Out of the Box

Who’s Who in Marketing?

By Menachem Lubinsky on February 22 2010

Leafing through a local weekly newspaper, I noticed an ad that read: “It’s 2010; Do You Know Where Your Marketing Is?” It went on to offer “free consulting” on brand image, but appeared to be more of a design firm’s quest for customers to redesign their logos and corporate image in general. On occasion, people turn to me for advice on a professional that could help with them with their marketing, which actually led me to write this column.

While marketing has sometimes been defined as the “process of bringing a raw product to the end user,” the actual execution of marketing is not that broad. That is to say that not everyone in the manufacturing pipeline is a marketer. Consider marketing as a manufacturing process that has many workers on the line. There are the people who conceive and develop an idea or product. They are surely in marketing since they have the task of assuring that the product will be successful in the marketplace. They have many tools at their disposal to evaluate the potential success of a product.

The next marketing person might be the designer of the product, more specifically its packaging. Once again this is a person who must deal with the presentation of the product. Here too research is essential. What kind of package will attract the attention of the consumer? How will the product look on the shelf?

Continuing on this “line” is the person who is responsible for locating the target consumer and then to find the right medium to let the consumer know that there is such a product and most importantly that there is a direct benefit to purchasing this item. There are actually many people on this line. They include graphic artists, media experts, public relations specialists and just about anyone who is responsible for flagging the product to consumers.

In some instances there will be a marketing manager with the specific task of managing the marketing program. Many universities offer a degree in marketing management, an important function in many companies and at larger advertising agencies. These agencies will typically have separate departments for many of the marketing functions, including research, creative (concept development and coordination of the creative product), copywriting, graphics and design, media, and traffic. All these disciplines may work as a team with the addition of an account executive that directly interfaces with the client.

In addition to some of the functions described above, an integrated marketing campaign will also include public relations, promotions, and of late social marketing. What is interesting in marketing is that it in may resemble an auto assembly line. There are people who put on the right rear door and others who are responsible for the hood, but someone who is not visible may be the key person in putting together the automobile. It is not the engineer or the plant foreman. It is the senior executive whose responsibility is to stay focused on the big picture.

The key person in successful marketing and by extension a successful business is the strategic marketer. This is the person that has a broad knowledge of all of the disciplines but most importantly is responsible for the positioning of the product. This is someone who has the ability to forensically analyze the product, to understand consumer behavior, to be fully in tune with the demands of the time, and be able to think down the pike. The strategic marketer must be someone who can function in long term thinking.

I recently wrote a business plan for a new product that seemed to have a lot going for it. Looking for investors, the entrepreneur projected revenues and expenses over a period of five years. A savvy potential investor kept focusing on the “external factors” that might impact the product. He meant dealing with such contingencies as a recession that is still around five years hence, an unstable political environment, new technological advances that might effect the product, and perhaps problems with management. A good strategic marketer might be able to factor those contingencies into a long-term plan.

Many people who purport to be in marketing may actually be fulfilling a marketing task but are by no means strategic marketers. A good graphic designer might know how to execute a visual presentation to the consumer, but it might not be consistent with the correct positioning of the product. Even an ad agency might not have the handle on the full marketing picture. It is merely the vendor to carry out the advertising part of the marketing plan. Sure a salesman is part of the marketing team, but rarely a strategic marketer.

Marketing is so broad a term that it often confuses people. It can become the answer to many business problems if it is strategic. To engage in marketing without a strategic plan is simply to throw bad money after bad money. I have seen it so many times. People decide on a marketing approach that is strategically incorrect, thus burning many dollars. Anyone who is seriously looking at marketing ought to also seriously understand what marketing is and what it is not and that is strategic.

Out of the Box is a collection of strategic marketing articles that Lubicom has published on various topics, trends and ideas in the marketing world. The articles have been published in the Hamodia weekly newspaper circulated on three continents to a readership of well over 100,000.

The name, "Out of the Box" is a term used frequently in business nowadays to describe creative thinking that is not the norm. It is meant to help a business pull away from the pack or separate oneself from the competition. It is to some extent fraught with risk, simply because it is not the run of the mill thinking, but it is at the same time the key to reaching the next opportunity.