The Marketing Manager

[Cory Smith]

 

[Possumgal]

Sounds like my philosophy of sales: getting someone to buy something they don't need and can't afford. On the other hand, didn't Steve Jobs have a philosophy similar to your marketing manager at one time?

 

[Deleted member 16349]

This is the way it should be. Listening to what the customer wants is somewhat helpful but does not go far enough because the customer does not really know what they really need. No vision.

I am sorry to say, being an engineer myself, that most engineers in the printing industry are afraid to innovate. They have no passion to develop the process and would have to be forced to work in that direction. They also tend to work in companies that have not interest in taking risks and developing and obtaining new and useful knowledge, so there is no incentive for anyone to do true innovation. No skunk works exist in the printing industry. Just a continual refinement of accepted but faulty approaches.

This industry needs a Steve Jobs type of person to push it in the right direction. A direction which most can not yet imagine. I agree with Possumgal on the Jobs reference to this marketing manager.

 

[gordo]

Erik is quite correct, and yes, this was Steve Jobs' philosophy as it was Henry Ford's (“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”)

Most people get the roles of Advertising, Sales, and Marketing, mixed up.
Advertising typically involves broadcasting product or service offerings. Think of TV commercials, billboards, magazine ads etc.
Sales typically involves narrowcasting product or service offerings. Think of your vendor showing up with donuts, or giving a presentation to management, etc.
Marketing on the other hand involves looking at product or service offerings, existing or potential, from the prospective customer's point of view. Marketing helps inform product creation and development as well as sales and advertising. In the graphic arts industry, the marketing function is typically wrapped up into the product engineer's role. In my experience, that's not a particularly good situation.