Sometimes I get a little depressed by the misuse of the term ‘marketing’ – not just because I’m getting old and curmudgeonly, but because it flags up a basic misunderstanding of what I do for a living. Very often clients approach me saying they need some ‘marketing’, usually meaning the require some advertising or marcomms. Okay, I am not going to turn away business for the sake of terminology so I grit my teeth and get on with it. But in today’s Independent (03/03/2009) Yvonne Cook writes an article on ‘Social Marketing’ – by this she refers to such government or other social campaigns to try to stop us smoking and drinking and make sure we eat our five a day. There is now our first Professor of Social Marketing, Gerard Hastings, she informs us and an Institute for Social Marketing (ISM) run jointly by the OU and the University of Stirling. The Open University now runs courses on Social Marketing – and as an OU alumni myself I am reluctant to criticise them.  But it is the terminology that grates with me. There is some great work being done in the social arena, but for me it is not ‘marketing’ – it is ‘communications’.  Going back to my very first marketing text book and the hoary old 4 ‘P’s – Product, Price, Place and Promotion – there is no product, no price and no place – unless you really torture those definitions.  All there is is ‘Promotion’ or more accurately communication.  I am very impressed when I look at the activity in this field and there is some very sophisticated communication being done, using mainstream techniques learned in the commercial sector!

Anyway, rant over… I’m off to write a ‘marketing’ proposal for reducing teenage pregnancies!