Business Today

“Marketing is becoming increasingly irrelevant to the needs of business today”. To what extent do you agree with this statement?

Marketing played an important role not only for companies but also for consumers and the society. It is defined as “the management process that identifies, anticipates and satisfies customer requirements profitably” (CIM, The Chartered Institute of Marketing, 2012). However, since the 1990s, given the worse attitudes of consumers and the decline of marketing in organizations, marketers began to realize that they must change their methods of work and thought. This paper will argue that marketing can be more significant to companies in the future if effective measures are implemented. It aims to show necessities and obligations to redefine and reform marketing as well. In this essay, I will first consider the definition of marketing. Secondly, it analyses why there is a marketing crisis. Finally, I will turn to barriers to reform and how we can lift them.

In 2004, American Marketing Association (AMA) defined marketing as a set of processes to benefit the company and its owners. Indeed, it raises a series of problems. Firstly, this definition ignores its influence to the whole society, and it does not realize that marketing can be affected by the government. Secondly, the previous definition argues that marketing is a function alongside other organizations in a company. There is no market department. Then, it has no accurate and insight understanding of consumers, and it neglects consumer value in the process of activity. Therefore, AMA redefined it in 2007:

“Marketing is the activity, conducted by organizations and individuals that operate through a set of institutions and processes for creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging market offerings that have value for customers, clients, marketers and society at large.” (Parsons, Elizabeth; Maclaran, Pauline, 2009)

Admittedly, marketing become more irrelevant to increasing number of companies, nevertheless, it is argued that marketing is necessary to the development of a company. Thus, reasons of marketing crisis must be explore at first. This trend is mainly caused by “credibility gap” (Parsons, Elizabeth; Maclaran, Pauline, 2009), which means problems caused by lack of time to discuss issues related to marketing or marketers in the board level. In some degree, marketing needs more creative and flexible approach, however, other departments have strict structure and disciplines.

A further reason is marketers have difficulties to “persuade” the board of directors. At first, measuring effects or outcomes of marketing is really a tough task. For example, marketers must give positive information or data of their marketing strategy to CEO, then, the CEO considers the positive influence of this strategy. This kind of decision is a vital for an