Marketing is a race without a finish line.

Have you ever noticed how there is so much stuff in your house. Strictly speaking, you don’t need it ALL. The question then is why do you have it all? Why did you buy it? In all likelihood you felt that you might need it at some point. The function of marketing is to attach value to products to make them look useful and in a world where factories are churning out so much stuff, marketing has become an essential service.

Unfortunately, good marketing can only come from innovation. There is no room to repeat something that has already been done. Even old campaigns can only be successful with a new twist.

This ultra-competitive environment is the ground from which marketing must grow. To survive, marketing must constantly adapt and evolve to be one step ahead of what has already been done, and innovate, to catch your attention again once yesterday’s innovation has become commonplace today.

This, in a nutshell, is why marketing’s race will never reach a finish line. Kotler hit it bang on with his quote, “Marketing is a race without a finish line.” The existence of a finish line implies that at some point, marketing will cease to grow, change or evolve and simply stop. This idea is not conceivable considering what we have said earlier regarding the state of consumerism today.

Thus, to survive, constant change and improvement is required.

This has led to the rise of many previously unheard of, sometimes unthought of, methods of marketing. The phrase viral marketing was only coined in the ’90s, but now it is one of the most important marketing tools in existence, and hundreds of variations on how to run a successful viral marketing campaign have come into existence with it.

With the advent of the internet, spreading awareness has become much easier. One marketing campaign which goes viral can make all the difference. A perfect example is the Old Spice youtube ad series featuring Terry Crews and Isiah Mustafa, which have millions of views. The downside is that there are many more things competing for your attention, and for every successful Old Spice campaign, there are several others which have been forgotten.

Therefore, in the marketing race, having a headstart isn’t always enough. You have to be on your toes incessantly, always prepared to take that extra leap ahead. So we suppose one could say that there is no finish line, aren’t these only temporary successes?

Read Kotler’s Marketing Management: A South Asian Perspective, 14/e to learn more about the subject. 🙂