What is Marketing? This story of a blind boy will help you understand it!

What is Marketing?

Google right now and you will see hundreds and thousands of definitions, both simple and complicated.

Here are a couple of them:

According to the American Marketing Association (AMA) Board of Directors, Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.

There is another definition which defines Marketing as “the science and art of exploring, creating, and delivering value to satisfy the needs of a target market at a profit."

Complicated?

Well, here's a story that can help you understand what Marketing truly is, in its purest form.


A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said: “I am blind, please help.”

There were only a few coins in the hat.

A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.

Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were.

The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, “Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?”
The man said, “I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way.”

What he had written was:
“Today is a beautiful day and I cannot see it.”


That is what marketing is.