THE SOURCE OF MARKETING CONCEPTS

It is noticeable how many of these tools seem to arrive in text books and on marketing courses through fame. The entry under “thought leadership” explores the market for ideas and how, through elite media (like the Harvard Business Review) ideas catch on and become adopted. Concepts like the Ansoff Matrix, AIDA, and the Boston Matrix have clearly gained attention in this way. Contrast these with an idea like the AAR model which is a powerful and well researched little tool or Wroe Alderson’s remarkable insights into the herd behaviour of markets, neither of which has had similar fame or attention but which are just as useful.

More worrying, though, are those concepts which business leaders and practising marketers have used to create wealth for many decades but have been equally neglected. Nearly two centuries ago, for example, Pears soap clearly used “viral marketing” as a technique to kick-start this highly successful, 200-year-old brand. Why then, after at least a hundred years of text books on marketing and its principles, do modern marketers think they are creating this technique with the internet under the term “Buzz”? Another example is thought leadership. This technique has been used for nearly two centuries and, particularly in business-to-business marketing, has had extensive and remarkable influence. There is no doubt that it has created enormous fortunes for accountants, consultants, and technologists. It has yet, though, to make an appearance in marketing texts or serious academic studies into the impact of marketing techniques. What else is out there which is undiscovered, uncodified, or neglected?

In a busy job, where it’s hard to keep up with emails let alone take time out to think, it’s easy to get swept up with fashionable thinking or to fall back on well known concepts, without considering their origins or reliability. These can, though, cause marketing programmes to go dangerously awry. It is sensible, if not professional, to understand, as far as possible, the source and credibility of the tools and concepts that are supposed to make shareholders profit. Fame, enthusiasm, and faddish allegiance are simply not good enough foundations to create any concepts reliable enough to make good money for shareholders.