New role of marketing, cont'd

Thanks to David Foster at PhotonCourier for his comment on my recent post on the new role of marketing. He says,

"I think it's a stretch to say that "marketing might think of its task as resolving the conflicting needs and interests of stakeholders.." That's the responsibility of the chairman and the CEO (or, in a multidivisional company, the division general manager). Attempts by marketing people to claim such a broad scope would disperse efforts and by perceived by many as a territorial grab."

This new definition of marketing originally came from John Moore at OurHouse. What I liked about the definition is that it didn't stop at the customer but considered everyone -- internally and externally -- who has a role furthering the success of the brand. However, David has a point... is this overextending marketing's reach?

I started thinking further about this definition after a strategy meeting yesterday with the Patient Education division of a large non-profit agency. We made a list of all their stakeholders including sponsors, doctors, nurses, patients, caregivers/relatives and affiliates/volunteers. 7 groups of stakeholders, all essential to the project. John's definition of marketing doesn't apply here; there aren't any 'conflicting needs and interests' to resolve. Our client's challenge is to enable and facilitate communication between all the stakeholders. I think this is the key challenge for for-profit companies as well... by understanding the needs of customers, marketing can enable departments within a corporation to have meaningful dialogue with customers.

So here's my vote for the new definition for marketing: Enabling and facilitating communication between all stakeholders of an organization. What are your thoughts?

UPDATE: After I posted this, I realized that this definition applies to Marketing Communication, but leaves out other marketing functions like pricing. Need to think on this a bit more... input welcome!

Comments

[Paul Williams]

One of the reasons the role of marketing is complicated to put in it’s own crate is that, while there is a department at the company with that name, marketing activity isn’t necessarily limited to only that department.

We’ve been using the word ‘customer’ to primarily describe the end-user of the product or service a company offers. However, within an organization, the sales force is a customer of the product team. The product team ‘hires’ the creative team to develop collateral. The operations team counts on the finance folks to help develop the sales targets.

To maximize effectiveness, each department in an organization would utilize marketing practices and ‘internal’ consumer insights. This would ensure they were delivering a product or service that met the specific need of an internal customer with the same fervor as they would an external customer.

[Chris Lawer]

Jennifer, to add your debate, my definition of marketing would be:

"To innovate, create and sustain mutually profitable and authentic customer and other stakeholder relationships"

Then again, I'll probably change it tomorrow!

[Tom Asacker]

If the circus is coming to town and you paint a sign saying, "Circus is coming to Fairgrounds Sunday," that's Advertising. If you put the sign on the back of an elephant and walk him through town, that's a Promotion. If the elephant walks through the Mayor's flower bed, that's Publicity. If you can get the Mayor to laugh about it, that's Public Relations. And, if you planned and coordinated the whole thing (including naming, pricing, events, location, concessions, souvenirs, spin-off products, licensing, etc.) that's Marketing!

I stole and modified this from author unknown. ;-)