radical change and although many companies balk at this option it may be the only way to save a company from extinction by espousing a totally different way of doing business or striking out in a new direction .
This unfortunately has been the experience of many companies when they were faced with the unexpected but radical changes brought about by the coronavirus that upended many businesses and saw the demise of many . The survivors had to adopt radical changes .
The marketer is most visible in his role as an innovator , the innovation may or may not necessarily be his own but every innovation has to be marketed to the right target if the innovation has any hope of seeing the light of day . Innovation without marketing is at best a fantasy .
This reality was most evident during the Silicon Valley boom that seemed to spawn millionaires by the week , what made them seem so successful was that there were many venture capitalists ready and willing to throw money at interesting but untried ideas .
With our current culture of only celebrating successes we managed to turn a blind eye at the many startups that floundered at inception and most did so because of a lack of a viable marketing plan to commercialize and exploit their innovation .
When the innovator is also the marketer for his idea we tend to refer to him as an entrepreneur . In this role the marketer shines as change agents as they are willing and able to take the responsibility and the risk associated with striking out in a new direction .
From time to time a visionary comes along into the world , one who sees the world as it can be although nobody else can see what he is seeing but by sheer force of conviction he is able to convince a marketer to take a shot in the dark and create a different tomorrow .
The marketing of a visionary idea is the most difficult assignment a marketer could undertake but it is a most rewarding one . Such visionaries like Steve Jobs come through once in a generation and they revolutionize the world and set it on a radically different path .
It is apparent that marketers are professionally trained to be change agents
The marketer is happiest in the role of a trendsetter in that he is in a unique position to influence what his market shall spend money on . The trendsetter actually creates a new market periodically and is the final arbiter as to what is in mode .
and as such are best placed to pull up a company or a community to grow but if only they can be heard and permitted to do the job that they are eminently qualified to do .
Marketer ’ s prominent position in business and society at large has been dramatically put in the spotlight in the past one year as the world is reeling from the devastation of the Covid-19 pandemic and the business crippling shutdowns that have caused untold misery and suffering .
This is when we saw the power of marketing , albeit in the negative , as we saw America in the grip of a pandemic and an insane anti-vax campaign that was making it nearly impossible to eradicate the virus because people have been brainwashed to avoid it by nefarious marketing .
The irony is not missed that while the Americans have the vaccine and don ’ t want it Africans want the vaccine and can ’ t get it . One is left to wonder how it is that intelligent people can do such stupid things that endanger and compromise the whole humanity .
Ironically it is only a counter marketing campaign that is likely to get those unwilling to take the vaccine to do so . It is amazing to note just how effective marketing is in shaping opinions and how firmly those opinions are held .
America is a country whose prosperity is to a large extent a result of a robust marketing industry that was able to catapult the country from an immigrant escape country into the most powerful nation on earth driven by a marketing culture .
America is looking to marketers to pull it out of the doldrums and we are already starting to see signs of marketers shaping a new reality which they hope will help the country avoid an economic depression and get the country back on track . In the absence of the vaccine Africans have had to depend on marketing to influence the population into adopting new healthy habits which should help in keeping the virus at bay and minimize the potential havoc that the pandemic can cause .
But the whole pandemic experience has taught Africans just how vulnerable they are to the whims of indifferent global players who will not hesitate in putting up nationalistic barriers to exclude Africans even if those barriers mean extermination of humanity .
Survival at the behest of another is indeed slavery by just another name and the call is now out for Africans to fend for themselves and get our act together . This is the great opportunity for the marketer to be at the forefront of change .
But here we revert to a problem we alluded to earlier , that is , how you get this group of people who are in the best position to help the country to get out of its current crisis to actually get working when it is hard to even define who they are and what they do .
The answer is deceptively simple in that all marketers have to do is to get organized , assert their professionalism and take action . Marketers will simply be putting into action what they are qualified to do , by simple we do not mean it will be easy but marketers rise to a challenge .
From where we seat it has become quite evident that the first thing we need to so in Kenya is to fix the profession so that who marketers are and what we do is no longer a question that is posed . This we will have to do by attracting people with a passion for the discipline to the rescue .
But people with a passion with no priorities are like individuals caught in a room on a cold dark night who decide to light a few candles . They don ’ t create enough light to let them see nor do they create enough heat to keep them warm . At best it makes the room look a bit more cheerful .
On the other hand people who have priorities but do not have passion are
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