16

Marketing News

Sept. 15, 2004

Philip Kotler, author and SC

Johnson and Son Distinguished
Professor of International
Marketing, Kellogg School of
Management, Northwestern
University, Evanston, Ill.

Diane I. Primo, Chief

Marketing Officer, CDW
Corp., Vernon Hills, Ill.
When I started my marketing
career in the early 1980s, we were
just beginning to understand the
importance of customer segmentation, but we lacked the tools to
really deliver on the promise.
Information technology has fueled
the march to precision marketing,
overhauling our ability to gather,
analyze and react to market data.
That adds
new
requirements to
the ideal
skill set for
successful
marketers
and brings
new
dimension,
in my view,
to how
marketing is defined and understood.
But it shouldnt be the fundamental dimension, because while
the science has opened new
opportunities, the art remains.
The reams of data ... can only go
so far in the task of creating a
strategic customer framework
that focuses on building a relationship with the customer while
increasing the customers lifetime
valuethe goal being to bond that
customer ... to your brand. Science as well as ... creativity and
crisp execution play powerful roles
here.
The science also has brought
new pressures, but in a welcome
way, as I see it. The more we can
know, the more were accountable
for what we should know. The better we can keep track of what
were doing, the more effective we
can be at investing with impact.
That enables us to be a more powerful influence with our customers
and within the companies we
serve, and sets the stage for further progress in the years ahead.

In the 1960s, marketing

was primarily focused on

consumer marketing with a heavy emphasis

on mass marketing. Business-to-business
marketing was primarily addressed in sales
courses.
In the 1970s and 1980s, marketing was
broadened to include the marketing of goods,
services, ideas, persons, places, organizations and information.
Early marketing was top-line driven; cur-

MARKETING

REDEFINED
NINE TOP MARKETERS OFFER
THEIR PERSONAL DEFINITIONS
Gary Slack, CEO, Slack Barshinger, Chicago
One of my favorite, though inadequate, definitions of
marketing comes from a speaker I heard years ago: Marketing is when you cant go see somebody. I also like dual
marketing-sales definitions, like this one from Kevin Clancy: Sales is getting rid of the stuff you make. Marketing is
making sure you make the stuff customers want. My No. 1
favorite definition is derived from Peter Druckers definition of business purpose: Marketing is the process of
finding, creating, and retaining profitable customers. And,
hey, it works for both b-to-b and b-to-c.
How has (my definition) changed? Not much, and a lot.
Customer-centric marketing was being practiced when I
entered the business in the late 1970s. My former boss, Bill
Novelli ... was thinking and teaching his equivalent of the
4Cs vs. the 4Ps more than 30 years ago. And Im sure he
had counterparts doing the same thing in the 1950s. Having said all this, I think we still have way too many companies that are old school, 4Ps-type marketers. The VP of
communications at one such company recently told me, If
we were KFC, wed be advertising cold, dead chickens.

Jack Trout, President, Trout & Partners Ltd.,

Old Greenwich, Conn.
Marketing is simply figuring out what you have
to do to sell your product or service for a profit. Its
like producing a movie with the product as the star.
Everyone and everthing in the movie is part of
telling a simple story about why my product is different and should be bought instead of other products.
Two things have changed over my
career. One: The level of competition; it
gets more intense year after year. Two:
There are more tools with which to
work, such as advertising, PR, promotional, Internet and so on.

Maybe the biggest

change has been the
marketing (if not the
agency) communitys
embrace of integrated
marketing communications. Its been long in
coming, but has extended
to C-level executives,
many of whom ... now
understand marketing
as much more than
advertising and
other forms of
external communications.
Another is the business worlds embrace of internal or
enterprise branding. I know of several CEOs who are
blocking any major external brand communications efforts
until theyve fully defined and operationalized their brand.
It may sound like heresy coming from an agency guy, but if
I had to choose between internal vs. external branding, Id
always choose the former.

Chris Strain, Vice President of Global Marketing,

Vans Inc., Santa Fe Springs, Calif.
My definition of marketing: VerbThe daily struggle to
make people buy something they never knew they needed. I am
joking, but if you havent felt that way before, you havent been
a marketer.
Hows marketing changed? Todays consumer has become
savvy or numb to most advertising, so its much tougher to
break through and still deliver your message. At Vans we measure our creativity by how much word-of-mouth it can create
and whether that word-of-mouth is authentic to the brand.
Also, product has become the most important P of the
4Ps. You cant fake the funk; youve got to have a product
that delivers to the message youve created, or have a message
that authentically gives new life to your product. Otherwise,
price will be the most important P for you.

rent marketing is bottom-line drivenat

least in theory.
Marketing has moved from a focus on
the mass market to a focus on market
segments to a focus on one-to-one customer
relations.
Current marketing is moving from a transaction-orientation to a customer-relationship-building orientation.

Martin C. White, Senior Vice

President, Marketing, United
Air Lines, Elk Grove Township, Ill.
The topic being the definition of marketing, its widened as I see it, based on
the technology and database advances
that weve all enjoyed over the last 20
years. You have to go back to the four Ps,
and we have all that still inherent in what
we do. I am a big believer in the 4P model.
Its just, in my mind, its evolved with
these new resources available
to us.
Data-driven marketing is my soapbox,
(and) not purely
direct mail or direct
marketing. Data-driven marketing to me is
the various forms of
marketing, Net and
e-mail, combined
with some of
the more
tested
tools, such as advertising and promotions.
When I started (in the airline business),
frequent flyer programs had been around
for about five years, and ... agents collected data on pieces of paper at the
gates. People put slips of paper in a little
shoebox ... with every flight. It was sent
off in a batch mode to a data collection
point and then shipped off to the Philippines for data entry. What you can get off
of the slip of paper that a gate agent can
fill out while checking in 150 people is limited.
Now we have mega-terabytes of data
driven by that same transaction. Im going
to guess it drives 100 times more data.
Then add what the airlines are tracking
today. In 1987, airlines were just launching
affinity partnerships, and now each has
40, 50, 60, 70 partners. The points of data
input are enormously (greater) than what
we had.
And that, coupled with our ability to
analyze itour agency has a certain part
of its staff composed of Ph.D.s that sit
with the data to find pockets of value.
What it allows us to do is actually use our
resources differently to help the enterprise understand its opportunities.
Marketing used to be more of a communications vehicle. When I entered the
airline business in the 80s, marketing was
to build awareness of the brands and
products. Today were part of the decision
matrix and we can help the organization
decide where to spend resources and take
advantage of opportunities.

SEE PAGE 18 FOR

MORE DEFINITIONS

18

Marketing News

Sept. 15, 2004

DEFINITION / From page 17

definition via the Elmar listserv. Later, he
used e-mail to circulate a short white
paper that included a proposed rewritten definition. Ultimately, the members
of the AMAs Board of Directors were
asked for their thoughts.
Dr. Lusch acknowledges there was
no shortage of opinions.
There was discussion about marketing being about collaborating with customers and partners, but that (language) did not survive. Many argued it
was ... what marketing should do, but
many firms were not yet practicing that
kind of collaborative marketing, he says.
Dr. Lusch says he was most struck by
the diversity of correspondents views:
Some view it as a managerial activity,
but others view it as a broad societal
activity. And e-mails from other parts of

the world gave additional perspective.

Europeans and Australians, for example, were most likely to argue that marketing is a societal process (although
some Americans thought so, too).
I dont disagree, Dr. Lusch says, but
if we tried to define every kind of marketing, (the definition) would be wordy
and confusing. Because its used to
introduce students to the discipline, we
needed something comprehensible.
Dr. Lusch says the most challenging
part of his assignment was being
patient and listening.
By July 04, the e-mail exchanges,
conference calls and negotiations had
come down to a 32-word sentence that
had broad-based support. This definition was endorsed in a vote of the
Board in time to be introduced at the

conference in August.
Its appropriate that this would be
unveiled first at Summer Ed, Dr. Marshall says. AMA is really re-energized in
this initiative toward thought leadership. One thing academics can do is disseminate knowledge. This will filter
down into the textbooks and give us the
opening to talk about marketing at the
strategic level.
By revising and updating the definition, notes Dennis Dunlap, AMA reinforces our marketing leadership position. Also, this speaks in a small way to
how we are more contemporary today
as an organization.
Looking ahead, those involved with
the process sense that fewer than 19
years will pass before the definition is
updated again.
Its something that should last a
while, Dunlap says. But logic would
suggest it should be revisited maybe
every five years.

Jeff Pulver, Vice President,

Global marketing,
Siebel Systems, San Mateo, Calif.
Marketing is becoming much more scientific, where
you can look to ROI and tracking programs and how much
business is coming out of campaigns.
Siebel used to be about brand marketing. Over time,
weve shifted to targeted marketing and ... we track the
opportunities that come out of programs. That takes discipline by marketers
and hard work. Its not natural, but if you can build this into the system, you
can stand up to the CEO and say, Here are the results we can deliver.
(Another) area is viral marketing. Reputation management is critical, not
only in newspapers, but in blogs and chatrooms. Customers control the brand
much more than the company (today) so you have to have the Internet as a
tool for your brand because information travels so quickly.
The other thing measurement has allowed is closed-loop tracking. You can
do a handoff from a lead to a qualified opportunity to a sales professional to
close the deal. It closes the gap between sales and marketing. Theres an ongoing debate between sales and marketing and being able to have closed-loop
tracking helps.

Daryl Brewster, President, U.S. Snacks

Sector, Group Vice President, Kraft Foods
North America, East Hanover, N.J.
My personal definition hasnt changed since my
first Marketing 101 class. The fundamentals are the
same as they were two decades agoas they were
two centuries ago.
Where weve seen the change is in the applications, the process mindset of developing and meeting consumer wants and needs for mutual benefit.
Lets suppose the definition has stayed relatively constant over time.
The way it might be
practiced has changed
because of the arenas
and applications of marketing that have evolved
and changed, with technology at the forefront,
along with demographics,
globalization and society. Who would have thought
you could develop a multi-million-dollar coffee brand
without going on the tube?
Its made it more challenging, more fast-paced
and more fun. Its an exciting time to be a marketerthe analytics, the arenas in which marketing
plays are changing so fast, the applications make it
more fun as well as more challenging. Its how you
respond that makes a difference. With each change
comes new opportunities that can lead to great benefits. Each day is a new journey, a new goal to stay
on top of.
What better people to do that than marketers?

Jeff Zabin, Marketing Director,

Global Marketing Solutions,
Fair Isaac Corp., Minneapolis
The changes that were
seeing across the marketing
landscape are largely due to
the growth of brand disloyalty. At the same time, the
proliferation of cable and
satellite TV channels and
DVR technologies means that customer attention is
becoming increasingly fractured.
The call for measurement and accountability has
grown louder recently as many companies struggle
to improve the outcomes of their marketing investments. At least part of the answer lies in customer
data tools, integration technologies, rules-based
automation engines and analytics that can drive
direct-to-consumer marketing campaigns. Part of
the answer also lies in a new corporate mindset, one
that treats marketing as a true business discipline.