Maneuver Marketing Communique

BtoB Magazine Interview About the AMA's New Definition of Marketing

BtoB's Matthew Schwartz interviewed me and AMA CMO Nancy Costopulos recently about my postings on the AMA's new definition of marketing. The interview is in the current BtoB Magazine. You can read it here online. In a nutshell this is what Costopulos said about my comments:

Nancy Costopulos, CMO of the AMA, said the association had anticipated some dissent. "We think it's healthy for the profession to have a dialogue and a conversation," about the new definition, she said. She added that 70% of 1,000 marketers responding to queries about the new definition said it was an improvement on the prior definition. Of the revision Costopulos said: "It's not just about marketing in management but marketing at a higher level."

So marketing in management is at a "lower" level? Than what?

Download vSente's Free Campaign Planner to learn more about how we help marketing managers battle larger competition.

Putting The AMA's Definition of Marketing Into Context...

A CEO is interviewing two candidates for the CMO slot in his mid-sized enterprise. He's running a typical American enterprise - limited resources, cutthroat competition, dwindling margins, etc., etc. The CEO asks each candidate "how do you define marketing?".

Candidate one answers:

"Marketing is ideas and actions that generate increasingly profitable market share."

Candidate two answers:

“Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. Marketing is not a function—it is an educational process.”

So you're the CEO - who do you hire?

Download vSente's Free Campaign Planner to learn more about how we help marketing managers battle larger competition.

More On The AMA's New Definition Of Marketing

Laura Patterson has a good article up at Marketing Profs describing how CMO's can thrive. She uses CMO Anthony Palmer's quote about the role of marketing which is timely, based upon the AMA's new definition of marketing. This is what Anthony says:

"the role of a CMO is really pretty simple. You can't ever lose sight of the fact that your role is to sell more stuff to more people for more money more often.

This is how I recently defined marketing:

Marketing is ideas and actions that generate increasingly profitable market share.

And for a baseline this is how the AMA now defines marketing:

“Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

It will be used as the official definition of marketing in books and taught in university lecture halls nationwide, according to the AMA.

“One of the most important changes to American Marketing Association’s new definition for marketing is that marketing is presented as a broader activity,” said Nancy Costopulos, CMO of the American Marketing Association. “Marketing is no longer a function—it is an educational process.”

Download vSente's Free Campaign Planner to learn more about how we help marketing managers battle larger competition.

Smock's "Definition" Of Marketing...

Having criticized the AMA definition of marketing I wanted to offer up my definition. This is a work in progress but substantially represents my notion of marketing based upon 31 some odd years of actually "doing it":

Marketing is ideas and actions that generate increasingly profitable market share.

There, that's Smock's definition of marketing. I'm not imposing it on anyone - if you hire me to do a campaign and want to know what my definition of marketing is - that's it.

Download vSente's Free Campaign Planner to learn more about how we help marketing managers battle larger competition.

UPDATED: Everything That Is Wrong With Marketing Can Be Found In The AMA's New Definition

The folks over at the American Marketing Association have unveiled a new definition of marketing to reflect the discipline’s "broader role in society". This is it:

“Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

It will be used as the official definition of marketing in books and taught in university lecture halls nationwide, according to the AMA.

“One of the most important changes to American Marketing Association’s new definition for marketing is that marketing is presented as a broader activity,” said Nancy Costopulos, CMO of the American Marketing Association. “Marketing is no longer a function—it is an educational process.”

Having been in marketing since 1976 I don't have the slightest f$cking idea what any of this means. This kind of mental masturbation is exactly why marketing drives most CEO's up the wall.

PS: Is there a typo in the definition? Or is it just really tedious? Maybe its me...

Update 01.17.08: This post is getting a bit of traction so I wanted to elaborate just a touch...

Marketers can't get marketing right in a small enterprise - how do they expect then to have any success expanding to society at large? Before AMA broadens the role of marketing they need to narrow it first, and master the basic fundamentals that generate enterprise profit. Any notion that marketing "is no longer a function" is silly. Most importantly marketing is not an educational process - it is a competitive enterprise that generates marketplace winners and losers. Last, any marketing definition that does not include the words profit, share or sales is functionally bankrupt.

Update 01.21.08: Having criticized the AMA definition of marketing I wanted to offer up my definition. This is a work in progress but substantially represents my notion of marketing based upon 31 some odd years of actually "doing it":

Marketing is ideas and actions that generate increasingly profitable market share.

There, that's Smock's definition of marketing. I'm not imposing it on anyone - if you hire me to do a campaign and want to know what my definition of marketing is - that's it.

Update 01.22.08: Laura Patterson has a good article up at Marketing Profs describing how CMO's can thrive. She uses CMO Anthony Palmer's quote about the role of marketing which is timely, based upon the AMA's new definition of marketing. This is what Anthony says:

"the role of a CMO is really pretty simple. You can't ever lose sight of the fact that your role is to sell more stuff to more people for more money more often.

Update 02.05.08: Putting the AMA definition of marketing into context...

A CEO is interviewing two candidates for the CMO slot in his mid-sized enterprise. He's running a typical American enterprise - limited resources, cutthroat competition, dwindling margins, etc., etc. The CEO asks each candidate "how do you define marketing?".

Candidate one answers:

"Marketing is ideas and actions that generate increasingly profitable market share."

Candidate two answers:

“Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. Marketing is not a function—it is an educational process.”

So you're the CEO - who do you hire?

Update 02.12.08

BtoB's Matthew Schwartz interviewed me and AMA CMO Nancy Costopulos recently about my postings on the AMA's new definition of marketing. The interview is in the current BtoB Magazine. You can read it here online. In a nutshell this is what Costopulos said about my comments:

Nancy Costopulos, CMO of the AMA, said the association had anticipated some dissent. "We think it's healthy for the profession to have a dialogue and a conversation," about the new definition, she said. She added that 70% of 1,000 marketers responding to queries about the new definition said it was an improvement on the prior definition. Of the revision Costopulos said: "It's not just about marketing in management but marketing at a higher level."

So marketing in management is at a "lower" level? Than what?

Update 02.13.08

Former President of the AMA's Boston Chapter John Cass is having an interesting conversation over on his blog about the AMA's new definition of marketing.  Click here to read his blog. Highly recommend it.

Update 02.14.08

Bob Sullivan has a good post up describing the blogosphere reaction to the AMA definition:

Of course, I’ve read a few (very few) positive comments. Unfortunately, those read like the new definition itself – wordy, vague, and difficult to understand. I quit reading after the first sentence or two.

Read his post here.

More,

Susan Tatum at TechnoBuzz says about the new definition:

No offense to anyone personally at the AMA, but jeez. This is the kind of stuff that makes it so hard for non-marketing people – technical, sales and operations types for example – to take us seriously.

More,

Bill Ward, Collegiate Relations Chair for the RAMA board likes the new definition:

I was pleased to see that the AMA  announced an updated marketing definition. The AMA reviews the definition every few years and makes changes if necessary to reflect the dynamic and rapidly changing nature of marketing. I believe the new version more accurately reflects the interaction and control of the marketing process at the individual level (not just organizational) with the growing influence of online social media and consumer created content on society at large.

Read his post here.

Download vSente's Free Campaign Planner to learn more about how we help marketing managers battle larger competition.

The Campaign "Bullet" Communicates Mission, Objective, Strategy, Tactics, Budget and Timing...

The campaign bullet is an important tool. The bullet is similar to an "elevator pitch" or other short form communique - in that the purpose is to quickly and effectively communicate intent or purpose. The campaign bullet is a composite paragraph constructed from the primary components of your campaign. This is an example of the campaign bullet:

The mission of the campaign is to expand the western sales territory. The objective of the campaign is to increase our market share 50% over the next 6 months. Our strategy is to take this share from competitor XYZ by promoting our quality and price advantages relative to XYZ's product recall and union strike. Our primary tactic will be to identify XYZ's largest most vulnerable key accounts and win these accounts. The required campaign elements, competencies and infrastructure will include key account selling, supported by email/direct mail + custom landing pages, and a lock-in three year deal. The total campaign budget is $239,000. We expect results of $7.5 million in new customer wins with a margin of $2.5 million within the 6 month campaign duration. Expected campaign ROI is in excess of 10x.

The campaign bullet forms the header of the One-Page Plan of Campaign. Click below for more information:

Download vSente's Free Campaign Planner to learn more about how we help marketing managers battle larger competitors.

A Definition For Advertising And Marketing Campaigning...

This is how we define campaigning:

Campaigning is the art of decision making, leading, and motivating people and their organizations into action to accomplish missions; visualizing current state and future state, then formulating concepts of operations to get from one place to another at least cost; assigning missions, prioritizing and allocating resources, selecting the critical time and place to act, and knowing how and when to make adjustments during the campaign (as inspired by mcdp6).

Download vSente's Free Campaign Planner to learn more about how we help marketing managers battle larger competitors.

VSENTE'S DEFINITION OF STRATEGY

The best definition of strategy we have found is John Boyd's:

"A mental tapestry of changing intentions for harmonizing and focusing our efforts as a basis for realizing some aim or purpose in an unfolding and often unforeseen world of many bewildering events and many contending interests."

Subscribe ARMORY | Book MOBILIZATION | Engage CAMPAIGN | Register SEMINAR

VSENTE'S DEFINITION OF CAMPAIGNING.

Campaigning is the art of decision making, leading, and motivating people and their organizations into action to accomplish missions; visualizing current state and future state, then formulating concepts of operations to get from one place to another at least cost; assigning missions, prioritizing and allocating resources, selecting the critical time and place to act, and knowing how and when to make adjustments during the fight.

Subscribe ARMORY | Book MOBILIZATION | Engage CAMPAIGN | Register SEMINAR