Marketing: little m, capital M

I’ve always thought of marketing as two distinct but different things:

Marketing with a little “m.” This is what my parents think I do. This is what anyone I meet thinks I spend my time doing. And it’s, with no undue disrespect, what +90% of senior leaders think marketing is, perhaps especially in the outdoor, active, and retails spaces: Google campaigns, Meta ads, social media, influencers, retail PoP, traffic to the website, wholesale partner support, footfall into stores, CAC, LTV, SEO, SEM, CRM, CPM, CRO, CTR, ROAS, et al, ad nauseam. And to be clear, this is the lion’s share of the work and always the most visible.  It is the daily way to add value and drive growth.

But then there is Marketing with a capital “M.” This is Marketing as a strategic function, Marketing as the advanced guard for the company, Marketing as the team that illuminates where the world is going and how the company can get there first, driving the strategic process that brings to life the next gen offerings of products or experiences, the next opportunity in the marketplace. This is Marketing as the function that can offer clarity out of chaos, see over the horizon, and support the alignment of all functions to point in the same direction.

Within this Marketing with a capital “M”, there is research and focus groups, customer surveys and trend reports. But I’m also a deep believer in good old-fashioned curiosity and looking at the world through the widest lens you can. There are two books I’ve read recently that are helping me frame the world. More on that to come. But to all my marketing/brand peeps out there, how do you fight the good fight in your org to be a Marketer with a capital M?