TALKING POINT
Is Marketing A Dying
Profession?
By Thrity Engineer-Mbuthia
A
Profession
Usually
Prolonged Training
Involves
In this column this time we seek to
answer the question whether marketing
is a dying profession. A profession is
defined as a paid occupation, especially
one that involves prolonged training and
a formal qualification. To start from the
basics we have to ask ourselves whether to
be a marketing professional one requires
prolonged training or formal qualification.
And the answer to that question is simply
that not all practicing marketers have
prolonged training or formal training.
It is also true that not many practicing
the discipline can demonstrate their
Continuous Professional Development
(CPD) points or adherence where every
year you have to accumulate a minimum
amount of verifiable continuous education
through training or engaging in activities
or initiatives related to the profession. I
know that attending Marketing Africa
events can earn you CPD points if you
are a Chartered Institute of Marketing
(CIM) member.
Maybe Marketing is more
like Entrepreneurship or the
“Oldest Profession”
Given the facts above maybe we shouldn’t
ask very hard questions but consider
marketing to be more like entrepreneurship
that can be learnt through apprenticeship
or the “oldest profession” that has always
been about practice or freshness than
learning. Several trades have had a claim
to be the oldest professions with one of
the interesting claimants being tailors
due to the fact that Adam and Eve had to
make their own clothes.
The tailors are one of the earliest to lay
claim to be the oldest profession through
the 1680 song titled The Song in Praise of
the Merchant Taylors which was routinely
performed at pageants and the Lord’s
Mayor’s Show, London if the current
mayor happened to belong to the tailors’
guild.
Other claimants to the title include
Less marketing professionals are found in boards
of blue-chip companies with other professions
being better represented in the boardroom. My
call is for marketers to embrace numbers and
aim at board and CEO positions. Wholesome
understanding of other disciplines within and
even outside the organization will definitely be
a pre-requisite.
16 MAL23/18 ISSUE
Farmers, Horticulturalists, Engineers,
The Military, Doctors, Nurses, Priests,
Teachers and Lawyers. The inclusion of
farmers in that list is suspect but you have
to realize that farmers had some of the
earliest practice of branding in order to
differentiate cattle belonging to different
farmers or oranges from certain farms
which is a marketing orientation.
In the late 19th Century the term became
synonymous with prostitution through
the work of Rudyyard Kipling’s Short
story about an Indian prostitute, On the
City Wall ( January 1889) which also cited
biblical reference. The story began with the
phrase Lalun belongs to the world’s most
ancient profession. I don’t know the origin
of the word prostitution but the fact that
it starts with the words pro and it is paid
for as the definition requires I think they
earned the term oldest profession.
Time for Marketing
Professionals to Soul Search
and Stand to Be Counted
Though we had considered not hitting
the marketing profession we have to
acknowledge biblical wisdom about
growth or lack of it. It states that any tree
that does not bear fruits any more should
be cut. In the military lingo they say that if
you stand still you will be shot. We should
do business like living creatures that adapt
to environment or die.
This means that we need to take a closer
look at the profession and acknowledge