Marketing and Value: The Essence of Modern Marketing

Hi, I’m Dr. Carlos Valdez, founder and director of Mercadotecnia y Ventas. This is my blog post for Monday, August 12th, which I dedicate to my daughter Mariana for her birthday on August 15th. Happy birthday, Mariana!

Today, we will discuss what marketing is. To do so, we will use the 2017 definition provided by the American Marketing Association (AMA), developed by a panel of academic experts.

The panel included:

• Bernard Jaworski, Claremont Graduate University
• Richard Lutz, University of Florida
• Greg W. Marshall, Rollins College
• Linda Price, University of Oregon
• Rajan Varadarajan, Texas A&M University

The definition they developed is as follows:

"Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large."

I would like to highlight several key ideas here. First, at the heart of the definition of marketing is value creation. This is essential both for the discipline of marketing and for our company, Mercadotecnia y Ventas.

What does it mean to create value?

Value can be an ambiguous term with multiple interpretations. I cite here the article Marketing Malpractice by Clayton Christensen, Scott Cook, and Taddy Hall, published in Harvard Business Review in 2005, which suggests that understanding the social, functional, or emotional dimensions of a customer's needs allows for the development of an offering that truly creates value. The authors emphasize that "every job people need or want to do has a social, functional, and emotional dimension. If marketers understand each of these dimensions, they can design a product that’s precisely targeted to the job."

Instead of focusing solely on who the customer is, the marketer should focus on understanding what specific task the customer is trying to accomplish or what problem they are trying to solve. This means that to develop successful products, it is more important to identify and understand the "job" that the customer needs to be done. By designing a product that directly addresses that task or need, the product is more likely to be bought and valued by consumers, because we will have created value in the customer's life.

I also want to highlight the elements of the AMA definition: creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings. These elements correspond to the 4 Ps of marketing: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion.

• Creation refers to the development of the product, service, or both that will fulfill the customer’s need.
• Communication involves how we will promote it.
• Delivery refers to distribution, that is, how the product will reach the customer.
• Exchange includes how it will be sold and at what price.

But again, the most important thing is how we create value in our customers' lives; that is the essence of marketing.

Throughout history, marketing has evolved significantly, and one of the most important events in this development was the creation of the Journal of Marketing. This academic journal, the oldest in the field of marketing, was founded in 1936 as a result of the merger of two publications: The American Marketing Journal and The National Marketing Review. Since its inception, the Journal of Marketing has been a key reference in the evolution of the field.

A notable article published in 1936, titled "Experiences of an Early Marketing Teacher" by Dr. J.E. Hagerty, details how in 1905 he offered the course "Distribution of Products" at Ohio State University. This was one of several marketing-related courses offered between 1900 and 1906. For example:

• University of Illinois (1902): Course "Domestic Commerce and Commercial Policies".
• New York University (1902): Course "Organization and Business Practices".
• University of Pittsburgh (1909): Course "Product Marketing".

In 1908, Harvard Business School was founded, where Dr. Paul T. Cherington taught and promoted the marketing course, initially titled "Organization and Commercial Methods", which was renamed "Marketing" in the 1914-1915 cycle. Harvard, by using the case method, published books on marketing problems, which facilitated the teaching of marketing in more universities.

Today, the Journal of Marketing remains one of the most important journals in the field of marketing. In addition to being the oldest academic journal in this area, it is included in the classification of the top 11 marketing research journals according to the Australian Business Deans Council. These are:

• European Journal of Marketing
• Industrial Marketing Management
• International Journal of Research in Marketing
• Journal of Consumer Psychology
• Journal of Consumer Research
• Journal of Marketing
• Journal of Marketing Research
• Journal of Retailing
• Journal of Service Research
• Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science
• Marketing Science

The Australian Business Deans Council classifies these journals as A+, highlighting their relevance and impact on scientific research. In total, 211 journals in this area are classified, including 11 in the A+ category, 36 in the A category, 61 in the B category, and 43 in the C category.

Finally, I want to share a free resource: the Universal Marketing Dictionary, an online dictionary containing over 1,900 marketing terms, reviewed and updated monthly by experts from the Marketing Accountability Standards Board (MASB). You can access it here.

I want to close by thanking all the members of the Mercadotecnia y Ventas community for their support. Thanks also to the graduates of our course "Leadership in Sales: AI Tactics," where we combine theory and practice to show how AI can boost sales in your business.

You can contact me at my email [email protected] or on my LinkedIn profile. We also offer in-company training in addition to our online courses.

Remember that in Marketing and Sales, we always seek to create value.

See you next time!

Dr. Carlos Valdez

References:

1. American Marketing Association (2017). Definition of Marketing. AMA Website
2. Christensen, C.M., Cook, S., & Hall, T. (2005). Marketing Malpractice: The Cause and the Cure. Harvard Business Review.
3. Hagerty, J. E. (1936). Experiences of an early marketing teacher. Journal of Marketing, 1(1), 9-14.
4. Australian Business Deans Council. (2022). Ranking of Marketing Journals. Retrieved from https://abdc.edu.au/abdc-journal-quality-list/
5. Universal Marketing Dictionary. Online Marketing Dictionary