Marketing and Advertising: Why the Boundaries are Fading
Why marketing is becoming synonymous with advertising
With the growing complexity and sophistication of the marketing function, marketers need to choose the right set of marketing technology based on a marketing maturity model.
Peter Drucker once elevated the marketing function in his quote, "The business enterprise has two - and only two - basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs." With time, marketing has been given lesser and lesser importance, so much so that today, almost every marketer faces hard questions about accountability.
Let's look at excerpts from an article by Mohanbir Sawhney, McCormick Tribune Professor of Technology, Kellogg School of Management, which elaborates the state of marketing in the current scenario:
Philip Kotler, in a conversation with the vice-president of marketing of a major airline, asked what he did in his job. Did he control pricing? "Not really," the marketing VP replied, "That's the yield management department." Did he control where and how often the airline flew or the classes of service it offered? "Not really - that's the flight scheduling department," he answered. Did he control the services provided by the airline to its customers on the ground? "Not really, that's the operations department," he said. So what exactly did he control? "Well," he told Kotler, "I run advertising and the frequent flyer programme."
Most marketers' jobs, at the end of the day, seem to boil down to creating collaterals, sending emails or designing beautiful websites. Day by day, marketing is becoming synonymous with advertising - while the core activities of marketing such as delivering qualified leads, linking marketing with critical business functions and generating new ideas are being put on the backburner. As a result of this, marketers are finding it difficult to put across a strong voice during the process of organisational strategic decision making, leading to
With the growing complexity and sophistication of the marketing function, marketers need to choose the right set of marketing technology based on a marketing maturity model.
Peter Drucker once elevated the marketing function in his quote, "The business enterprise has two - and only two - basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs." With time, marketing has been given lesser and lesser importance, so much so that today, almost every marketer faces hard questions about accountability.
Let's look at excerpts from an article by Mohanbir Sawhney, McCormick Tribune Professor of Technology, Kellogg School of Management, which elaborates the state of marketing in the current scenario:
Philip Kotler, in a conversation with the vice-president of marketing of a major airline, asked what he did in his job. Did he control pricing? "Not really," the marketing VP replied, "That's the yield management department." Did he control where and how often the airline flew or the classes of service it offered? "Not really - that's the flight scheduling department," he answered. Did he control the services provided by the airline to its customers on the ground? "Not really, that's the operations department," he said. So what exactly did he control? "Well," he told Kotler, "I run advertising and the frequent flyer programme."
Most marketers' jobs, at the end of the day, seem to boil down to creating collaterals, sending emails or designing beautiful websites. Day by day, marketing is becoming synonymous with advertising - while the core activities of marketing such as delivering qualified leads, linking marketing with critical business functions and generating new ideas are being put on the backburner. As a result of this, marketers are finding it difficult to put across a strong voice during the process of organisational strategic decision making, leading to