What is the American market Associations definition of marketing?

It’s interesting once in awhile to step back and observe change … You can almost hear the conversations evolve as marketing has evolved from mass marketing to segment marketing to target marketing to relationship marketing:

• “Consumers don’t know what they want until we tell them.”
• “This is warfare: Let’s launch campaigns and bombard our targets with messages.”
• “If you really watch the consumer, they’ll tell you what they wish. And if you listen hard, you can create better products for them.”

Let’s take a quick walk down marketing’s history lane:

The pre 60s rise of brand products and advertising agencies. Focus: mass communication

• The American Marketing Association definition of Marketing:
“The performance of business activities that direct the flow of goods and services from producers to consumers.”
AMA – 1948 & 1960

The 70s and 80s beginning of direct marketing. Focus: identification of the target group

• The American Marketing Association definition of Marketing:
“The process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives.”
AMA – 1985

The 90s rise of loyalty programs. Focus: databases, analysis systems

The 2000s evolution of marketing. Focus: creating value for the customer and the organization.

• The American Marketing Association definition of Marketing:
“Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.”
AMA – 2004

We have a global audience in this forum. Does the American Marketing Association’s definition of Marketing resonate with you? It’s interesting, because for some it does not. Let’s advance this line of thought.

You can find several definitions of CRM; however, in general “CRM is a business discipline designed to maximize the value of a company’s customer portfolio through effective marketing, sales and customer service. CRM puts the customer at the core of a company’s processes and practices.” Comparing the two definitions:

• Both are considered a discipline and a strategy focused on the acquisition, expansion and retention of profitable customer relationships.
• Both recognize the importance of aligning strategy, operations, and touchpoints with the needs and values of the customer. Customer-Centric or Customer-Focused.
• Both recognize the need to maximize value for the organization.

If someone asked you what you do “day-to-day” as a marketer, would you tell them you create, communicate and deliver value to customers and manage customer relationships? Are the definitions getting to close for your tastes? What’s your definition of marketing? By the way, there’s no right or wrong answer for purposes of this discussion … Only different roles and responsibilities, points-of-view, opinions and perspectives.

Categories: Blog • Digital Marketing

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Alan See

CMO Temps LLC

Alan See is Principal and Chief Marketing Officer of CMO Temps, LLC. He is the American Marketing Association Marketer of the Year for Content Marketing and recognized as one of the "Top 50 Most Influential CMO's on Social Media" by Forbes. Alan is an active blogger and frequent presenter on topics that help organizations develop marketing strategies and sales initiatives to power profitable growth. Alan holds BBA and MBA degrees from Abilene Christian University.

Marketing is a term so widely accepted that we might be tempted to take its meaning for granted – although few people could define it, most would know it when they saw it! Alternatively we might accept that so broad is marketing in its scope that no one explanation of its purpose will do.

But definitions are important in so much as they force us to think about the scope and meaning of a term. Here are three frequently cited definitions:

• The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) defines marketing as: “The management process which identifies, anticipates, and supplies customer requirements efficiently and profitably”.
  
• The American Marketing Association (AMA), defines marketing as: “The process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods and services to create exchange and satisfy individual and organisational objectives”.
  
• Kotler, Armstrong, Saunders and Wong, (2001:5), define marketing as: “A social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want though creating and exchanging products and value with each other.”

There many other definitions (as many as there are textbooks on the subject), but from these three we can see consistency in the scope of marketing. Marketing is:

• a management process;
• it is about the exchange of goods and services;
• it anticipates and meets consumers needs;
• it creates profits.

Marketing as a management process
Definitions of marketing describe it as a business function � rather like accounting, or human resource management. To �do� marketing is therefore to manage a complex business process.

Marketing as an exchange process
Marketing is about exchanges. Normally this is expressed as the exchange of goods or services for payment. But more recent applications of marketing techniques have complicated this definition. For example "political marketing" might be seen as the exchange of a preferred set of policies in return for a vote and ongoing support

Marketing and the satisfaction of consumer needs
Central to idea of marketing is that individuals have needs and wants that can be met through the purchase of goods and services. These needs are most obviously physical (food, drink, shelter), but may also be social (interaction with others and group belonging), and psychological (self-expression, self-identity).

Now obviously in modern western society most people have enough to eat and drink and have reasonably safe and secure accommodation, so the focus of much modern marketing is actually on meeting the "higher order" social and psychological needs. Any particular need may also be met by a number of different products or services so although absent from the definitions, "providing choice" becomes a central aspect of modern marketing.

Psychological and social needs can be met through a wide variety of different services and products, so marketing also ensures competition. For example the ‘need’ to be respected by others could be met by an expensive luxury car, a designer suit, an adventure holiday, or a higher degree. Each organisation attempts to produce goods or services that are more effective at meeting needs. Organistions also attempt to find new ways to meet new needs.

Marketing and the generation of profit

In return for satisfying consumers� needs, organisations expect to make a profit. In other words marketers do not manage solely with the aim of meeting consumer needs, they select those needs which their oragnisation can meet most profitably. This also suggests that choice is a key aspect of marketing management. Organisations select what they judge to be the most profitable markets from all the possible markets they can enter.

Note however that some definitions suggest "oganisational objectives" or "value" rather than profit. These definitions accept that in the short term at least, organisations might want to grow their volume of customers at the expense of profit. They also allow the marketing concept to be applied to a wider range of organisations such as charities and political parties, where profit is not an objective.

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