Book Title: eTextbook: MKTG, Fifth Canadian Edition
1-1. What Is Marketing?
1-1. What Is Marketing?
Anyone who has picked up this book and is reading this first chapter has a preconceived notion of what
marketing is. The term marketing is misused and overused in discussions about companies, celebrities,
and all aspects of business. Because the term is so broadly interpreted, we end up in a situation where the
word itself begins to lose its meaning.
And this meaning is most often associated with a few words that are attached to the promotional
activities of marketing: sales, advertising, and social media. This is likely because these types of activities
are what we as consumers see all the time, on our phones, online, or even out in public. Any message
delivered by a company is simplified down to becoming part of a company’s marketing.
But marketing is not only seen as a noun. Marketing is also used as a verb: “this company sure is
marketing their services.” Here the function of marketing is distilled down to, once again, promotional
efforts related to advertising or other forms of promotion.
And so the term marketing is used in a variety of ways and misrepresented in many others. But without
marketing, there is no customer. Most departments in a business—whether accounting or finance or
operations—are internally focused on achieving goals related to their functional area. Marketing’s sole
focus is on the customer and understanding what makes them tick. Without marketing to identify a
customer to create revenues and profit, there is no need for an accounting department or manufacturing
facility.
It has become a marketer’s job to understand the customer, and in doing so, transition marketing from
something that is misused and misunderstood to a key component in an organization. Being able to bring
an external customer-based approach, marketing can inform other parts of the organization to focus on
the needs of customers when undertaking any action or decision. Because, as the quote at the start of this
chapter suggests, the customer is the focus of marketing, not the company.