Pretty much everything a company does is Marketing. Yet very little of it is "handled" by the Marketing department. Most of it is considered an expense, not an investment. Most boards don't have a Marketer on them. It's all very bizarre. Every company has ONE business purpose: to create a customer. The one department tasked with understanding customers is one of the least respected and under resourced. And I'm still baffled why we now have more and more data on customers, but this greater understanding of them is only used at the end of the manufacturing process to target ads and design propositions. Rarely ( and decreasingly ) in the middle of the process with ranging or merchandising, and rarely and decreasingly in the start of product formulation/product design. …see more