither of which never made a cent for a co but hard to do without.

growler

Sonnenblumen wrote:

Well you could say the same about many disciplines. Selling well today. tomorrow and making a margin but planning responses to any sudden/subtle market conditions is at the core of marketing. IMO all profitable businesses are well marketed, but not all businesses are well profitable and marketing is a key difference.

In recent years, marketing has become blurred with Press Release/Advertising activities neither of which never made a cent for a co but hard to do without.

doubt you'd find too many doctors / lawyers / vets / accountants / graphic designers etc. who would so readily dismiss their college education.

All i learnt was a lot of terminology and little about the reality. I guess because we work in an every changing discipline thats likely to always be the case, that's a large part of the appeal for me.

Not sure if I'd dare say advertising never made a cent, care to elaborate?