Many dismiss marketing as manipulative, deceptive, and intrusive.  Marketing, they argue, focuses too much of our attention on material consumption.  Marketing is an American success story.  No country on earth is better at marketing than the United States.  The latest Interbrand listing of the most valuable global brands reveals seven American brands in the top ten and sixty in the top hundred, more than twice the expected numbres based on the United States’ command of 28% of the world economy.

Even with these statistics, marketers themselves do a surprisingly poor job of marketing Marketing.  They do not articulate the economic and social benefits of marketing.  The fact that marketplace exchanges are based on mutual trust between buyers and sellers.  The fact that they create value for both parties.  The billions of successful daily transactions that are the glue holding civilized society together. 

Marketers offer consumers choices.  Choice stimulates consumption and economic growth and facilitates personal expression.  Marketers provide consumers with information about new products and services, thereby accelerating the adoption of the most superior products and services. 

So, next time those of you in Accounting or IT or Legal or HR think that the “Marketing” people just spend the money, please realize that they are the ones that make sure that the money gets spent… on YOUR company’s stuff.

original topic by John Quelch who writes a blog on marketing issues, Marketing Know: How, for Harvard Business Online.  It is reprinted on HBS Working Knowledge.