Marketing Essay: Definitions, Issues, and Strategies in the Modern Era

This essay delves into the multifaceted realm of marketing, commencing with established definitions from prominent figures and organizations like the AMA and Philip Kotler. It then navigates the contemporary challenges and issues that marketers face today, with a particular focus on ethical considerations and content marketing. The essay explores the ethical dimensions of advertising, including concerns related to sexual content and anti-competitive campaigns, emphasizing the importance of responsible marketing practices. Furthermore, it examines the rise of content marketing within the context of social media and digital marketing, highlighting the importance of carefully curated content strategies in an increasingly competitive environment. The essay also references key sources to support its arguments, providing a comprehensive overview of the subject matter.

Marketing is a different entity than selling which have a number of definitions but here we will
discuss a few best of them as according to the AMA (American Marketing Association),
Marketing is the action, set of establishments, procedures for making & conveying, and trading
offerings that have an incentive for clients, customers, accomplices, and as a whole society.
(Heidi Cohen, 2011)
According to the Philip Kotler, Marketing is an art of investigating, making, and conveying
value to its final customer which satisfied them and to create long term relationship with them to
generate profitability. (Philip Kotler, 2006)
Issues in Today’s Marketing:
In today’s world, there is a lot of competition between brands and everyone wants to capture a
large chunk of the market. For this purpose, the most important thing for organizations; is
awareness about its brands and to create awareness about its brands or products they have to use
marketing strategies. Today’s marketing is not as easy as it was before, there are a lot of
challenges or issues which is happening in today’s world. Some of them are as follows:
 Ethical Marketing
 Content Marketing
1- Ethical Marketing
Every organization do its marketing activities either its BTL (below the line activities) or ATL
(above the line activities) but most often organizations forget about ethics that which sort of ad
they are going to advertise for what kind of audience. There are some ethical issues which are
discussed below
- Ethics in Advertisement & Promotional Ad
Sexual content is one of the main ethical concerns which often organization ignores, as we know
that especially in Asia families like to watch TV together and if an ad comes on the TV set which
has sexual content then it is very abashing situation for all of them.

Like an Ad of condoms which have fully sexual content must be prohibited on TV Channels
especially in prime times; same should do with the ads of sanitary napkins.
- Anti-Competitive Campaigns
Sometimes organizations do anti-competitor campaign in which they show that their brand is
much superior to their competitor’s brand like if we take an example of RIN Surf which shows in
its ads that its product is cost effectively and superior to the costly one Aerial Surf. Such sorts of
campaigns are anti-competitors which are not ethical. Every brand needs to promote its brand as
per its features not by letting down its competitor’s brands. (Patrick E. Murphy, Gene R.
Laczniak, Norman E. Bowie, Thomas A. Klein, 2005)
2- Content Marketing
As I discussed, in today’s world the competition among brands increased in each & every aspect.
Every brand wants to promote its goods & services in all ways and for this purpose they invested
a lot in advertising or promoting its brand name. Now-a-days, there is a new rivalry among
competitors on social media websites because traditional marketing is changing into social media
or digital marketing. A person receives a number of SMS from different organizations in which
they are promoting their products or services but merely noticed. Same like that when
organizations promote its products or service on social media channels, they should be conscious
about the content that what they are going to publish. So content marketing is one of the major
issues of today’s marketing. (Nick Johnson, 2016)

Bibliography
Heidi Cohen. (2011, March 29). Retrieved from http://heidicohen.com/marketing-definition/
Nick Johnson. (2016, June 01). What are the biggest issues in Marketing right now? Retrieved from
http://www.incite-group.com/customer-engagement/what-are-biggest-issues-marketing-right-
now
Patrick E. Murphy, Gene R. Laczniak, Norman E. Bowie, Thomas A. Klein. (2005). Ethical Marketing.
Raynor Memorial Libraries.
Philip Kotler. (2006). Principles of Marketing.