Why marketing is broken

I recently came across a blog post by Skyline Tradeshow Tips that highlighted how 10 experts define Marketing. Definitions on the meaning of marketing that were included are below:

1. “Marketing is the process by which companies create customer interest in products or services. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business development. It is an integrated process through which companies build strong customer relationships and create value for their customers and for themselves.” — Wikipedia
2. “Marketing 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.” — American Marketing Association
3. “Marketing is everything.” — Regis McKenna
4. “Marketing is not only much broader than selling; it is not a specialized activity at all. It encompasses the entire business. It is the whole business seen from the point of view of the final result, that is, from the customer’s point of view. Concern and responsibility for marketing must therefore permeate all areas of the enterprise.” – Peter Drucker
5. “Marketing is the social process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others.” — Philip Kotler
6. “Marketing is the process whereby society, to supply its consumption needs, evolves distributive systems composed of participants, who, interacting under constraints – technical (economic) and ethical (social) – create the transactions or flows which resolve market separations and result in exchange and consumption.” – Bartles
7. “Marketing is any contact that your business has with anyone who isn’t a part of your business. Marketing is also the truth made fascinating. Marketing is the art of getting people to change their minds. Marketing is an opportunity for you to earn profits with your business, a chance to cooperate with other businesses in your community or your industry and a process of building lasting relationships.” — Jay Conrad Levinson
8. “Marketing is getting someone who has a need to know, like and trust you.” — Jon Jantsch (of Duct Tape Marketing fame)
9. Marketing is “The management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.” — The Chartered Institute of Marketing
10. “Marketing is the process of anticipating, managing, and satisfying the demand for products, services, and ideas.” — Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

This post really got me thinking. The biggest problem with the experts’ definitionas were their obvious disparity. And for this reason, I want to express my concern that Marketing is Broken. As this list demonstrates, it has become an overly-complex and ill-understood practice. If we, as marketers, can’t come to a consensus about what our business is, how can we possibly expect those who don’t practice marketing to understand it…let alone pay for it?

I would like to challenge everyone who is a practitioner of marketing to toss out the hogwash industry speak and self-sustaining descriptions and get real about what marketing really is:

• Marketing is about selling something. Any definitions that skirt around that are missing the mark.
• Marketing is not about tools. Any definitions that lack an essence of strategy are incomplete.
• Marketing is about communicating value. The only way someone buys is if they feel there is an exchange of value for money spent. Many marketers miss this fundamental point.
• Marketing is (ethically) persuasive. Let’s be honest, our job is to influence and persuade our customers.

In my opinion, Seth Godin said it best:

Marketing is the art of telling a story to a consumer that they want to hear that lets them persuade themselves that they want to buy something.

What do you think?