A manifesto for marketing.
Source:
Marketing (00253650). 6/1/2013, p50-50. 1p
A manifesto for marketing
The Manifesto for Marketing aims to guide the industry through the next decade by defining the rules for excellence that will ensure marketing is essential to every business, writes Amanda Mackenzie.
There is no doubt that marketing has contributed to making our society vibrant, democratic and innovative. But there is also no doubt that, as marketers, we are going to need to change if we are to contribute powerfully in the future to the rapidly changing world around us.
Working out how much we need to change, and in what direction, is no easy task. It's a challenge that we have been focusing on at The Marketing Society and one that has formed the foundation of our new Manifesto for Marketing.
The aim of the Manifesto is to set out a new formula to help guide marketers and marketing through the next decade. It presents a framework for marketing excellence, three key challenges to help your organisation achieve sustainable growth, and an opportunity for individual marketers to rate their own team's performance and to compare this with other senior marketing professionals.
Before we even began to think about tackling these objectives, we started by trying to articulate what marketing really is now - what it is for - and we came up with this definition of the purpose of marketing: 'To create sustainable growth by understanding, anticipating and satisfying customer need.'
Sustainable growth is a powerful idea. It implies that the growth is profitable and reflects the broader needs of society and other stakeholders, so that it can be sustained for the long-term wherever it applies.
Our definition of marketing also means being sustainable in its modern sense - in balance with society and the environment.
With this definition in place, the Manifesto identifies three key challenges for marketers to address:
PURSUE YOUR PURPOSE
Define your organisation's purpose