Visionary and roguish in approach, "The End of Marketing As We know It" captures a seismic shift in marketing from the master of the trade. "A wizard of marketing discloses his magic. No matter what your industry, you will benefit greatly from Sergio Zyman's out-of-the-box thinking and contemporary concepts".--Charles R. Schwab.

Sergio Zyman speaks to audiences around the world and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and Fortune. He lives in Athens, GA

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction to the Paperback

xi

Preface

xv

PART 1: MARKETING IS NO MYSTERY

Introduction: Smashing the Black Box

3

(8)

Why Have Marketing? To Make Money

11

(18)

Without Strategies, You Aren't Going Anywhere

29

(14)

Marketing Is Science

43

(24)

PART 2: HOW TO SELL THE MOST STUFF AND MAKE THE MOST MONEY

Positioning Is a Two-Way Street

67

(28)

What Do Bill Clinton, Princess Di, and Ramadan Have to Do with Selling Stuff?

95

(22)

What Jerry Seinfeld Can Teach You About Marketing

117

(18)

Fish Where the Fish Are

135

(22)

Don't Stop Thinking about Tomorrow

157

(20)

PART 3: WITH WHOSE ARMY?

Don't Count People---Count Results

177

(28)

I Like Ad Agencies---And Some of Them Even Like Me

205

(32)

Conclusion: Traditional Marketing is Not Dying---It's Dead

229

(8)

Index

237

(10)

About the Author

247

What is included with this book?

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The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

Why Have Marketing?

To Make Money

The sole purpose of marketing is to get more people to buy more of your product, more often, for more money. That's the only reason to spend a single nickel, pfennig, or peso. If your marketing is not delivering consumers to the cash register with their wallets in their hands to buy your product, don't do it.

A lot of marketers laugh when I say that. "Who are you kidding?" they ask. "Marketing isn't meant to sell. That's what sales is for."

Maybe in the old days, marketers could get away with simply bonding with their customers. You know the drill-shoot a commercial, add some soft music, and blow your budget on expensive airtime just to create an image in the consumer's mind. But today that isn't enough. Yes, you need to advertise and create images that you hope customers will like and remember in the store or at the register, but the only reason to spend money on them is if they help you sell more stuff.

A lot of people just don't get it. They are always going into rhapsodies about how a new distribution system, more efficient manufacturing, or an expanded sales force are really going to help the business grow or boost profits. But those aren't the things that produce growth and profits. You don't make any money until you sell the stuff, and you can't sell the stuff until you've gotten people to want it. And that's what marketing does.

Focus on Results, Not Activities

First of all, you have to understand what marketing is. Marketing is not advertising. Marketing isn't shooting commercials in Bali, or having a corner office with two potted palms and an ad agency bowing and scraping at your every whim. Those things may have passed for marketing yesterday. Many people still believe that that is marketing today. These folks may have fooled themselves and their bosses into thinking that spending a lot of money on creative advertising and running it on every television channel and in every newspaper and magazine in the world is marketing. But it's not.

Marketing is not even a combination of advertising and a whole bunch of other stuff added in, such as packaging, and promotions, and market research, and new-product development. Marketers do all those things. Those are marketing tools. But the tools are not marketing. Marketing is using the tools; marketing is deciding what to do and then using the right tools in the best way to get it done.

It's as if you have a hammer, a saw, a box of nails, and some lumber. You still need the carpenter to come in with the thinking and the skills to build you a table, and you need to decide if what you want to build is a table, or a chair. Marketing is a strategic activity and a discipline focused on the endgame of getting more consumers to buy your product more often so that your company makes more money. It is not just a collection of tasks that somebody has got to get done.

It is important to recognize this, because once you understand that the strategy is a key element in what you are supposed to be doing, it is going to change how you go about performing the tasks. When you think that your job is just about doing the tasks, then that is all you are going to do. If you are only task oriented, you'll think, "I've got to run five promotions, do six series of focus groups, and develop two ad campaigns this year" and you'll think you're doing your job-when you have really only done a few tasks.

The job of marketing is to sell lots of stuff and to make lots of money. It is to get more people to buy more of your products, more often, at higher prices. You're going to continue to hear that little mantra a lot in this book not because my editor was asleep at the wheel but because, as simple as it sounds, it seems hard for some people to get it into their heads. But that's what it's all about, what it has always been about, and what it will always be about. In fact, although some marketers will tell you it's impossible, the real job of a marketer is to sell everything that a company can profitably make, to be the ultimate stewards of return on investment and assets employed.

Sure, it's possible to sell more stuff if you think your job is just to run promotions. But, when you understand that the goal is selling and not just running the promotions, you end up selling a lot more stuff and making a lot more money because you do a lot more things, and are smarter about how you do them.

Understand That Marketing Is an Investment

When I first returned to The Coca-Cola Company in 1993 and developed the first round of television advertising, as a matter of protocol, I took it into Roberto Goizueta's office and played it for him.

"I don't like those ads," he said.

"Look, Roberto," I replied. "If you're willing to buy a hundred percent of the volume out there worldwide, then I'm happy to do advertising that you like. Otherwise, I've got to keep doing it for those damn consumers."

Of course, he got the point immediately. Moreover, from that point on, he told me, "Just show me the results, not the ads."

It's all about results. Just as Roberto wasn't the target audience of the ads I was showing him, seldom are you the target audience for yours. The marketer who insists that marketing is an art and says things like "you don't understand, I am the genius, I and only I (and my advertising agency, of course) understand my art. And, by the way, you can't measure it either" is done for. Marketing has to be tested and measured just like any other investment.

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Excerpted from The End of Marketing as We Know It by Sergio Zyman Copyright © 2003 by Sergio Zyman
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.