Journeying on P&G's pathway to the heart of marketing
Channel: Cambridge Institute of Marketing Practice
Date: 11/11/2018

Hello and welcome to our YouTube channel and a very warm welcome to an exciting journey of exploration. You are standing at a doorway. If you choose to open it, it leads to a secret passage and down to a seldom visited destination - the heart of marketing which beats to the music of brands.
You may think you know a little about marketing already or you may know a very great deal in which case you will be familiar with data mining, customer management, advertising, sponsorship, sales promotion, pricing elasticity, segmentation, retargeting, social media, digital, public relations, networking etc. 
But that is marketing on the surface. Ok, you feel the skin, flex the limbs, strain the muscles, stretch the sinews, sense the arteries, the lungs, the bones.  
But is that all there is to marketing? More customers? More sales? More profits even? Or is there something deeper, way below the surface, much more exciting. 
For most people the heart of marketing can be sensed but not seen, felt but not touched. What exactly is marketing at its heart? What makes it pump? Who keeps it pumping? What could marketing do when its heart pumps to its limits? 
These question are not answered in classrooms, in books, on line or at work. Teachers, writers, researchers offer answers. They haven’t been to the heart of marketing..  
Nor are there answers in the workplace, the office, the boardroom.
In fact ignorance of what marketing is and what marketing can do is so widespread you might conclude that no one has been to its heart.
But you would be wrong. They have. 
At its heart marketing is massive, more vibrant than you dreamed – a vast powerhouse of energy.
From that heart Marketing pumps energy deep into the sinews of society. Billions of times a day, to satisfy our endless human needs, Marketing’s lifeblood nourishes the process by which we exchange every form of value – money, goods, services, votes, donations, friendship even. Marketing brings untold riches to humankind. Has done for thousands of years.
No that’s right. The heart of marketing didn’t start beating yesterday. 
Marketing predates the internet, it predates TV, it predates Radio, it predates the printing press – it even predates stone tablets and papyrus - marketing predates reading and writing. Marketing has been promoting exchange and making humans wealthy since the dawn of time. 
How do we know that?
For thousands of years marketing relied on intuition - instinct.
That only changed in the 19th century when two founders of a low-tech start-up gazed into the heart of marketing, saw its power, fused intuition with method, managed exchange and built a vast storehouse of value. William Procter & James Gamble’s business grew from corner store to global giant - its value stored in brands. 
P&G show us that marketing is all about brands. Brands are the life blood of marketing. Brands are where the fruit of marketing effort is stored. The heart of marketing truly beats to the rhythm of brands.  And we marketers hold the heart of marketing in our hands.
P&G travelled there long ago. We’ve been there with them. Join us and we’ll find that path together – the path to the very heart of marketing.