Definitions of marketing abound. A bit like a scratch in the morning, everybody has one!
The lament of President Roosevelt that if you had 7 economists in a room, you had 8 opinions, is equally true for marketers, except that to date, most have used smoke and mirrors and snake-oil rather than data to support an opinion. Most usually, you get the “5 P’s” regurgitated as a definition of marketing, easy to remember, but unfortunately irrelevant since the time of Don Draper.
Asked a few weeks ago what my definition was, I said “Marketing is the identification, development, protection, and leveraging of competitive advantage” To me, this covers all the elements of marketing process, collaboration, customer value, management discipline, and innovation that go to make up modern marketing.
Whilst the context of every marketing challenge differs, and the potential solutions numerous, the discipline necessary to tease out the core issues are pretty consistent.
As it happens, a day or so later, I came across an alternative definition, expressed as a formula that I also like very much:
Marketing = the creation of unique value.
That seems to say it all, and very simply.
What is yours??
