Two Roles of Marketing: Empowered Communicator and Demand Generator  

Like many complex subjects, it is difficult to find a consensus definition of marketing. For the purposes of this article, I define marketing as: any activity involved in the facilitation of the sale of a good or service, excluding (but constantly feeding information back into) the actual production of the good or the performance of the service itself.

As a field, marketing has become increasingly sophisticated and powerful in recent decades. Indeed, it has become not only an art but a mathematically-based, research-driven social science funded by billions of corporate, governmental, and nonprofit dollars each year.

Marketing seems to have two faces in the eyes of the public-at-large. Some view it as a manipulative practice designed to lure people into buying things they do not need and contributing to environmental decline by encouraging consumerism. The advent of junk mail, disruptive telemarketing practices, spam, and online pop-up browser windows indeed contribute to an unfavorable image of marketing in the eyes of the public-at-large.

At the same time, almost all organizations and consumers alike unmistakably benefit from the practice of marketing each day. Marketing can act as a conduit between companies and other organizations offering some sort of value and those consumers who stand to benefit from consuming that value.

This article explores two roles of marketing in terms of its effects on consumers and the environment.

Marketing as Empowered Communicator:

In the cases whereby there is actually value to be realized by a would-be buyer through the act of consuming a particular product or service, the argument can be made that marketing is an empowered communicator of this value. I use the adjective empowered because the voice of promotion today is far louder, more sophisticated, and subtle than the voice of any single person or company. In the cases whereby marketing serves as a helpful assistant that bridges the knowledge gap between seller and consumer, then marketing is fulfilling its role as an empowered communicator.

Marketing as Demand Generator:

Marketing can also play a different type of role: it can actually help create the need for a product or service in the mind of a would-be consumer. When promotional activities serve to create a need for value that was previously not perceived by the consumer, we can view marketing as a demand generator. In other words: the buyer sometimes has no need for a product or service until becoming the target of a marketing campaign.

Is this latter role of marketing ethical? We need to ask ourselves: do we really need many of the plastic, paper, wooden, and metal products in our homes and yards today? Do we really need all of the services available to us at our local strip mall or shopping center? This is a question for the modern age, and it is difficult to single out any one product or service and state that is universally without any inherent value to a would-be buyer. On the other hand, given our planet's looming environmental problems, on the aggregate we could likely say with confidence "No, we do not really need all of this STUFF!" In this sense, the demand generator role of marketing seems to have merit.

Which is Role is Correct?

I believe that both roles of marketing are valid. Marketing can perform a needed role in educating people about goods and services that may be of value to them. On the other hand, the marketing machines of the world have become so finely-tuned that consumers may at times buy goods or services that may not really want or need. To mitigate the effects of the demand generator role of marketing, we as consumers and marketers need to consider each transaction in terms its potential impact on ourselves and the environment.

About the Author

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