Friday, October 9, 2009

Where this is headed...

Took a couple of days off - getting ready for a business trip. I did run across an article and a google reference to a couple of books on "Critical Marketing". Got my blood boiling!

Here is how I see the problem - and please someone correct me if I am wrong or have over looked something.

At the core of Adam Smiths "theory" was the idea of the "invisible hand" and I think this is a critical element of what defines marketing.

Said another way, it is NOT marketing when we introduce something other than free choice to the transaction.

The rationale for saying this is pretty straight forward. If we accept the idea that as marketers we must always be concerned with our impact on society then we must logically take responsibility for the bad outcomes that often come from exchange transactions.

That means that we ARE responsible for lung cancer, obesity, global warming, the financial meltdown and virtually every other problem that we face today [yes I can make the case for marketing causing 9/11 - but won't do so now].

But I reject this broad definition of marketing - took me awhile to get there. My personal definition of marketing is that it involves not only the flow of goods - but the flow of responsibility and accountability from seller to buyer.

For my view to be valid we need to confine marketing to those exchange transaction that are freely made - the seller freely offers and the buyer freely accepts.

So that is where this blog is headed - a call to confine and redefine marketing to those transactions and transvections that are freely made at each and every stage.

That leads to the logical question of is this "ideal state" obtainable in today's world - I will try and deal with that in a post down the road.

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