Branding Rant

Since Web 2.0 has gained massive momentum, it was only a matter of time that the American Marketing Association adopted a new definition for marketing. See what you think of the new definition:

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.

Here is the old 2004 definition by comparison:

Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.

I won’t rehash about what I wrote about the new definition on Small Business Branding, but I will say that the major focus of this definition over the old one is that it’s intention was to broaden the scope of marketing to more groups. This telegraphs the opportunities currently available to marketers and for that reason, I think it’s important to understand the new definition. Despite being a bit late, I think it’s worth mentioning that one of the major themes for this definition was highlighted all the way back at Mplanet 2006, when this was cutting edge.

According to another article their last definition didn’t really catch on, but here’s to hoping this version will.

For more information on the new definition as well as others which pop up, visit the Marketing Power blog here.