---
title: "Most of What You Understand About Marketing Is Wrong!"
description: "In today's business world where internet companies dominate, most people simplistically equate marketing with product positioning, advertising copy, crisis PR, and ad sales—even many directors' main job is reviewing copy. Is this a misuse of the director's role or a misunderstanding of marketing? Wang Sai, partner of Kotler Consulting Group China, sharply pointed out in a Tsinghua University business wisdom design talent training program class: most current market understanding of marketing is wrong!"
author: "王赛"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2019-06-28"
language: "en"
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# Most of What You Understand About Marketing Is Wrong!

> In today's business world where internet companies dominate, most people simplistically equate marketing with product positioning, advertising copy, crisis PR, and ad sales—even many directors' main job is reviewing copy. Is this a misuse of the director's role or a misunderstanding of marketing? Wang Sai, partner of Kotler Consulting Group China, sharply pointed out in a Tsinghua University business wisdom design talent training program class: most current market understanding of marketing is wrong!

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**In today's business world where internet companies dominate, most people simplistically equate marketing with product positioning, advertising copy, crisis PR, and ad sales—even many directors' main job is reviewing copy.** **Is this a misuse of the director's role or a misunderstanding of marketing?** **Wang Sai, partner of Kotler Consulting Group China, sharply pointed out in a Tsinghua University business wisdom design talent training program class:** **Most current market understanding of marketing is wrong!**
**—Kotler Academy**
**Philip Kotler, the father of marketing, roughly divides companies into four patterns:**
Currently, most marketing discussions are based on **typical consumer behavior paths**—studying how consumers buy and decide. Through behavioral science, predicting what information stimuli or communication tactics can help consumers make purchase choices.
But the marketing mindset a CEO should have is based on the second path—**the path of marketing strategy.** Strategy includes vision, mission, values, industry selection, corporate structure adjustment, and control. But the problem is: a company does strategic planning only once every three to five years, and now the market changes too dynamically; marketing needs to deal directly with the dynamic market.
The dynamic market turns planned strategic planning into "nonsense," and "bad strategies" are everywhere.
**Therefore, marketing strategy will be more important than corporate strategic planning.** **Because it directly involves how to help customers create value and how to face competition.** **Unfortunately, most companies currently place marketing in a tactical position.**
Using Kotler's marketing management analysis framework to look at many companies' market behaviors, you will find serious disconnection. Most CEOs think marketing is just advertising, new media, sales, and branding, but do not treat it as a strategic behavior for managing the market. I call this disease "the absence of CEO market-driven strategy."
**At the strategic level, the four core cards of marketing should be—growth, demand, competition, and relationships.**
**Growth**
99% of companies' marketing problems are the disconnection between marketing and growth.
Marketing departments are increasingly seen as "cost centers" rather than "investment centers," let alone "growth centers." **If marketing is not combined with growth, even the best brand strategy is meaningless.**
Growth first requires **growth levers**. Why do many companies spend 500 million on advertising without results? Imitating Luckin Coffee's traffic pool doesn't work? Hiring spokespersons doesn't work? Because the growth levers driving your company are not these! For B2B enterprises, deep customer relationship cultivation and locking customer wallet share are their growth levers!
Growth also requires a **growth map**. Presenting a panoramic view of where the company's growth opportunities are.
**Demand**
When talking about marketing, you must talk about demand; marketing without demand is fake marketing.
There are many companies in China making plug strips. Many people ask: is there still market opportunity? The key lies in demand. Someone doing research suddenly finds that many families with children aged 1 to 5 are most afraid of children touching wires and plug buttons. So a company made such a plug strip and sold out. This is called demand management.
**Demand equals desire plus purchasing power.** In managing desire, there is an important concept called scarcity. If you have two precious stamps, what is the way to double or quintuple their price? Tear one up and hold a press conference. Because it satisfies the scarcity in human desire.
A good marketing manager will study demand. Many concepts in marketing, including segmentation, value proposition, and customer experience, revolve around demand.
The essence of segmentation is to cut demand and stimulate the desire in demand to a sufficient market scale to form a preference for your product or service. The value proposition is the core of your product, delivery, and communication. Grasping customer experience allows you to deliver demand better.
**Competition**
One of the important topics in marketing: customer satisfaction is important, but more important is: how do I set up competitive barriers.
**So-called market orientation equals customer orientation plus competition orientation, and the definition of the competitive market depends on the definition of competitors.**
What is the core of competition? Michael Porter proposed the Five Forces model—a market is determined by five forces.
A good marketing strategy can help a company form a monopoly behavior.
Why do many companies form supplier alliances? **The core is to resolve suppliers' bargaining power over you.**
Many people say marketing should build brands, do communication, do advertising; this is superficial. For example, in the past few years when buying houses, prices kept rising, but there were still crowds of consumers queuing, even queuing until dawn and paying to get a number. Is that customer orientation? No. Why? **Because it has pricing power.**
If some companies do not have pricing power and want to resolve consumers' bargaining power, one method is to build a brand. **Use the brand to isolate and form my monopoly.**
When you restore these essential issues clearly, you will find marketing is simple, and business behavior is simple. You can think of many things; besides building a brand, you can do many other things.
The core of the Five Forces is to help companies build a monopoly market; the core of the anti-Five Forces is how I resolve the erosion of these five forces on my monopoly positioning and competitive position. So-called brand is just one card to help you establish this market structure.
**Relationships**
**In marketing, relationships are defined as the foundation for establishing continuous transactions.** **Good marketing strategic behavior should build customer relationship assets.**
When 360 fought QQ, Ma Huateng was panicked because it was not a transaction behavior but a relationship behavior. The biggest difference between relationship behavior and transaction behavior: **relationships are a system for establishing continuous transactions.**
For example, Starbucks' loyal fans, those who buy Starbucks cards, have balances exceeding nearly 90% of small and medium banks in the US. With a foundation for continuous transactions, you can do lock-in sales, locking them in first.
Many companies dare not easily make changes because they do not have this bottom line, that is, the foundation for continuous transactions.
Growth, demand, competition, and relationships—I call these four words the basic skills of marketing. Marketing born from these four elements has the golden line between "good marketing" and "bad marketing." This is also the marketing mindset and decision-making criterion that CEOs should master.
**Marketing = design of growth path + management of customer demand + consolidation of competitive advantage + establishment of continuous relationships.** **This is the practical marketing formula, directly pointing to what is "good marketing" and what is "bad marketing."**
Therefore, marketing at the decision-making level should essentially revolve around these four elements. This is true marketing, marketing at the CEO and manager level. It focuses more on customer value, responds more dynamically to market competition, helps you build continuous customer relationships, and points more directly to the growth CEOs want!
New Distribution will hold the "2019 China FMCG Conference" in Shanghai from August 20 to 23. The conference theme is "Trillion Growth," with topics on "innovative products, innovative channels, and innovative marketing," exploring new models, methods, and trends that support rapid growth in the next decade.
Like people, enterprises have their own palm prints. And the "Five Growth Lines" proposed by Wang Sai, partner of Kotler Consulting Group China, is a company's lifeline and success line. It tells you how to advance, retreat, choose, and deploy, making strategic planning more scientific and marketing maximize its effectiveness—promoting enterprise growth.
**Let us look forward to** Wang Sai, managing partner of Kotler Consulting Group (KMG) China**'s content sharing at the conference.**


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