Stop Perfuming the Pig: Why “real” marketing is done before the product is created

“No amount of perfume can overcome the stench of a technology product that people don’t need,” by Steve Johnson.

Peter Drucker makes it clear that marketing isn’t a product promotion strategy; it’s a product definition strategy, that “marketing” is creating a product that sells itself, creating a product that people want to buy; creating an environment that encourages people to buy.

Over the years however, industries and agencies and marketing experts have worn away the original meaning of marketing and cheapened it. Marketing now means many things to many people but apparently not what Drucker meant. For most people nowadays, marketing means t-shirts, coffee mugs, trinkets, trade show trash, and tchotchkes.

Do you promote or do you market?

Johnson’s great article illuminates the problem with marketing is that we don’t focus on the problem. Instead we focus on promotion. And promotion is not marketing.

The first and most important consideration for any business is the market problem. It’s the problem that drives the product decisions, the message for positioning, and the key elements of selling—the placement strategy. Having identified the problem, the other Ps of the marketing mix become obvious.