Kelloggs thinking is a little…hmmmm…limited?
February 4th, 2006I just read an article called “Kellogg marketing experts say their discipline must promote its strengths” curious to see what the academic top of the tree is thinking about when it comes to marketing.
What struck me is that “Marketing” in this article is pretty much synonymous with “Advertising”.
Anyone working in marketing (especially in SME’s) will realise that it is this limited view of “marketing” that’s causing half the grief. Why? Because anyone with a budget can go and place advertising, and every CEO’s has seen money go down the tube on useless, ego driven advertising campaigns.
What business leaders are interested in is a much more complete approach, with advertising as one potential expense in the marketing budget. How about identifying new segments, innovation in the product line, how about getting to know more about customer behaviour, about innovative pricing, and so on, and so on.
So if they believe that marketing should promote its strengths as the article says, this would be a good point to start.
On the bright side, here is a little gem for people interested in Word of Mouth (WOM marketing: Gary Briggs ’89, vice president and general manager of eBay Canada said “Word-of-mouth accounts for two-thirds of eBay’s marketing, he said, because “eBay users respond to the company’s main marketing message — trust.”
That’s impressive. And how much advertising is involved in that?
