In my previous post, I suggested that marketing - and marketers - are forever at war with themselves over two fundamentally opposed interpretations of what good marketing looks like.
Proposition 1: good marketing means identifying and meeting customer needs profitably
Proposition 2: good marketing means changing consumer attitudes and behaviours in our favour
In practice, the split tends to take place when we move from 'the product' to 'its marketing'. When we are developing the product or service, our main concern is to identify and meet consumer needs, because we are much more likely to sell more that way. But when we are developing our marketing campaigns, our focus shifts to changing consumer attitudes and behaviours in our favour.
That's why, in general, consumers like and trust good products, and dislike and mistrust marketers and marketing. Products and services add value for consumers, but often their marketing doesn't.
That's a problem. A big problem.
It's the problem we have to address.
