Apparently, marketing is dead.

Last week we met with a brilliant young candidate who told us, with complete certainty, that marketing is dead.

When we asked her to define marketing, what she described was tactical, short term communications. The type of marketing that only resides within the marketing communications department. What we call, little m marketing.

And we agree, marketing with a little m is dead, or at least it should be. Yet, the reality is, little m marketing is still what is practiced by most businesses today.

The same candidate told us that the future is in insight, ideas and innovation. Creating strategies to change behaviour, transform business models and drive growth.

Now this, we told her, is Marketing.

Marketing, when spelled with a capital M, is much more than communications. It gives focus to the entire organisation, lives everywhere and drives decision making at every level and in every function.

Most of our clients contact us because their current marketing isn’t working. And what we typically find is lots of ad hoc activities that are not grounded in any clear strategy and that don’t actually do anything.

Often our starting point is to help our clients to stop doing things.

We help businesses make fundamental choices based on insight. We develop strategies and ideas to solve challenges and transform businesses, far beyond the Marketing department. And then we create communications to bring those strategies and ideas to life throughout the entire organisation.

What is clear is that Marketing hasn't done a very good job of representing itself recently.

Perhaps its time for a Marketing rebrand. No more little m marketing, only Big M.