"Marketing Is Bullsh*t, But..."

Image by Igor Ovsyannykov from Pixabay 

Those Marketing folks - what do they do?

Why do we need to hire another marketing person?

Is it really necessary to spend that on Marketing?

You see it time and time again - organizations have this funny relationship and view of Marketing. 

We love the mystique that Apple has built around its business and think it’s entirely down to its products.

We admire the way companies such as Starbucks use social media to drive real customer engagement but we think social media is a waste of time and money.

We salivate at the sheer scale and reach and credibility that organizations such as Goldman derive from media engagement, but we question the need for a structured, engaged PR campaign.

Well, you can’t have your cake and eat it. 

Name any great company - any of them - and Marketing has played a central, pivotal role in its success. Without question, and without exception. OK - forget great companies for the long term - pick even a startup that you admire (or envy) that got sold for some crazy multiple. Odds are, they deployed strong marketing that put their brand at the top of customer’s (or the market’s) minds.

That’s just a fact. Steve Jobs was known for great marketing as much as great products. McKinsey is known for its exclusivity and mystique and that is down to astute marketing (even though they’ll never call it that). 

I think the more important thing is to recalibrate the organization’s internal language around Marketing. This is driven by a proper grounding and understanding of what good marketing - real, honest, thoughtful, judiciously-applied marketing - actually does. And this isn’t about logos and colors, or ‘in-your-face’ volume, or tricks and hustles to ‘get one over’ on the customer.  This is driven by real, committed leadership that is fully and completely supportive of Marketing - from the pocketbook to both public and private language across the company.

Honestly, I’ve grown tired of hearing these arguments. Anyone who has spent any amount of time really thinking through what it takes to build a great business gets it. And conversely, the ones who aren’t great, are pretty much always the ones who don’t.