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I think you are conflating marketing with advertising. Advertising is a subset of marketing, but wouldn't include things like: - Writing clear and effective ho

I think you are conflating marketing with advertising. Advertising is a subset of marketing, but wouldn't include things like: - Writing clear and effective home pages (e.g. the Get Started button is the most prominent affordance on the https://reactjs.org/ https://reactjs.org/ homepage) - The design of that homepage is marketing. Have you ever felt more comfortable using a product that has a nice website? - Engineering blogs (e.g. the https://www.backblaze.com/blog/ https://www.backblaze.com/blog/ seems to make it to the HN homepage every few months... they aren't just writing this stuff for fun) - Making your product easy to get started with isn't strictly marketing, but letting people know that it's easy to get started with sure is (e.g. good documentation) - Having a good pricing strategy is marketing. (e.g. make three tiers for different customers, but try to steer people to the middle one) - Having a good pricing discount strategy is marketing. (e.g. AWS is basically free for students because they know who those students will want to use when they are making decisions in the work force in a few years) A key thing is that not all marketing needs to be done by the marketing department. Marketing is about understanding the market and what will make them use your product. This is important even for software engineers. Edit: fixed typo above and adding below. ========================================= Also, there are ways of getting the word out that aren't advertising but are done by the same sorts of people. For example, GoPro didn't buy online ads or TV commercials when they were a young company. They gave away GoPros to people doing crazy stuff and had them upload their footage to youtube. Trader Joes doesn't buy advertising, but mixes up their inventory regularly in order to generate buzz. They'll even take popular items out of production, which I've always suspected is a marketing ploy meant to get people talking about them. Lamborghini is another example of a company that doesn't make ads, but they fiercely guard their reputation. In fact, their marketing department is hiring right now for someone to manage their "car configurator" (https://configurator.lamborghini.com/ https://configurator.lamborghini.com/), a product that they see as part of marketing.

oehpr 4y ago
I think your response is valid. Pedantic, but valid. I read into Carmack's post and interpreted it as him meaning "advertising", and then used the same nomenclature he used. You are right to say that this is imprecise. Honestly now I'm not sure what he meant by Marketing. I still think he meant "getting the word out" Which would fall on advertising in all it's lovely forms.
- chadash 4y ago
  Sorry for being pedantic. Response wasn't directed at you specifically, but at the wider audience, some of whom might not understand the distinction. But my guess is that John Carmack does get the distinction and was intentional with his wording, although obviously I could be wrong :) But even in advertising, there's a huge variance of ethics. I don't love targeted advertising based on my search history. I'm perfectly fine with my favorite history podcast being able to continue because of casper ads. In that case, casper isn't tracking me specifically... just assuming that history podcast listeners might be good mattress customers.
- munchbunny 4y ago
  This is probably just a semantic difference. In the marketing/advertising industry, “advertising” tends to refer to a subset of channels (banner ads, social media ads, video ads, TV ads, billboards, etc.) while “marketing” refers to the general problem of getting the word out. I think you’re using “advertising” the way a marketing person would use “marketing”. I don't think this changes anyone's point, just clarifying what might feel pedantic where there is a term of art associated.
- mrandish 4y ago
  > "getting the word out" To be even more precise (or pedantic), "getting the word out" (aka generating awareness) in general is called "Promotion." Advertising is a form of promotion. So is "word-of-mouth" and public relations (aka press relations). All of them fall under the broad responsibility of "Marketing."

oehpr 4y ago

I think your response is valid. Pedantic, but valid. I read into Carmack's post and interpreted it as him meaning "advertising", and then used the same nomenclature he used. You are right to say that this is imprecise. Honestly now I'm not sure what he meant by Marketing. I still think he meant "getting the word out" Which would fall on advertising in all it's lovely forms.

chadash 4y ago
Sorry for being pedantic. Response wasn't directed at you specifically, but at the wider audience, some of whom might not understand the distinction. But my guess is that John Carmack does get the distinction and was intentional with his wording, although obviously I could be wrong :) But even in advertising, there's a huge variance of ethics. I don't love targeted advertising based on my search history. I'm perfectly fine with my favorite history podcast being able to continue because of casper ads. In that case, casper isn't tracking me specifically... just assuming that history podcast listeners might be good mattress customers.
munchbunny 4y ago
This is probably just a semantic difference. In the marketing/advertising industry, “advertising” tends to refer to a subset of channels (banner ads, social media ads, video ads, TV ads, billboards, etc.) while “marketing” refers to the general problem of getting the word out. I think you’re using “advertising” the way a marketing person would use “marketing”. I don't think this changes anyone's point, just clarifying what might feel pedantic where there is a term of art associated.
mrandish 4y ago
> "getting the word out" To be even more precise (or pedantic), "getting the word out" (aka generating awareness) in general is called "Promotion." Advertising is a form of promotion. So is "word-of-mouth" and public relations (aka press relations). All of them fall under the broad responsibility of "Marketing."