Why the end of the world could be the salvation for marketing. And vice versa

The office Switchboard once connected me to a caller from a small business based in Reading. 'We're having rather a challenging time at the moment,' he said. 'We've got a new competitor who's developed a very similar product which he's somehow selling at a much lower price. So we had a board meeting this morning and decided we could probably do with some marketing.' He went on to wonder if we could provide him with some.

Before a meeting could be arranged, his firm was in the hands of the receivers.

Despite all the books, the conferences and the business schools, the word marketing continues to be seen as a slightly more socially acceptable synonym for selling; for getting rid of more stuff more often to more people. It's what you do right at the end of your business process, when you find that your warehouse, either actually or metaphorically, has become uncomfortably full. Study the way that many companies treat marketing and it's not hard to work out why.

New marketing directors are usually appointed when sales have proved disappointing. Here are some phrases from recent job ads: 'You will be responsible for building shareholder value by profitably growing the volume and value share of the brand ... for developing and delivering growth drivers ... for managing activation and commercialisation of all brand initiatives.' The language is unlovely but the meaning is clear: you'll be judged almost entirely on how much more stuff you manage to get rid of.

The skills that marketing people bring with them are all to do with distribution, pricing and promotion. These skills are equally applicable to mortgages, Maltesers and mobile phones – so marketing directors can flit quite easily from sector to sector; they're not expected to know much about, or even be particularly interested in, mortgages, Maltesers or mobile phones. Getting rid of more stuff is what it's all about.

None of this is new, of course – and to complain about it seems a bit pedantic. So what does it matter if marketing's just a posh word for flogging things: it doesn't seem to have done much harm. Up until now, that's probably been true. But it may not remain so for very much longer – because something is happening that's never happened before and it doesn't bode well for the wrong kind of marketing.

A SEA CHANGE

Up until now, except by the fastidious few, consumption has been universally seen as A Good Thing: comforting evidence of a strong economy, growing disposable incomes, liberated and discriminating consumers and successful government. Harold Macmillan may never have said, 'You've never had it so good' but that's what his and all successive governments have been anxious to imply – and take most of the credit for. Standards of living are calculated on the basis of consumption; there's general agreement that standards of living should continue to rise; so it's been widely accepted that increased consumption is A Good Thing. Up until now.

It's not the purpose of this piece to rehearse the facts and potential effects of climate change – but there's one change of climate that's already taking place: and that's the climate of opinion about consumption. In most of the more developed countries, most people now recognise that – if nothing is done – their planet's petrol tank will run dry. Nobody knows exactly when it will run dry but few now deny that it will.

As a result of all this, some people, perhaps even a sizable minority of people, will consciously modify their behaviour and consume less. Governments will certainly urge us all to consume less. Competitive commercial enterprises such as budget airlines, until recently seen as the consumer's friend, will be seen as threats to our survival. And activities that seem to encourage unnecessary or extravagant consumption will be held up for critical inspection. Legislation would seem more or less inevitable.

TURNING THE TIDE

When obesity in the young came to be seen as a serious national problem, one answer seemed obvious: curtail the promotion of undesirable food products to children.

When excessive consumption comes to be seen as the greatest threat to our survival since the end of the Cold War, an equivalent answer will seem just as obvious. Marketing – that conscience-free discipline that's heedlessly, recklessly, mindlessly dedicated to flogging more and more stuff to more and more people – will become an extremely convenient new villain. Marketing, as currently understood, may well be drinking in the Last Chance Saloon.

And that's why the real meaning of marketing, and the real function of marketing, urgently need to be rehabilitated: because we're all going to need more of it, not less.

Examine some of the classic and unchallenged definitions of marketing.

Kotler: 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.

Drucker: Marketing is much broader than selling, it isn't a specialised activity at all. It encompasses the entire business.

Adcock: The right product, in the right place, at the right time, at the right price. The Marketing Society: A management process that should be the focal point for a company's total activity.

In all these definitions, either implicitly or explicitly, the invention and manufacture of things invariably precedes the promotion of those things. True marketing inspires and encourages vision and inventiveness – spurred by the knowledge that, once invented, things can be quickly and efficiently brought to the attention of millions.

The most wanted things in the coming decades will be things that decrease our contribution to the imminent end of the world while allowing us to continue in the way of life to which we have become so agreeably accustomed. Most of the existing examples will seem pitifully inadequate in a few years' time – if indeed they don't already. But we shouldn't mock solar panels and wind turbines and low-energy light bulbs and hybrid engines and faltering experiments with bio-fuels. We need lots and lots more of them, and much, much better ones – and we need to encourage their adoption by more and more people. And that's what marketing – and uniquely marketing – should be seen to be able to do.

Long before the word was invented, it was marketing – true marketing – that led to the invention and widespread adoption of the horseless carriage. If we're to postpone the end of the world, we need marketing to invent and promote its successors. And maybe, just maybe, the imminent end of the world will in turn revive our understanding of what marketing really means.

This article featured in Market Leader, Autumn 2007.