Marketing Considered One of the Least Valued Professions

Probably any marketer will tell you how important what they do is for a business. And people would agree as a new study shows. 94% of consumers and 98% of marketers consider marketing as essential to businesses, and nine out of ten people see marketing as paramount to driving sales. Yet only 13% of the people interviewed consider that marketing benefits society, and 53% of them think that generally marketing is “a bunch of B.S.”.

If that is not bad enough, marketers are one of the least valued professions. Teachers are the most valuable to society, followed by scientists and engineers. Marketing came in one of the last places, even after bankers (mentioned by 32%), lawyers (34%) and politicians (18%).

The research was conducted earlier this month among 1,000 consumers and 250 professional marketers, and was commissioned by Adobe and carried out by research firm Edelman Berland. The majority of the study’s respondents use social media. The study also revealed that two-thirds of consumers believe that television commercials are more effective than online advertising. 54% of the respondents think online banners don’t work.

Where do consumers want to see advertising? 45% of them prefer to see it in their favorite print magazine, 23% of them would choose to see it while watching their favorite TV show, only 3% said they prefer to view ads via social media, and, picture this, 0%, yup, no one, want ads in apps. In fact, online ads are seen as “annoying,” “distracting” and “all over the place.” Not very flattering, right?

“This study is a wakeup call for marketers. We know there’s a tremendous opportunity – online, on mobile, in social – in terms of where consumers are spending their time and money. But as marketers we’ve yet to really break through,” explained Ann Lewnes, chief marketing officer, Adobe. “Serving customers relevant content, delivering experiences that are engaging instead of intrusive and, just as importantly, measuring what’s working and what isn’t so that we can improve our marketing are all critical. When marketers begin to master these things we’ll turn the corner – consumers will start to notice and we’ll start to capitalize.”

“Marketers are some of the most creative people in the world. Now that we have data insights to back up instinct, these outdated perceptions of marketing are going to change” added Lewnes. “When marketing is personalized for the consumer – and online experiences are rewarding – the impact on brands’ bottom line is going to be huge.”