The Why of Marketing

Marketing suffers from many stereotypes, many of  them negative. It is perceived by most people to be easy and glamorous. Everyone has an opinion about how to market something. Not too much thought is given as to the why of marketing. Why is marketing needed? What purpose does it serve? What, if you will, is the philosophy of marketing?

Questions like these seem to serve no practical purpose. Nearly all marketing practitioners and theorists have a much more practical bent. They address the how of marketing as indeed they should. Since marketing is ultimately concerned with consumers and since consumers come with an infinite variety of opinions, thoughts, views, experiences etc. and these opinins, thoughts, views, experiences etc. also change with time and circumstance, just trying to answer the how of marketing poses many interesting and difficult questions and conundrums. The how of marketing is so interesting that the why of marketing seems largely irrelevant.

Neglecting the why of marketing however is fraught with peril. This questions concerns the legitimacy of marketing in the eyes of both consumers and practitioners. There is a tendency amongst the former to equate marketing with a form of coercion. The major concern here is that marketing creates false demand i.e. it creates a demand for goods and services that otherwise would not exist. All for the sake of a few more dollars. This obviously generates resistance amongst consumers to marketing's blandishments. Practitioners in turn try to overcome this resistance which only generates more resistance.

Another major area of concern is attempts by businesses to commercialize culture spaces and marketing's role in these attempts. It is in the inherent nature of capitalism to commercialize all aspects of private and social life. Marketing is often used as a tool in this regard. Since people tend to resist commercialization of treasured cultural spaces, marketing, being the most visible of the tools used to do so, becomes highly suspect and leads to greater resistance which of course needs to be overcome by practitioners.

If marketing is to continue being effective and not alienate its putative constituency, it needs to address the issues raised by the questions above. I will try to address some of these issues later but there needs to be a consistent effort to address them by all practitioners at their local level. These are not irrelevant, unnecessary questions. They go into the very heart of marketing. How these issues are debated and acted upon will determine the ultimate effectiveness of marketing.