Know-How Exchange : Customer Behavior

Even if "Marketing" needs to reform, there is no CEO of "Marketing" so there isn't much we can do about it. The marketplace will determine who needs to reform and who doesn't. Kind of Darwinian, isn't it?

I would argue that professional marketers do a pretty good job of representing the customer's point of view. In fact, if they don't do a good job of it, their products or services generally don't last very long or make very much money ... and the marketers are out of a job.

The really top companies (think P&G, Kraft, PepsiCo, etc., for example) do so much resesearch to learn what customers want, need, value, believe, like, and dislike, that they're probably overkilling the customer-centric view. I don't think you can fault them for failing to "adequately represent the customer's point of view." If there's a problem, it's with the flakes at other, smaller companies who don't really understand what marketing is all about.

If there's a reform needed, it could be at business schools, where the preoccupation with eMarketing may be eclipsing marketing basics -- including the importance of understanding the customers first.