>Marketing is the science of bringing a product to market, and later on, navigating the markets the company operates in.
No. See Wikipedia:
Marketing is the methodology of communicating the value of a product or service to customers, for the purpose of selling that product or service.
Marketing is about communicating the value of the product. Regardless of the actual quality of the product. Building a great product is not marketing.
Not according to the American Marketing Association. Their definition - which is used as the textbook definition of marketing - goes like this:
"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."
Marketing is _not_ simply about communicating the value of products. Advertising something that doesn't help a customer create or experience value is not marketing.
I think you'd find this article and the comments interesting:
Oh my god! It's the same article and the same comments, just different words are used. Being Seth Goddin surely helps in getting the point across though...
Marketing and lying about a crappy product does the company no good. People will either pick up on it right away, or leave soon after using/buying it.
Good marketing teams will evaluate your product VS the competition and use the good parts for communicating the message. Amazing teams will also take the bad parts and bring them up to the product teams so they can confirm weak parts and put them in the queue to get looked at.
Well, I spoke too quickly about the wikipedia article then. It must have changed, or I've read another page. The page which says that is wrong. Communicating product value is only part of the marketing mix.
Building a great product is most definitely part of marketing. For example there are methods and techniques which faciiliate it and are subject of marketing journals and marketing academia. One of these methods is the "segmentation-targeting-positioning" framework.
I can get you many more citations if you wish, or you can spare me the time, and search for them yourself. Perhaps you will learn something of value in the process.
'Segmentation-targeting-positioning' doesn't support your assertion and you're conflating marketing and product development.
This thinking can occur because often entrants to a competitive marketplace will assess their competition, identify a weakness and deploy a product to meet the need. The development of the product in this scenario is not 'marketing' as you assert.
Product development is dictated by marketing strategy.
How would you build your product if you don't know what the market conditions are? How do you find out what the market conditions are? By segmenting the market by behaviour/need/price sensitivity, then targeting a segment which is underserved (or you can serve better), and finally positioning your product to cater to that particular segment with specific product design, messages and distribution channels.
Marketing doesn't develop the product. It just designs it (writes the specs).
Maybe in start-ups or 1-product companies. Even then, this is not a good practice. Your customers will make a choice between you and competitors/substitutes. The product team does not know or understand this process. They don't do choice modeling, they write code.
No. See Wikipedia: Marketing is the methodology of communicating the value of a product or service to customers, for the purpose of selling that product or service.
Marketing is about communicating the value of the product. Regardless of the actual quality of the product. Building a great product is not marketing.