Gurus On Marketing

According to ‘The Witch Doctors’ (1996) 12 :
‘In most areas of intellectual life nobody can quite decide on who
the top dog is – sometimes because rival schools of thought have
rival champions, sometimes because there are so many fine specimens
to choose from. In the world of management gurus, however,
there is no debate. Peter Drucker is one management guru to whom
other management gurus kowtow. He is also one of the few thinkers
from any discipline who can reasonably claim to have changed the
world… but Drucker is the one management theorist who every
tolerably well-educated person, however contemptuous of business
or infuriated by jargon, really ought to read.’
Why include him as a marketing guru?
Peter Drucker is an all-rounder guru. Before Theodore Levitt, Drucker
was the only management writer who emphasised the importance
of marketing and the importance of the customer.
In the 1960s and 1970s marketing was defined very narrowly focusing
attention on flows of goods from producers to consumers. The
following are some examples of definitions of marketing at that time:
• Marketing is the process of determining consumer demand
and facilitating sales to ultimate consumers.
• Marketing is creating utility of time and place.
• Marketing consists of the activities of buying, selling, transporting
and storing goods.
• Marketing is the performance of activities which seek to achieve
an organisation’s objectives.
Most of the definitions focused marketing activities towards organisations
production processes. Marketing was conceived as a process
the context of which was economic exchanges in the marketplace.
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GURUS ON MARKETING