1. No category

Marketing Practice
CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN
MARKETING:
WHAT IS MARKETING COMING TO?
Session Objectives
 Examine the proposed new CIM
definition of marketing
 Discuss what this new definition
says about how marketing has
evolved
 Explore perceptions of marketing
Introduction
 Chartered Institute of Marketing is
proposing a debate on the future of
marketing
 In order to start the debate they
have suggested a new definition of
marketing
Current Definition
The current CIM definition of
marketing is: 'The management
process responsible for
identifying, anticipating and
satisfying customer
requirements profitably’.
Chartered Institute of Marketing (2001),
Baines, Fill & Page (2008)
Definition 2
5
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 (AMA,2005)
http://www.marketingpower.com/mg-dictionary-view1862.php
Definition 3
6
Marketing is the process by which
the companies create value for
customers and build strong
customer relationships in order to
capture value from customers in
return
Kotler and Armstrong (2010, p.28),
Armstrong and Kotler (2009)
What about this definition?
“'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 customercentrically, marketing brings positive return on
investment, satisfies shareholders and
stakeholders from business and the community,
and contributes to positive behavioural change and
a sustainable business future.’” Charles (2007)
So What Has Changed?
 Definition concentrates on
functions/activities of marketing.
Definition is driven by what marketers
do
Therefore, because what marketers do
has changed, the definition has to
change
Remember process centric definition?
This Means?
 New elements of “definition”
 Creating
value
 Building brands
 Nurturing innovation
 Developing relationships
 Good customer service
 Communicating benefits
 ROI and shareholder value
 Stakeholders
 Sustainability
What Else is New in Marketing?
 Some things that have changed are not in
the “definition”…
 Services
 Technology
 Globalisation
 General
opinion of marketing
Broad Areas of Change
 A number of areas have affected the thinking
behind this new definition, including
 Marketing
now not a management function?
 Expansion of marketing into new areas
 Increasing complexity of marketing roles
 Attitudes towards marketing
 Ethics, sustainability and social aspects
 Now we will look at some of these
Reasons for Changes
 Short definition is 30 plus years old
 Marketing has changed, evolved and grown
 In
the past 10 years the number of people
working in marketing has increased by 80%
(Thorp, 2007)
 Now more that half a million people working in
broad area of marketing (Thorp, 2007)
 Long definition is suggested as a beginning
point for a debate on what marketing is
Marketing as a “Business
Function”
 Previously marketing was seen as
a “management function”
 i.e.
something done by managers
 Now “everyone in a company
acts as a marketer to a lesser or
greater degree” (Thorp, 2007, p. 9)
Marketing as a “Business Function”
 Originally a service marketing concept,


Coined by Evert Gummesson (e.g., see Gummesson, 1997)
“part-time marketers typically outnumber several
times the full-time marketers,” Gronroos (1997)
 Now has moved to general marketing
 There
 All
is a recognition that “quality is marketing”
employees, customer facing or not, service
or not, have a role to play in improving the
quality of the organisation’s offering
Expansion of Marketing
 Not just growing in terms of numbers of
participants
 Also expanding into new areas and opening new
job roles
 Some reasons for this
 Increasing specialisation (Thorp, 2007)
 Improvements in technology (Reynolds 2007)
 Marketing being used in new contexts, e.g.,
services, not for profit (Thorp,2007)
Marketing’s Growing Pains
 This growth and self examination of marketing is not new
 Has been a continual process, maybe always will be
 “symptomatic
of an inherent insecurity and
concern for intellectual vindication” (Woodall, 2007, P. 1284)
 In the early 1990’s marketing experienced a “mid-life crisis”
(Brady and Davis, 1993 cited by Denison and McDonald,
1995).
 Holbrook and Hulbert (2002) even suggested that
“specifically the marketing function is dead” (citing Fitzroy,
1998; Lehmann and Jocz, 1997)
Expansion of Marketing
 Now marketing “…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.”
 These, and other (?), areas are becoming
increasingly important and separate in
marketing.

In fact these areas can often be sub-divided even more
Is There Such a Thing as Marketing?
 Does marketing exist as a single definable
element within an organisation?
 Thorp (2007, P.6) argues that
“increasingly it’s difficult for a marketer to
attempt to be expert in all the areas we
currently define as ‘marketing’.”
 In past marketing was more
straightforward, easier to be expert in
many areas
“Renaissance Men”/Polymaths
 Leonardo da Vinci

Artist, engineer, anatomist, scientist
 Lower levels of knowledge etc,
made this easier
Jack of All Trades?
 Definition highlights
 Brand
building
 Innovation
 Relationship marketing
 Customer service
 Communications
 Each can be seen as a very specialist role –
requiring specialist skills and training
Expansion of Marketing
 The CIM suggest that “in the future,
marketers could follow one of three
broad paths: Science…Arts…Humanities”
(Thorp 2007, P. 6)
 No
one would be expected to be an expert in
all three
 Specialising in one of these areas allows
more time to study how the rest of the
business works
Attitudes Towards Marketing
 Second half of definition almost a defence of
marketing
 “By operating customer-centrically, marketing
brings positive return on investment, satisfies
shareholders and stakeholders from business and
the community, and contributes to positive
behavioural change and a sustainable business
future.”
 Remember “inherent insecurity” (Woodall, 2007,
P.1284)
Whose Attitude is it Anyway?
 Definition refers to several groups



Customers
Shareholders
“Stakeholders from business and the community”
 And highlights value to each



Customer centric operations
“Positive return on investment”
“Positive behavioural change and a sustainable business future”
 We will explore how the attitudes of stakeholders
inside and outside the organisation might be
formed
Within Organisations
 The value of marketing to organisations is
debated (Simms, 2008; Thorp, 2007)
 Marketers seen as more loyal to marketing
than to organisations (Simms, 2008; Thorp,
2007)
 Marketers seen as having too little
knowledge about the organisation as a whole
(Simms, 2008; Thorp, 2007)
General Attitude to Marketing
 “The
cumulative impact of billions of
corporate dollars spent marketing their
products, year after year after year,
stimulating, reinforcing and exacerbating
people’s consumerist fantasies, is almost
wholly pernicious” (Jonathon Porritt cited by Thorp, 2007, P. 4)
 Marketing
stimulates greed and excess
consumption
 Marketing is purely about communications, all
flash and no substance
General Attitude to Marketing
 If your product is not good enough, lie
about it to convince people it is
General Attitude to Marketing
 Also “consumers believe that, rather than ‘active,
rational decision-making people’ they are
perceived as ‘Passive sentimental lightweights’”
(Kanter, 1988/89, P.33 cited by Woodall, P. 1290)
 Instead consumers now actively seek relevant
marketing (Holbrook and Hulbert, 2002) and will reject and
actively avoid irrelevant marketing (Fry, 2008)
 Also consumers actively communicate with each
other concerning their experiences with marketing
communications, products, etc… “Trialogue”
(Walmsley, 2007)
Six Blind Men and the Elephant
Six Blind Men and the Elephant
 Six learned blind men go to ‘see’ an
elephant
 Each experiences only a small part of the
whole, a leg or a tusk or the trunk or tail
• Each believes and
argues that the whole
of the elephant is
what they have
experienced
So?
 The beliefs of people outside of marketing are
influenced by what they experience of marketing
 Adverts
for loans and HFSS (high fat, sugar and
salt) food
 Junk mail
 Silent calls
 Pushy salespeople
 As population becomes more educated and
sophisticated, they see through bad/badly targeted
marketing more easily
Social Aspects of Marketing
 Another aspect of marketing that people are
increasingly aware of is the impact on society
 Negative impact receiving more attention
 Binge
drinking (McAlinden, 2007)
 Childhood obesity (Online junk food… ,2008)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vSoax7OX6U
 Increasing
personal debt (Marshall, 2007)
 Ironically, first two are a result of PR from
pressure groups trying to get their point
across!
Ethics and Sustainability
 Marketing industry reactions to issues include
 Fair
trade
 Organic
 Green Save today, Save tomorrow, EDF Energy
 Ethically sourced
 Could be driven by:
 Consumers (Darmon, 2005)
 Industry
 Expansion of marketing into new areas
Things to Think About
 Marketing is an evolving changing
definition
 It is growing in terms of numbers of
marketers and areas in which
marketing appears
 Attitudes to marketing are worsening
 Mainly driven by “bad” uses of
marketing
References
 Charles, G. (2007) News Analysis: Fit for purpose?”, downloaded from
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http://www.brandrepublic.com/login/Research/740535/ on January 22nd
2008.
Darmon, R.Y., (2005), Is Ethical Marketing a Myth? In D. Daianu and R.
Vranceanu (Ed) Ethical Boundaries of Capitalism [Electronic version], 175-197,
Aldershot; Ashgate.
Denison, T. & McDonald, M., (1995), The role of marketing past, present and
future [Electronic version], Journal of Marketing Practice: Applied Marketing
Science, 1 (1), 54-76.
Fry, A., (2008, January, 16th), Avoidance tactics gather pace, Marketing, 19
Gronroos, C., (1997) From marketing mix to relationship marketing – towards
a paradigm shift in marketing [Electronic version], Management Decision, 35
(4), 322-339.
References
 Gummesson, E. (1997) Relationship marketing as a paradigm shift: some
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conclusions from the 30R approach [Electronic version}, Management
Decision, 35 (4), 267-272.
Holbrook, M.B. & Hulbert, J.M., (2002) Elegy on the death of marketing: Never
send to know why we have come to bury marketing, but ask what you can do for
your country churchyard [Electronic version], European Journal of
Marketing, 36 (5/6), 706-732.
Kotler, P. and Armstrong, G. (2010). Principles of Marketing. 13 ed. Pearson
Kotler, P. & Keller, K. (2009) Marketing Management. 13th ed. Pearson
McAlinden, M., (2007) Shop alcohol offers 'unethical' downloaded from
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7155825.stm on January 24th, 2008
Marshal, B., (2007), The Hard Sell, downloaded from
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/aug/18/advertising.comment on
February 11th, 2008
Online junk food adverts ban call, (2008), downloaded from
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7199236.stm on January 24th, 2008
References
 Reynolds, J., (2007), Editorial [Electronic version], Journal of Targeting,
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Measurement and Analysis for Marketing, 15, 199-200.
Simms, J., (2008, January 16th) ,Marketing 2008 – a discipline in crisis,
Marketing, 26-28.
Thorpe, D. (2007), Tomorrow’s Word [Electronic version], Shape the agenda,
Chartered Institute of Marketing.
Walmsley, A., (2007, June 13th), Democracy overpowers deific brands,
Marketing, 17.
Woodall, T., (2007) New marketing, improved marketing, apocryphal
marketing: Is one marketing concept enough [Electronic version], European
Journal of Marketing, 41 (11/12), 1284-1296.