2. MARKETING vs. ADVERTISING

Many people think that the mission of marketing in any organization is to promote and advertise the organization's products or services, which is a complete misconception. Marketing in any mature organization plays a significant role and has a holistic and overlapping dimensions across the entire organization's departments, from human resources to inventory and from finance to operations. Marketing is essentially caring about making what will be sold, not selling what was made.

The definition of marketing, according to the American Marketing Association (AMA), 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. By breaking down this definition, marketing creates and exchanges value (both functional and emotional) and meets needs profitably. The essence of marketing is the intersection point between business and psychology (study of mind and behavior).

According to this definition, the main tasks of marketing management are: 1) Understand the marketplace and customer needs and behaviors by using many tools like market research, as an example, 2) Developing marketing strategies and plans including segmentation and targeting the right market and customers, and positioning the products/services to occupy a place in the minds of the target customers, 3) Studying and implementing an integrated marketing program, part of which is called the "marketing mix" which includes product, price, place, and promotion (4Ps) strategies, 4) Managing customers relationship (CRM), 5) Building strong brand management to create, develop, maintain, and enhance a brand's reputation and image, and 6) Tracking and measuring performance to achieve the marketing objectives.

Advertising, which is incorrectly understood as marketing, is a part of the promotion strategy, as the promotion strategy includes advertising, public relations, sales promotion, direct marketing, personal selling, etc. The promotion is also a part (mainly the 4th item) of the marketing mix, alongside product, price, and place. The marketing mix is finally a part of the previous main six tasks of marketing management.

Therefore, advertising occupies a small portion of marketing management and is not the main role of marketers. On the contrary, mature organizations usually outsource most advertising works to external professional agencies. Their own marketers typically contribute in providing only a "Marketing Brief" to these agencies, not creating the advertising content themselves.

Article by Amr H. Abayazeed - April 25, 2024.

1. IS MANAGEMENT SCIENCE OR ART?!

There are many definitions of management, as it has evolved over time from the early management approach (1700s), passing through classical management approach (1800s), behavioral management approach (1930s), and modern management approach (1950s). Across this evolution, and by studying various definitions of management, the most insightful and smart definition, in my point of view, is "Utilizing Resources" to achieve the organizational goals effectively.

By breaking down that definition, the first part, "Utilizing," means applying the management processes like planning, organizing, leading, directing, and controlling, by using management tools like scheduling, communicating, reporting, performance review, feedback, KPIs, etc. to manage resources in the right way.

The second part, "Resources," can be classified into physical, human, financial, information, energy, time, etc., and actually to deal with any of those types of resources, knowledge and science that are relevant to each resource have to be acquired, like operations, psychology, sociology, finance, accounting, economics, marketing, information and communications technology (ICT), project management, etc.

By the way, leadership is indeed an important tool and crucial aspect of effective management, as leadership is the ability to inspire, motivate, and guide others towards achieving common goals, and it involves qualities such as vision, empathy, communication, and the ability to make accurate and correct decisions. While leadership traits may have an artistic elements, they can also be taught, not just considered solely a talent.

Based on all the previous, management depends heavily on science, processes, and tools to apply the definition successfully. It is mainly "Science" not "Art," and if considered as art, it would not be management at all; it would be something else, something we call it "فهلوة" in Egypt.

Article by Amr H. Abayazeed - April 19, 2024.