Because marketers are worth it

How are you feeling today? Are you feeling noble? Even saintly? Probably not. Well maybe you should be. Because marketing – properly understood and executed – is a profoundly moral activity. But sadly, nobody knows it. Not even guys who work in marketing.

Guys who work in marketing are far too busy hustling and bustling, dodging disasters, having good ideas, having lousy ideas, achieving and missing targets and chasing their tails to have any time to think about the morality of how they earn their living.

Marketing as a moral activity? Bullshit, surely? Absolutely not. Marketing is the pivotal point where the needs and wants of human beings come face to face with the ability of other human beings to meet those needs and wants. It is the interface between demand and supply.

Marketing is not, as the public thinks, solely concerned with flogging branded goods. Yes, branding is intrinsic to the marketing of much food and drink, clothing and fashion, travel and transport etc, but marketing encompasses the whole sweep of life: the arts, sport, health, most kinds of leisure and pleasure, politics and government.

A few essential activities fall completely outside of marketing, but not many. Marketing is the only profession whose full-time role is to minimise oversupply (waste), and avoid under-supply (scarcity).

Naturally the public does not realise any of this. Nor do economists. They all think marketing is simply a goody bag full of multipacks, loyalty cards, billboards, BOGOFs and similar trinkets. They think marketing is just a posh name for selling. Codswallop.

Marketing originated in the old market squares. Farmers and craftsmen took their wares to the market to sell them. Yes, when they got there they whooped and hollered and used all the persuasive wiles they knew, but the process didn’t start in the market. The process started long before, when they identified, as best they could, what the customers in the market would want, and aimed to produce it, in the right quantities, and at prices that would provide them with a living, and the customers could afford.

Since then only one significant thing has changed. A new breed of marketing specialist has come into being to identify what customers need and want, and to organise the whooping and hollering. That’s you. And if you are successful, your toil and trouble provide employment for national – and international – workforces. So all of society benefits. OK, maybe it isn’t quite saintly. But it is admirable, honourable – and vital. It’s time you marketing guys started blowing your own trumpets. Because you’re worth it.

Winston Fletcher writes extensively on advertising and marketing. [email protected]

Marketing originated when people used all the persuasive wiles they knew to sell their wares in real market squares