Preface
Chapter
1. Myths and legends of the modern marketing concept
Section
I:
Sell,
Sell, Sell: The Modern Production Orientation of Marketing Companies
"The marketing concept? That's just an
abstraction?"
Textbooks provide
useful summaries of material, but they can leave misleading
impressions that my students hold as immutable as biblical text. After a book presents the modern
marketing concept, the future
practitioners believe that all modern successful firms follow a
consumer
orientation, with the only exceptions found among small or unsuccessful
businesses. In reality, many large and successful organizations
misplace
marketing and instead are actually following an inner-directed
production
or selling orientation in dealing with customers. However, just because
these firms lost the marketing concept's consumer
orientation does not mean they are going to be unprofitable. They are
just
not serving consumer needs. Sometimes products from many firms
consistently
fail to serve many consumers, so consumer are stuck with what is
available.
Some people repeatedly go to stores after a bad service experience,
especially
if alternatives also provide the same bad service. An otherwise bad
advertising
campaign could seem to generate some desirable consumer
reactions
by luck or happenstance, with managers unable to see how the
dysfunctional
messages provide much less than optimal results.
Chapter 2.
Hobson's choices in the marketplace
Chapter 3.
Without bad service, there wouldn't be any service
at all
Chapter
4. Advertising only a copywriter would love
Section
II: Opportunities lost: pitfalls by arrogant ignorance
"We know what we're doing. Trust us."
Our class had a lot
of material to cover during the term, so I didn't
feel we could waste a day. But an assistant to the dean scheduled a
guest
speaker for us without asking me in advance. When I objected, I was
told
that the visitor could talk expertly on any topic I had planned to
cover.
"After all," he said, "your course is only marketing. How difficult can
that be?" The basic directives for public health organizations,
trade associations
and even many government agencies in this section are to "serve public
(or members') interests or needs." Logically, this would mean that
their
decisions should apply a marketing perspective, though in most cases
the
group's decisions makers don't understand what marketing means. Well,
maybe
the people in charge don't misunderstand it, but unfortunately, they
tend
to act as if it's irrelevant. Losing the view of the marketing concept,
they follow a production orientation. The
misplaced marketing perspectives of this section are most vexing
because these groups do not need to maximize profits. Their main agenda
is not necessarily political. Whatever the reason, their misplaced
marketing results in an organization's failure to serve anyone except
for, perhaps, the organization's leaders who feel they are
accomplishing
something by the sake of the activity.
Chapter
5. Hey gang, let's put on a show!
Chapter
6. A trade association serving itself
Chapter 7.
Government "serving" the consumers' interests
Section
III. Problems of just satisfying consumer needs
"We're providing a service people want, just
like Al Capone."
In the "Star Trek"
television programs and movies, each alien culture
personifies a human archetype. Ferengi are the marketing-spouting
graft-riddled
and avarice-driven, traveling the universe searching for profit by any
means necessary. Many of the examples in this section involve decisions
by people with the world view of graduates of the Ferengi School of
Business
Ethics. The businesses and organizations of sections I and II misplaced
marketing
because they were not following a marketing perspective in basic
decisions.
At best, their consumer orientation was lost and they followed the a
production
orientation to decisions. The organizations in this section could be
doing
a good job of applying marketing perspectives, but marketing is either
abused or results in outcomes that are not in the best interests of
either
the customers or society. Businesses satisfy customer needs to help
maximize profits. Non-profit
organizations find marketing useful to work toward their
self-interested
concerns. Yet a firm's self-interest might not serve the best interest
of the customers and, even if those people were well served, good
service
to consumer segments is not a societal goal. Giving people benefits
they
think they need instead of what they should be getting distorts
important
social values and priorities. And marketing sometimes is attacked for
helping
a firm maximize profits from products that groups of non-customers
would
like to make illegal (if they could).
Chapter
8. Self-regulation as a marketing tool
Chapter
9. We'd rather you didn't do that
Chapter
10. Fear of marketing
Chapter
11. The "wrong" benefits I: politics and popular
culture
Chapter 12.
The "wrong" benefits II: schools and education
Section
IV. Explanations and criticisms by misplaced marketing
"Why are you doing that??!"
Up to this point, the
primary focus has been on outcomes, the consumer
frustrations or social harms from misplaced marketing. Some reasons for
the lack of marketing in decisions have been delved, criticized or
noted,
but examples were mostly from the end results. In the next four
chapters,
the marketing perspective is lost due to the process or incentives
faced
by organizations. Misplaced marketing comes from the job itself. In the
advertising business, so-called "targeted agencies" are
employed
to rewrite advertising to appeal to minority groups. Yet these
companies
exist in a racist ghetto which presumes that members of demographic
minority
groups are incapable of taking a marketing perspective and applying it
to people physically unlike themselves. Some earlier chapters noted a
consumer
fear of marketing people precisely targeting narrow audiences, but
e-mail
spam exists because decision makers using this tool find it more
efficient
to ignore target marketing concerns and just send messages to as many
people
as possible. Since modern business terms increasingly confuse the
marketing
guide of public relations and the communications tool of publicity,
marketing
perspectives get lost with the publicity tool employed without
reference
to any marketing strategy or assessment of the audiences. And finally,
looking at public organizations, misplaced marketing explains decisions
and adds a perspective to the issues that few would have ever
considered
before.
Chapter
13. Hiring the wrong "right" person
Chapter
14. The spam incentive
Chapter
15. The limits of spin
Chapter 16.
Before you decide, get out of the office
Part V. Concluding notes
Chapter 17.
It's just misplaced marketing
From Adventures
in Misplaced Marketing (Westport, CT: Quorum
Books, 2001, sold by ABC-Clio/Greenwood), by Herbert Jack Rotfeld. Copyright
retained by
author,
all rights reserved.