Talk:Marketing/Archive 2

Good job... some great definitions here... but...
... I spend my life disabusing people of the notion that marketing is advertising or selling. The opening line on this definition helps no one.

The definition of marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing in the UK is far more accurate:

The Chartered Institute of Marketing offers the following definition for marketing: “Marketing is the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.”

Advertising and selling are subsets of, and some activities which marketers get involved with to achieve the overall goal set out in the definition above. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.149.223.82 (talk) 17:20, 17 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I second this. Furthermore, the first line of the article does not match the rest of the article. The rest of the article is more in line with the Chartered Institute of Marketing definition. I like the CIM definition itself as the first article of this topic. Or maybe a friendlier version of the same:


 * Marketing is the process by which organizations identify, anticipate and satisfy customer needs.


 * - 116.75.167.249 (talk) 12:25, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Marketing in this Wikipedia page mainly mentioned the general information about marketing. It does not give us detailed example of how each selling/marketing orientation are used in the examples indicated. Although the information is welled-organized, there needs to be more data, picture, something that will increase the audience understanding. One great article from the New York Times calls: "Airlines use Wireless Network" provide us better information about marketing with an example that is related and enhances our understanding of marketing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2606:6000:618B:FA00:B5CC:C091:5574:87D1 (talk) 06:31, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Marketing.
Marketing in this Wikipedia page mainly mentioned the general information about marketing. It does not give us detailed example of how each selling/marketing orientation are used in the examples indicated. Although the information is welled-organized, there needs to be more data, picture, something that will increase the audience understanding. One great article from the New York Times calls: "Airlines use Wireless Network" provide us better information about marketing with an example that is related and enhances our understanding of marketing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2606:6000:618B:FA00:B5CC:C091:5574:87D1 (talk) 06:33, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

"Remarketing" redirect to nothing
This page is redirected from "Remarketing" redirect page.

But it makes no sense as the term "Remarketing" is not defined (and even does not occur) in our article. This is wrong. Redirect for a redirect without a definition is an error.

Also, using the case, I ask a question: Is "remarketing" the same as "retention marketing"?

We should also define "retention marketing". — Preceding unsigned comment added by VictorPorton (talk • contribs) 15:09, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

3 ways to focus on consumer demands is incomplete
Under "Customer Orientation" it says

"This implies that the company focuses its activities and products on consumer demands. Generally, there are three ways of doing this: the customer-driven approach, the market change identification approach and the product innovation approach."

It does a nice job talking about the customer-driven approach but does not talk about (or even mention anywhere else in the article) market change identification approach or product innovation approach.

If you google for "market change identification" the majority (all?) of the hits are this exact sentence copied from Wikipedia to other web pages/documents. Clearly this does not appear to be a common term or description and both market change identification approach and product innovation approach need to either be clarified or removed (in my opinion) since it leaves the reader believing they only know 1 of the 3 ways generally used with no way to find information on the other 2. 172.111.255.10 (talk) 01:59, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

The 4 Ps or the 7 Ps?
The 7 Ps are more likely to be associated with Services Marketing rather than general marketing. I cannot endorse any plans to add more Ps to this page. By the way, Kotler may have done a lot to popularise the 7 Ps, but it would not be correct to call them "Kotler's famous 7Ps"

BronHiggs (talk) 07:19, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Types of Marketing
There is a long section with links to other wikipages containing information on different types of marketing. This section is clearly headed 'Types of Marketing" But many of the items are not really types of marketing, but rather narrow marketing activities, metrics or definitions of concepts e.g.
 * share of voice is a metric, not a type of marketing
 * seeding trial is an action, not a type of marketing
 * chaotics is a concept, not a type of marketing
 * brand language is a form of vocal or written expression, not a type of marketing
 * experience curve effects, a phenomenon, not a type of marketing
 * figure of merit - no idea what it is but it doesn't sound like a type of marketing
 * pitch book - not a type of marketing
 * Product bundling - a strategy - not a type of marketing
 * scenario planning - an analytical technique - not a type of marketing
 * special edition - sounds like a publishing term, but not a type of marketing
 * secret brand - a type of brand, not a type of marketing
 * Z-card -an object, not a type of marketing
 * digital omnivore- not a type of marketing - no idea what it is (and that's with more than 40 years as a practicing marketer and educator)
 * etc, etc, etc. - too many to itemise separately

Wiki has a dictionary - and a lot of these terms could be relocated to that. They are just cluttering up the page, and are potentially misleading to readers. It has the potential to mislead non-expert readers who are seeking to obtain a basic understanding of marketing and its various branches.

I don't think that this section should be allowed to become a dumping ground for whatever. So it seems there are two choices:

″(a)″ Change the heading to read " Topics in Marketing" (The downside of this option is that the list of links could become infinitely long.)

″(b)″ Alternatively, retain the heading, but delete all links that do not reflect types of marketing

What do people prefer??? BronHiggs (talk) 07:11, 19 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Yes it's messy. There's a third option that I think I like better, but it may not be practical: find a reliable source discussing what is and is not a type of marketing and use that. Otherwise it's just going to be more WP:OR, which already plagues the article to an extreme. This is basically a MOS:SEEALSO which is in the middle of the article for some reason (actually, I'm going to move it now). These lists tend to be a bit subjective, and also tend to get bloated if not closely watched. If you want to remove the most obviously inapplicable entries, I would support that, even if without sources it's a Sisyphean task. Grayfell (talk) 08:37, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Issues in Marketing Article
There are many, many problems with the current Marketing article. I am adding my thoughts on this. The problems with the existing page are so numerous, that I have tried to tackle this in a step-by-step manner. This discussion is necessarily detailed, but a number of recommendations are made at the end of the article. Editors who are not interested in the lengthy arguments can skip straight to the recommendations.

1. Lead section: Is not an accurate summary of the article. According to WP guidelines, the lead should be approx 4 paragraphs and should summarise the main themes contained in the article. This lead section introduces themes/concepts that are not discussed anywhere else in the article - namely non-profit organisations, the societal viewpoint (or orientation?), consumer behavior and market analysis. In my view, the lead needs to be a lot more focussed and requires clear links to the content of the main article.

2. History of Marketing: This section appears to be in two parts - the so-called orientations followed by the so-called "contemporary approaches." There are so many problems with this section, that it is difficult to know where to begin. The suite of problems are complicated so, I will do my best to set them out one by one. (Please do not shoot the messenger! I did not create these problems, I am simply drawing attention to them)

First, the introductory sentence informs us that theorists identify a number of distinct stages, but then the table (which is untitled) that follows specifically uses the term orientation in the column heading. So this inconsistent use of terminology raises an important question, 'Are stages the same as orientations?" The answer, of course, depends on where you look. But for the main part, serious marketers do not conflate these terms. Instead, they make an important distinction in eras or stages and orientations or philosophies. The eminent theorist, Phillip Kotler, for example, never refers to stages but always refers to either "philosophies" (as in his Millenium edition, US, 2000) or "concepts" (as in his Australian edition). It is not necessary, however, to consult each of these works, because several review essays have pointed to the use of terms such as "orientations", "concepts" and "philosophies" to describe the phenomena that appear in the table, which includes a reliable reference to at least one of these review essays. Now, my understanding is that an orientation or philosophy refer to a mindset that shapes a given way of organising the business operations, and therefore is a way of thinking about marketing practice (but not necessarily marketing theory).

Second, there is no consensus within the literature about what philosophies or mindsets actually constitute the "orientations." The following table (Table 1- Marketing Philosophies), from a reliable secondary source, highlights the variety of perspectives identified within the literature. As the table suggests, some authors collapse the production orientation and the product orientation; most refer to the selling orientation and the marketing orientation (as per the table); some refer to the societal marketing orientation (which incidentally does not appear in the table in the Wikipedia article); some include other orientations such as the financial orientation and the erratic orientation which are not mentioned in the Wikipedia tables. Few sources refer to the holistic marketing which is included in the Wikipedia table as a distinct 'era' So, it would appear that the orientations specified in the table consist of a highly eclectic combination of orientations and do not align with any of the major texts in the area, and for which the sources are obscure.

Table 1: Marketing Philosophies

Source: Dainora Grundey, "The Marketing Philosophy and Challenges for the New Millennium", Scientific Bulletin – Economic Sciences: Marketing, Commerce and Tourism, Vol. 9, no. 15, 2010, p. 170

Third, do the so-called 'orientations' coincide with specific, defined time periods as the first table suggests? The short answer is 'No, they do not'. The consensus view appears to be that while each orientation may have dominated at different socio-economic periods, but each of the orientations continues into the present day. Specifically Kotler et al (2000) note that the production philosophy is "one of the oldest philosophies that guides sellers... [and] is still useful in some situations." (p.28). Of the selling philosophy, Kotler et al note that it "is typically practised with unsought goods" (p. 29). In short, these eras may have experienced their hay-day, but there is no clear cut end date. For this reason, few authors cite the orientations along with dates. I do not wish to make too much of this because, certainly it is possible to locate texts that combine time periods with orientations in the same way that has been done in the table. However it is rare and the few books that present the orientations with dates tend to be low-level, self-published or quick-to-print books that have not undergone any kind of peer reviewing process.

Fourth, the first table in the history of marketing section appears to comprised of wholesale cut and past from a set of study notes available for sale on the website, CourseHero.com (see https://www.coursehero.com/file/p4e531ui/Holistic-Marketing-5-Everything-matters-in-marketing-21st-century-The-holistic/). (In turn, these notes appear to be a compiled from two different sources, namely a self-published textbook by Poley and Poley (for rows 1-4) and a book by Kotler and Keller, 2006 -for row 5 - the holistic era). It should be noted that Kotler, P. and Keller, K.L., advanced the holistic marketing concept in 2006 - but did not include it in their 2008 publication or in subsequent works. (See: Kevin Lane Keller and Philip Kotler, “Holistic Marketing: A Broad, Integrated Perspective to Marketing Management,” in Does Marketing Need Reform?, Jagdish Sheth and Raj Sisodia (eds), 2006, pp 300-305). Meanwhile, academics continue to debate whether 'holistic marketing' is in fact a new orientation, or whether it is a natural extension of the marketing concept. Based on all this information, we can be fairly certain that the source of the table is the study notes because (a) the prose is identical to the notes (b) only the table and the study notes use such an unusual combination of orientations (c) very few works combine time periods with the orientations and (d) only the study notes and the table employ the highly unusual column heading 'Western European timeframe.'

Fifth, the two tables, when read together, are very confusing. Both are untitled, but the second table appears to refer to 'contemporary' approaches, so I take that to mean that the first table refers to 'Traditional' approaches (or historic approaches or some other relevant label), yet these two tables cover more or less the same time period, while identifying entirely different orientations or eras. The second table includes 'branding' as an era or orientation - a curious addition that I have never seen in any serious text or article. The sources used to compile this table are unknown. Surely these two tables need to reconciled with the information contained in the first table and with the discussion provided in the article?

Sixth, most theorists distinguish between the history of marketing practice and the history of marketing thought. While there is considerable overlap from time to time - with theory informing practice and vice versa, the two histories developed along different lines, with only sporadic intersections. Theorists have different views about the eras that make up the history of marketing thought. Shelby D Hunt, for example, has identified four stages or eras:

1. The Commodity Approach - e.g. agricultural marketing, industrial marketing, product marketing

2. The Institutional Approach - considered the activities of marketing

3. The Functional Approach - essentially a descriptive approach that considered ways that marketing functions were performed e.g. the role of distributors in performing marketing functions (Key writers: Clark, Converse, Maynard, Weider and Bechham)

4. The Managerial Approach (from 1960) - concerned with the problems and decisions faced by marketers (Key writers: McCarthy, Kotler)

Source: Shelby D. Hunt and Jerry Goolsby, "The Rise and Fall of the Functional Approach to Marketing: A Paradigm Displacement Perspective," originally published in 1988 and reprinted in:  Review of Marketing Research: Special Issue - Marketing Legends, Vol. 1, Naresh K. Malhotra,(ed), Bingley, UK, Emerald, 2011 [partially accessible via Google Books]

Within the literature, it is possible to identify other eras that help to understand how the study of marketing evolved (see for instance the work of R Bartels). But to date, I have not seen a compilation of different perspectives such as that provided by Grundey in the preceding section (and heaven forbid that I should put up a compilation and be accused of 'original research', so I will leave it to others to locate different contributions, if needed.)

On the Wikipedia article, neither the table, nor the discussion that surrounds them pay any attention to the eras that make up the history of marketing thought. This is a major omission.

3. Section 4 - Customer orientation vs Organisation Orientation This section is very confused. By customer orientation, do we mean to say that here is yet another orientation that was not mentioned in either of the two tables in Section 2, but now needs a dedicated section all for itself? And, what about the organisational orientation, surely all the orientations cited in the Tables 1 and 2 (untitled) refer to organisational orientations? Perhaps these are not really orientations, but something else? Perhaps the customer orientation is a new theme, but if so, surely it needs to be integrated into the tables that appear in a previous section on the page? To add yet another layer to the confusion, yet another sub-heading 'further orientations' adds to the mystery because it appears to be describing marketing tactics rather than orientations or philosophies. It is very difficult to follow any thread of logic through these three sections. If I was a student of marketing, I would be totally bamboozled by reading this page.

4.  The Marketing Mix /Four Ps (aka the marketing program) A entire section is devoted to the marketing mix (aka the 4 Ps or the marketing program. Despite the centrality of the concept in marketing management, this topic is very perfunctory. The entire topic is  covered in just 202 words, of which 50 are dedicated to the history of the concept (which incidentally contains errors of fact), leaving just 152 words to cover this foundation concept.  That is less than 40 words per P! (note that the coverage of the marketing mix is given more attention in a subsequent section (Consumer Orientation), where fifth "P" (positioning) is introduced. I have heard of the 7 Ps which include process, people and physical evidence, but I have never heard of positioning as a P, except as an 'in-joke' among marketers.)

5. Section 4.2.1. Herd Behavior The sub-section devoted to 'herd behavior' describes a customer response, yet sits under the heading "organisational orientations". This topic, with 200 words, is given greater attention that the marketing mix (approx 150 words). Go figure? I have not seen a discussion of herd behaviour in any standard marketing text, so it is questionable as to whether it belongs on a general page introducing the broad discipline. Arguably this section needs to be relocated to the page on 'Consumer Behaviour' or given its own page.

6. Lack of Focus

Section 4.0 Consumer Orientation reads lacks focus on the heading theme. This section includes a discussion on customer focus (fair enough) but then digresses to include a discussion of the 4 Ps, positioning, SIVA model (an alternative to the 4 Ps) and Christensen's work on disruptive technologies. This section needs a much stronger focus. I would argue that all the stuff on the 4 Ps and alternatives should be relocated to the marketing mix heading, leaving this topic free to pursue customer focus. I would not use the term, customer orientation, because this term is used in a technical sense elsewhere in the article to refer to a particular 'school of thought' which emphasised a customer orientation.

7. Structural Issues

Disruptive technologies: Christensen's important contributions concerning the types of new technologies and how to manage their progress is currently subsumed under the heading "Customer Orientation" which does not appear to be a good fit. Perhaps the discussion of disruptive technologies requires its own sub-heading? Alternatively, it could be integrated with the current section on 'Use of Technologies'.

The fifth P: currently sits under the heading, "Customer Orienatations". Surely this would be a better fit with the discussion of the 'Marketing Mix'?

RTB and rising online marketing culture: (which is entirely unsourced, and difficult to follow) could be integrated with 'Use of technologies' or 'Digital marketing'

Overall: The page lacks any logical structure that moves readers through the key issues and decisions confronting marketers i.e. there is no flow. It reads like a grab-bag of topics that appear in random sequence, with little regard to whether section headings match up with the content that follows or whether the given content has already received coverage within the article. Much more could be done to organise the material within a strong, conceptual framework.

8. Factually incorrect statements/ Internal contradictions  Habits, lifestyle, and diet are all considered to be controllable risk factors. [direct quote from article, unsourced] Seriously? Marketers can control people's diet and lifestyle? Since when? Elsewhere on the same page, lifestyle is classified as an uncontrollable variable (which appears to entirely contradict the previous section).

9. Major omissions

The page does not appear to give any attention to major branches of marketing - e.g. industrial (or B2B marketing); not-for-profit marketing; hospitality and tourism marketing etc., and only gives a passing mention to such things as services marketing

10. Sources/ References/ Citations Many sections on this page lack sources of any type. I have noticed a few tags on the page. But, no amount of referencing will redeem content that is as flawed as that which currently occupies the page. It is not the referencing, but the content itself that needs to be challenged.

Where to from here?


 * Structure:

This article is desperately in need of a strong organisational structure or framework, i.e. headings and sub-headings setting out the core topics to be covered in a logical, coherent sequence. As a start, I would suggest starting out with the big picture stuff e.g. marketing strategy and moving to the smaller picture stuff e.g. marketing management. Marketing strategy could include such sub-topics as aim and purpose, tools, techniques etc. Brief sections could be devoted to different types of marketing e.g. B2B, B2C, services and the challenges associated with not for profit marketing (i.e. low budgets)etc and that could be followed up with BRIEF mention of the tools used e.g. research, segmentation, etc. The overall structure of the article should be designed to assist new editors make decisions about where to place new content, as well as serving to lead users through a logical sequence of topics that provide a broad outline of marketing and its functions, but without necessarily including lengthy discussion of minor issues that are adequately covered on other pages.


 * Expand: The section on the 4 Ps needs greater emphasis given that it is the foundation concept


 * Reconcile: The very messy section orientations, currently buried in no less than 5 different sections (1. History of marketing; 1.1. Contemporary Orientations; 4. Customer orientations; 4.2 Organisational orientations and 4.2.2 Further orientations needs reconceptualisation within a strong conceptual framework. Ideally this would be carried out by someone with expertise in the area. (Yet, more tables are definitely not warranted). As mentioned in the previous comments, the issue of whether lifestyle etc is a controllable or uncontrollable variable also needs to be reconciled.


 * Collapse and Integrate


 * History/ orientations - As mentioned the discussion of 'marketing orientations' is now spread across 5 sections, (1. History of marketing; 1.1. Contemporary Orientations; 4.0 Customer orientations; 4.2 Organisational orientations and 4.2.2 Further orientations) and is very, very confused. This content all needs collapsed together so that it is within a single section. When that has been done, decisions need to be made about what elements are true orientations, and what elements describe something else. It looks to me as if some of this content describes the history of marketing practice, while other parts describe the history of marketing thought (that is how marketing has been studied or taught).


 * The marketing mix - as mentioned, the discussion of the marketing mix is currently spread across two sections, 2.0 the marketing mix and 4.0 Customer orientations. This needs to be collapsed into a single section and the discussion needs to be integrated into a coherent whole.


 * Digital marketing - yet another topic with bits and pieces spread across the entire article that could feasibly be collapsed into a more sustained discussion of what the concept means and how marketing practices have responded to both the challenge and opportunity presented by electronic communications, not just in terms of communications, but also in terms of research, segmentation and sales. Let's try to remember that digital comms are a two-way street - they are not just a funky means of sending promotional messages, but instead provide consumers with opportunities to communicate with brands in real time. They therefore provide marketers with information and data that can be used to fine tune the marketing program. This type of emphasis is currently lacking in the article and arguably it should be the main focus of any discussion about digital.


 * Relocate: Content such as 'herd behavior' could be moved to other more relevant articles on Wikipedia


 * Rewrite Lead: The lead section needs to be aligned with the articles contents.


 *  Reconsider : Topics such as "guerilla marketing" and "digital marketing" appear to describe promotional practices/marketing communications rather than broad marketing practices. Questions need to be asked about whether this type of content, regardless of how interesting it is, needs to be on a general page about the essence of modern marketing.


 * Copy edit: Go through entire article and remove internal inconsistencies, unnecessary repetitions, delete trivial issues and tidy up expression, etc


 * Add sources: A great deal of material in this article is unsourced. If the content is sound, can editors please consider adding references to this content.


 * Links: to other Wikipedia pages such as Consumer Behaviour, Marketing Research etc need to be integrated within the article at relevant junctures. Instead of repeating content found on other pages, short introductory paragraphs could be developed for the major marketing functions (e.g. research, segmentation and targeting, planning etc) that serve as a launching pad to direct the reader to expanded articles on individual themes.


 * Images: The inclusion a few images would be a 'nice-to-have' although not necessarily a 'need to have'. If anyone is willing to search Wiki Commons, you'd be surprised how many marketing-related images are there. Try searching for terms like, 4Ps, target market, market segmentation, selling, purchasing, markets, buying etc and you will surely turn up something (or look on other marketing pages to see what images are used there for some ideas). Add the image to a relevant section of the page and write a short commentary showing how the image links to the associated content. That would be a very positive contribution for someone who hasn't got a lot of time or energy to devote to laborious copy editing! (Remember that if a page is ever to get to A class or Feature status, images are expected).

Selected References (mentioned in these notes)'

Blythe, J. Essentials of Marketing . 3rd Editon. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2005.

Dibb, S., Simkin, L. Marketing Briefs: A Revision and Study Guide . Second Editon. Burlington: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann, 2004.

Drummond, G., Ensor, J. Introduction to Marketing Concepts . Burlington: Elsevier Butterworth- Heinemann, 2005.

Grundey, D., "The Marketing Philosophy and Challenges for the New Millennium", Scientific Bulletin – Economic Sciences: Marketing, Commerce and Tourism, Vol. 9, no. 15, 2010

Hunt, S.D. and Goolsby, J., "The Rise and Fall of the Functional Approach to Marketing: A Paradigm Displacement Perspective," originally published in 1988 and reprinted in: Review of Marketing Research: Special Issue - Marketing Legends, Vol. 1, Naresh K. Malhotra,(ed), Bingley, UK, Emerald, 2011

Keller, K.L. and Kotler, p., “Holistic Marketing: A Broad, Integrated Perspective to Marketing Management,” in Does Marketing Need Reform?,  Jagdish Sheth and Raj Sisodia (eds), 2006, pp 300-305

Kotler, P., Marketing Management, (Millenium edition), Upper Saddle River, N.J., Pearson, 2000

Kotler, P and Armstrong, G., Principles of Marketing, Pearson Education Limited 2014, 2012

Kotler, Philip, and Keller, K.L., Marketing Management, Prentice Hall, 2006.

Kotler, P., Burton, S., Deans, K., Brown, L. and Armstrong, G., Marketing, 9th ed, Australia, Pearson, 2013

Lancaster, G., Reynolds, P. Management of Marketing , Burlington: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann, 2005.

Morgan, R.E., "Conceptual foundations of marketing and marketing theory", Management Decision , Vol. 34, no 10, pp. 19-26, 1996. Poley, D and Poley, E., Maximum Impact Management: The Corporate Approach to Hotel Management, (DFP Hotel Consultancy), Maximum Impact Management, 2010

BronHiggs (talk) 00:06, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Copyright issues
Separate from the structural issues listed above, we need to take quick action on the copyright claims. I'm happy to dig into these one-by-one, but the claims are a little unclear. I'll try to list them below to make sure we're resolving them orderly.
 * Claim A: The product section of the "History of Marketing" table matches text within the "Maximum Impact Management" book.
 * Verified the claim; the material appears clearly in both the Wikipedia article and the book. Link to book page here.
 * The book in question is a self-published work through Lulu. The "publisher" is a firm owned by the authors; no editorial or publisher control. Publication date appears to be August 24, 2010.
 * The table in question has grown organically within the article over many years. On the book's publication date, the material was already in the article, with slightly different years in the "timeframe" column. The material was placed in the table format in October 2009‎ by user Grochim in a series of edits. The material he placed in the table format already existed in the article for several years.
 * Opinion: This material was copied by the authors of the book from Wikipedia. Suggest removing the copyright tag.


 * Claim B: The selling section of the "History of Marketing" table matches text within the "Maximum Impact Management" book.
 * Opinion: As per Claim A above.


 * Claim C: The marketing section of the "History of Marketing" table matches text within the "Maximum Impact Management" book.
 * Opinion: As per Claim A above.


 * Claim D: The holistic marketing section of the "History of Marketing" table matches material at the "Course Hero" site.
 * Verification: Not sure; will get access to the site later today.
 * Verified the claim; he material appears in that folder on the site. The material was uploaded by "shamaedeguzman" for a course at UT in Summer of 2015. The first page of the upload includes the phrase "From Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia".
 * "Course Hero" appears to be a content upload site where students or other anonymous users can upload study material. No editorial control at all.
 * The material in the article was added here on 9/18/2012 by all at once, very few other edits.
 * Opinion: The material from "Course Hero" was obviously copied from here and credited as such., are you claiming that the material was also a word-for-word copy from the Kotler work, or is it just a conceptual source?


 * Claim E: The Business marketing / Industrial marketing section of the "Contemporary approaches" section matches material at the "Course Hero" site.
 * Can't verify; I don't see it in the direct link.
 * The material linked to was uploaded by "emblem101" from a course in Spring 2013. I do see the "history of marketing" table above that was obviously a copy and paste from the Wikipedia article (there are still square brackets where he partially clipped them, and the material significant pre-dates that course).


 * Claim F: The herd behavior section matches material at the "Course Hero" site.
 * Verified the claim; the material appears in that folder. The material was uploaded by "josiep2487" as student notes for a marketing course in Fall 2011.
 * The notes appear to be the material from the wikipedia page broken down into bullets. The material existed on Wikipedia prior to the course (pre-2011).
 * Opinion: The material from "Course Hero" was copied from here. Is there some other source we're concerned about?


 * Claim G: The customer orientation section matches material at the "Course Hero" site.
 * Verified the claim; the material appears in that folder. The material was uploaded by "ProfLightningHawk8904" for a course on marketing in Fall 2013.
 * The material is a direct copy of the Wikipedia page, including the image which appeared there during that time frame. The material pre-dated that class by at least a year.
 * Opinion: The material from "Course Hero" was copied from here. Is there some other source we're concerned about?

Let me know if there are additional issues other than the summary above. Kuru  (talk)  17:47, 20 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Per discussionhere, will remove copyvio tags for now. All of these look like reverse copies, with the only potential as Claim D, but not a copyvio from that source. Kuru   (talk)  03:28, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Types of Marketing
Here is an interesting article that explains why such things as "social media marketing" "cross media marketing" "digital marketing" and "word-0f-mouth marketing" are NOT types of marketing. https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/07/how-google-analytics-ruined-marketing/

Of course, it's a blog which means that it will be easy for Wikipedians to dismiss. In spite of its blog status, the argument it makes is very sound.

Now if we can just find an article that explains why "student marketing" "faith based marketing" "evangelism marketing" and 'shopper marketing" are NOT types of marketing, that would be great. I live in hope!

BronHiggs (talk) 22:20, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Types of Marketing
The book titled, The Marketing Book, 7th ed., Routledge, Oxon, UK, 2016 edited by Michael J. Baker and Susan Hart identifies the following as distinct types or contexts for marketing practice:

This is a very reputable book, published every few years by a leading publisher (Routledge) and now in its 7th edition with chapters contributed by some of the leading luminaries in the marketing field (e.g. Lyndon Simkin, Robin Wensley, Mark Gabbott etc).
 * Services marketing
 * International marketing
 * Social marketing
 * Not-for-profit marketing
 * Green marketing
 * Retailing

They are the only forms of marketing identified. That is all there is! There is no 'faith based marketing, evangelical marketing, student marketing, word-of-mouth marketing' etc. Can we please agree to reduce the list of "types of marketing" to something that is more sensible and more realistic? BronHiggs (talk) 21:39, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Recommended structure for revised article
Here is my suggestion for an organising framework for the "Marketing " article on Wikipedia

1. Definitions of Marketing

2. Historical background
 * 2.1. History of marketing thought (i.e. how marketing has been studied over time) - refer to my previous detailed comments on this
 * 2.2. History of marketing practice (i.e. how marketing has been practiced over time) - refer to my previous detailed comments


 * Notes:
 * (a) all that stuff in the tables about marketing orientations needs to be removed from the "history" section as it deals with marketing orientations or philosophies and has very little to do with history

3. Marketing orientations

product orientation, sales orientation, marketing orientation etc


 * Notes:


 * (b) all that stuff in the tables in the current 'history' section can form the basis of the the new section on 'marketing orientations' which is a more apt title for this content


 * (c) the two tables will need to be reconciled into a single table for a more meaningful discussion; and dates must be removed since they do not appear in any source other than Wikipedia and books that have plagiarised from Wikipedia

4. Marketing Planning: Understanding the context of marketing
 * 4.1. Strategic Marketing
 * 4.2. Managerial Marketing
 * 4.3. PESTLE analysis
 * 4.4. SWOT analysis
 * 4.5. Competitor typologies (market leaders, challengers, imitators etc)
 * 4.6. Customer relationship management (CRM)
 * 4.7 B2B and B2C marketing

5. The Marketing Framework Section intro - brief overview of the 4 Ps.
 * 5.1. Consumer behaviour
 * 5.2. Marketing research
 * 5.2.1. Market research
 * 5.2.2. Marketing research
 * 5.3. Market segmentation and targeting
 * 5.4. Positioning
 * Notes:
 * (d) This section could be very brief as Wikipedia already contains articles on each of these topics. See Consumer behaviour; Marketing research; Market segmentation; Segmentation and Positioning; Positioning (marketing). One or two paragraphs for each sub-heading along with internal links to relevant marketing articles would suffice. No need to reinvent the wheel every single time.


 * (e) If people think it is essential to keep all that stuff on 'herd behaviour' it should be included here in the "Consumer behaviour" section. (But, preferably herd behaviour should be deleted)

6. The Marketing Program
 * 6.1. Product management, branding, labelling and packaging
 * 6.2. New Product development
 * 6.3. Pricing
 * 6.4. Promotion management (includes advertising management and sales management)
 * 6.5. Distribution management
 * Notes:


 * (f) This section could be very brief as Wikipedia already has articles devoted to most of these topics. See Advertising management; Sales management; Sales promotion; Pricing and Pricing strategies; Promotion; Integrated marketing communications and Marketing communications; Distribution (marketing)


 * (g) The content on Christensen's products could form the basis of the sub-section on "New Product Development"

7. Branches of Marketing (or Types of Marketing)
 * 7.1. Services marketing
 * 7.2. International marketing
 * 7.3. Social marketing and cause-related marketing
 * 7.4. Not-for-profit (NFP) marketing
 * 7.5. Environmental/ green marketing
 * 7.6. Retailing
 * Notes:
 * (h) This section could also be very brief as Wikipedia already has articles devoted to some topics. See, for instance, Services marketing; International marketing; Social marketing; Cause-related marketing; Environmental marketing; Green marketing and Retail

8. Current trends in marketing
 * 8.1. Accountability
 * 8.2. Increasing importance of marketing metrics (See Marketing metrics)
 * 8.3. Triple-bottom-line reporting (TBL) and implications for marketing (See Triple bottom line
 * 8.4. Resource-based view of the firm and implications for marketing (See Resource-based view)
 * 8.5. Service dominant logic and implications for marketing (See Service-dominant logic), especially discuss increasing consumer role in marketing activities from product design through to advertising and promotion
 * 8.6. Trends in integrated marketing communications - rise of in-house agencies, new media, dialogue vs disruption models of communication
 * 8.7. Fragmentation of markets/ audiences
 * 8.8. Rise of hyper-segmentation or one-to-one marketing
 * 8.9. Demise of the 4 Ps?


 * Notes:
 * (i) This is new section and would require some developmental work.


 * (j) The sub-themes itemised here are by no means exhaustive. Comments and suggestions would be welcome

9. Ethics in marketing


 * Notes:


 * (k) Ethics is a new heading and would require some developmental work. It is, however, an important topic that should be addressed


 * General notes:


 * (l) The current article contains excessive numbers of repetitions and contradictions which could be avoided through a coherent structure


 * (m) Some of the current content could be recycled, under the new headings


 * (n) Some new content would need to be developed

This recommended structure is in part based on the chapter structure for marketing anthologies. However, some consideration has also been given to ways that pre-existing content might be retained, but placed within an organising framework that does it justice. Comments or suggestions??? BronHiggs (talk) 22:58, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed
Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: Philip Kotler, Gary Armstrong, Veronica Wong, John Saunders (2008). Principles of Marketing, page 7; and Dennis Adcock, Al Halborg, Caroline Ross (2001). Marketing: Principles and Practice, page 16. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.)

For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, and, if allowed under fair use, may copy sentences and phrases, provided they are included in quotation marks and referenced properly. The material may also be rewritten, providing it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Therefore, such paraphrased portions must provide their source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 09:25, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Copyright violations from 2009
This page was listed at Copyright problems/2016 November 20 for a series of suspected copyvios. I see that these have been analysed and dismissed by, and fully agree with almost all he/she says – the lulu.com "book" surely copied from us, as did the coursehero site. What I'm not seeing, though, is that stuff added by "already existed in the article for several years". It seems to me that at least some of that content was copied verbatim from various print sources by an editor who was apparently quite unable to distinguish between citing a source and plagiarising it – please see the extended discussion at User talk:Grochim. The sources I've identified are: Dennis Adcock, Al Halborg, Caroline Ross (2001). Marketing: Principles and Practice, page 16; and Philip Kotler, Gary Armstrong, Veronica Wong, John Saunders (2008). Principles of Marketing, page 7. I would not be surprised to find that there are others too.

I'd be very happy to shown that I'm wrong about this. But if I'm not, how to proceed? The first copyvio I've identified is, from Kotler, on 23 October 2009; Grochim's edits before that seem to be OK. One option is thus to revert to (assuming we can establish that it's clean). The other option is that someone rewrites the whole page – volunteers? Meanwhile, I've blanked the article, and will now relist it so as to allow time for this to be resolved. A number of related pages are also going to need to be looked at. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 11:43, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
 * My comment related to Grochim's edits were specific to "The material he placed in the table format..." which, as I recall, was drawn from material that was pre-existing in the article and simply re-formatted. I had not checked the other large amounts of material that he added in the same timeframe as it was not contested at the time.
 * I can't check either of those two books against the article, they do not appear to have full text online (at least not in this region) and I do not own copies. To be clear, you do have access to the books and the there is specific text in question which is copied verbatim? Kuru   (talk)  17:09, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, absolutely, – I'd not have blanked an article simply on supposition. Just a thought: sometimes if you change the country suffix in the Google link to the one you are in, the content shows up (i.e., replace .it with .de or .com or whatever). Anyway, here's an example from :


 * Wikiblame shows the text "in order to capture value from customers in return" as being added with that edit. Of course, if it was in fact present in the article before then, I need to rethink. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 18:59, 9 February 2017 (UTC)


 * I think it's likely there's going to be several issues here.
 * 1) Ignore the previous analysis above from November 2016. The single Grochim edit in question there took material already in the article and placed it into a table. The table was later copied into a self-published work which triggered a query and an appropriate temporary blanking of the page. However, see (3) below.
 * 2) The example above is clearly a copyright violation. Odd that he would attempt to set up a quote, then plagiarize the next sentence. That edit was well after the in-depth discussion at Multinational corporation, as well. In this instance, the edit does not appear to have survived, but the history would need to be hidden. To your point, there are likely many other issues with his additions which will complicate this.
 * 3) I just noticed this IP in that same year. Large blocks of (mostly) unsupported text - some of which survives, including that table in (1). Would like to check those.
 * Still can't get to a good online copy of the text for that edition. Cheap enough to buy a copy, but it would take weeks to get here. I'll try again tonight from home. Kuru   (talk)  21:04, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I looked in some detail at the edits of that Trinidadian IP earlier today,, and could find no cause for concern. This book gave me pause, but I soon realised that it had copied the whole article from us. Did I miss something?
 * If Grochim had made just a few edits here we could just look at them, check that the text he/she introduced has been removed, and move on. But there are about 100 edits, and I don't think anyone should have to plough through that many – my own dedication to copyvio removal certainly does not stretch that far (this page has already taken about all the time I'm prepared to give it).
 * I can easily mail you a couple of screenshots if you want to verify stuff for yourself – you'd have to mail me first to give me an address, though. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 22:56, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Analysis
Scope: Marketing article only; User Grochim only. Methodology: review in daily blocks, follow up if there's an apparent issue.
 * , I've gone through his edits on this article. There are just four that are suspicious, and one was covered in the preceding discussion above. The links are in the table comments above and referenced by number.
 * 1. Adds two sentences, one in quotes (sourced to Paliwoda 2008). Does not appear in current article.
 * 2. Revises lede with quote and unquoted follow up sentence (to Kotler 2008). Does not appear in current article. This one is discussed above and you've already identified it as a direct copy from Kotler.
 * 4. Moves pre-existing "marketing concept" paragraph to lede, adds a sentence and sources it (to Kotler 2008). Does not appear in current article.
 * 5. Moves a lot of material around, and appears to add a quote from a new ref and a follow up sentence (Egan 2007). Does not appear in current article.
 * Note that all of these do not seem to appear in the current article. If you could peer-review, I would propose unlocking the page and figuring out the appropriate history redaction if you confirm copyvios on 1/4/5 (2 already confirmed). Kuru   (talk)  17:28, 10 February 2017 (UTC)


 * You've done a lot of work,, thank you! I don't where it gets us. I am, frankly, very uncomfortable with an approach along the lines of "it's not in the article any more so it must be OK". We have a few standard techniques for eliminating copyvio – excision of clearly-defined blocks of infringing text; reversion to a preceding clean version; and removal of text followed by rewriting. I don't see the first as possible here – there are around 2000 intervening edits, I think, and the editor repeatedly moved stuff around; our chances of following every phrase of every sentence through that to check that it was actually removed, not just copy-edited a bit, are close to zero. Example: the phrase "capture value from customers" was copied here from Kotler in what I believe to be the first offending edit; copy-edited in in June 2010 to read "and create value for their customers"; and finally removed . So that phrase is OK; but are we seriously going to check every phrase in that way?
 * What I see is this: Grochim created tables which are based exactly on those in Adcock's book, and are still in the article today. Example, one line of a table (pipes to demarcate cells):


 * Even if the text had been changed (which only barely has), that would still be unacceptable because the structure and presentation is also copied from the book. Unless someone wants to rewrite this, I think we have to roll it back to before that first bad Grochim edit; that would remove a huge number of edits by, so perhaps we should wait for comment from that editor? Another option might perhaps be to remove those tables, and then see what else needs to be dealt with. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:43, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, those were the additions from the Trinidad IP I mentioned above. Grochim simply reformatted them and added a source. If there are issues with the Trinidad IP additions, that's a whole new set of investigations. Grochim's edits were pretty easy to evaluate, frankly; there were only a few that were really "content adds".  For that IP, however, almost every single addition over the space of a year fit the pattern I was looking for (large block of content added unsourced or lightly sourced). I'd have to kick this over to someone else to look at; I don't have access to the sources and there's a lot of time that would be needed to review. I would invite  to the discussion, if he's not completely frustrated with Wikipedia yet, and maybe, but she looks inactive. :(  Kuru   (talk)  20:00, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
 * , I am talking about text added with by Grochim on 23 October 2009. The Blamer tells me that that is when the string "Emphasis is placed on the whole relationship" was added to the page; once again, if I'm wrong about that, I need to rethink, but that text is definitely present in the right side of the diff and not in the left. And yes, not a day goes by that I don't wish I could ask MRG's advice. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 20:42, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Crap, I see now - I had identified that edit as "suspicious #3" above since it was fairly complex. Most of his material for the table was copied from different places on the left side to the table in the right side, but I missed that one. Awesome. Can we send MRG flowers or start a FundMeNow page? So, options maybe: 1) rollback to 2009, destroys eight years of content and may introduce other problems that were removed in the interim. 2) nuke article and create a stub to begin anew, same problems as 1 except you also lose the history. 3) remove the copyvio identified (possibly along with that entire table) and I can hide the edit history under RD1 Copyvios, this really makes the history hard to read, but preserves the content. I think I've seen it done before to this extreme.
 * Thoughts? Kuru   (talk)  23:01, 10 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Thank-you for inviting me to contribute to this discussion. Actually I have decided to quit editing on Wikipedia - there are just too many bullies on Wikipedia for my liking. Before I sign off permanently, I would like to say that the suggestion to delete the table(s) is an excellent one. If you refer to my notes on the Talk page, I have pointed out many conceptual problems and other problems with both tables - not the least that the dates are complete fabrications (these dates cannot be found in any serious text such as Kotler or similar work). In addition, the preamble states that the section content is about distinct stages of marketing history, but then the table that follows specifically uses the term orientations which refers to philosophies or mindsets that inform marketing practice. Stages and orientations are quite distinct concepts - so the entire section incorrectly conflates these two ideas - which means that it is not only misleading, but entirely out of step with the perspectives provided in most marketing texts. Unfortunately this content has been on Wikipedia for a very long time - and as you have now discovered, Wikipedia is now informing authors of texts who are copying the flawed content into their works. In short, Wikipedia's content has started to become a primary source which means that Wikipedia is single-handedly rewriting marketing thought. Both tables in this article are very problematic - something that I have discussed at length on the Talk page, with proper references to serious marketing theory and history. I have given six detailed and cogently argued reasons, with reference to the literature, as to why the tables are so very problematic. At this stage, and after more than 3 months, no-one has commented on my notes.


 * As far as deleting my edits to this article are concerned, do not worry about that. I did make a number of edits to this article some months ago, but virtually all edits were reverted within minutes of being added. Since then, I have only contributed to the talk page. The total number of my edits to the article is relatively small, and really quite insignificant. There was a time, when I considered rewriting this page entirely because it seems to me that it should act as a portal to the marketing subject area on Wikipedia. This article should be the very best of all the marketing articles - but at the moment it has too many flaws and has become something of a joke among marketing academics, students and even in online sources such as Anzwers. Unfortunately, there are a number of editors who revert or challenge all new contributions of a substantive nature - so that it is really a futile exercise for existing editors to consider changing the article in any major way. At least, getting rid of those two tables would represent a small, but important step, towards removing some of the worst of the flawed content. (If anyone is interested in making major changes, I have posted (talk page) a suggested template for a revised article, including headings and sub-headings, brief comments about the desired focus, length and even included wikilinks to relevant articles. I have also included suggested high quality references in one of my commentaries on the talk page.) BronHiggs (talk) 00:45, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

, in view of this response from, my recommendation is to roll the page back to before the first copyvio in 2009, for several reasons: (1) it's our usual practice where an earlier non-vio version can be identified (2) the sheer number of revisions means that any other approach is likely to be remarkably time-consuming, and in any case unlikely to thoroughly resolve the whole problem and (3) BronHiggs makes it clear that the stuff added by Grochim was in any case not an improvement. The revdeletion will be a marathon for someone. I'm sort of hoping that we might persuade BronHiggs to hang around for long enough to knock the article into shape before retiring definitively. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:42, 16 February 2017 (UTC)


 * , I regret that I am unable to edit the marketing article. I have put a suggested template for headings and sub-headings with suggested content and some indication of appropriate references on the talk page. I have even provided wikilinks to other relevant articles on WP. The individual topics are designed to provide broad guidance and structure - i.e. are organised in a way that would allow the article to flow even if each individual topic were to be developed by a different editor (providing that the discussion is focussed). In addition, the topics are designed to provide reasonable coverage of the main themes expected by an average reader with minimal knowledge of marketing (ie. what would normally be expected in an introductory treatment of marketing). I did this to make it relatively easy for editors to select a small topic and develop that theme - something that would not be too onerous for a team of editors. Perhaps you could organise an edit-a-thon to develop the content for this article?


 * A couple of months ago, I quit Wikipedia, due to bullying, but was persuaded to return for a little project. Unfortunately, my second time around has been subject to similar, albeit more intense, bullying and vindictive deletion/ editing attacks. I was forced to endure workplace bullying for most of my professional life. Now that I am semi-retired, I choose not to suffer bullies. And, especially not to suffer bullies in a voluntary role. I am currently in the process of tidying up a few loose ends and dismantling my user page. BronHiggs (talk) 21:35, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I was asking myself how a copyright violation in Wikipedia's flagship article for the marketing topic area could go unreverted for nearly 3,000 edits (7 years), but after I looked to see who reported the violation, the answer became obvious. Wikipedia editors with your knowledge, ability and diligence are just that rare! I for one am glad to see that you are still here. Best regards, wbm1058 (talk) 18:15, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your kind words. Just so that you know, I am only barely still here. Like many other users who have been harrassed and bullied, I no longer make major editing or structural changes to articles, but simply confine myself to wiki tweaks - adding an image or two here and there, fixing up a bit of spelling or expression, moving a few paragraphs/sentences around to improve the flow of an article, adding wikilinks to relevant articles or adding in appropriate references - but only on pages that are stubs or start class/low importance. I desperately try to avoid high importance pages which tend to be heavily patrolled- and which attract the bullies. Before the intense bullying started, I completely overhauled 17 articles in the marketing/ advertising area and added substantive new or revised sections to an additional 13 articles. But many articles with factual/ conceptual errors are still in need of desperate attention - and sadly students of marketing copy these errors into their essays and assignments, so that the errors are perpetuated. A major concern is that Wikipedia is becoming a primary source for students and early career researchers - yet Wikipedia articles in the marketing area, for the main part, are of an exceedingly poor quality. In my retirement, it had been my intention to work on improving the quality of Wikipedia's marketing and advertising articles, as a service to my profession, but as long as Wikipedia tolerates the bullying that goes on in its name, I am sorry to say that I am unable to carry out my original plan. BronHiggs (talk) 20:37, 25 May 2017 (UTC)