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Marketing
October 20, 2026 Marketing is everything a business does to understand what customers need, create a product that meets that need, price it, get it into customers’ hands and let them know it exists.
What is marketing?
The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines marketing as “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” (AMA, Definitions of Marketing, approved in its revised form in 2017).
At many Vietnamese companies, “doing marketing” is often taken to mean running Facebook or TikTok ads or posting on the brand’s fan page. Advertising is only one part of the communications piece. If a product is priced wrong or is missing from the channels where customers usually shop, even great ads will struggle to sell it.
What does marketing include?
The best-known framework is the 4Ps (the marketing mix), introduced by E. Jerome McCarthy in 1960. The table below uses a hypothetical new roasted coffee brand in Ho Chi Minh City as the example.
| Element | Question to answer | Example (hypothetical) |
|---|---|---|
| Product | What are we selling, to whom, and how is it different from competitors? | Plain-roasted Robusta from Dak Lak, in 250g bags for people who brew with a phin filter at home |
| Price | How much will customers pay, and is there still a margin after marketplace fees and shipping? | VND 95,000 per bag, more than supermarket coffee but less than specialty cafes |
| Place | Where do customers buy? | Shopee, TikTok Shop and 20 small grocery stores around office areas |
| Promotion | How do customers find out about the product? | Phin brewing videos on TikTok, search ads, free samples in stores |
For services, many textbooks extend this to the 7Ps (adding People, Process and Physical evidence). Either framework works, as long as someone owns the decisions for every element.
Brand building and sales activation
Marketing budgets usually split into two kinds of work. Brand building gets more people to remember and like the brand; the effect comes slowly but lasts. Sales activation, such as discount codes, retargeting and livestream selling, brings in orders right away, but orders fall as soon as the budget is switched off.
Les Binet and Peter Field analyzed campaign data from the UK’s Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) in their report “The Long and the Short of It” (2013) and proposed an optimal split of about 60:40 between brand building and activation. A later report, “Effectiveness in Context”, arrived at 62:38 (IPA, September 2023). This is an average across many industries, not a formula. A new shop on a marketplace with thin cash flow is right to put more into activation. An established brand with steady revenue that runs nothing but promotions will see its brand value wear away.
Marketing vs commonly confused terms
| Term | Scope |
|---|---|
| Marketing | All 4Ps: product, price, sales channels, communications |
| Sales | Closing deals with individual customers or distributors |
| Advertising | Buying placements on paid channels, part of Promotion |
| Branding | Building the brand’s image and impression in customers’ minds, one area of marketing |
Marketing answers “what do we sell, to whom, at what price and where”. Brand strategy is narrower: what the brand wants to be remembered for, and how it keeps that promise at every touchpoint.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between marketing and digital marketing?
Digital marketing is the part of marketing that happens on digital channels: websites, SEO, social media, e-commerce marketplaces and online ads. Its biggest advantage is that almost every click and every order can be measured, which makes data-driven marketing easier to put into practice.
Is growth marketing a type of marketing?
Yes. Growth marketing is a way of doing marketing through fast test cycles across the whole funnel, from acquiring new customers to retention and referrals, instead of focusing only on the top of the funnel.
Does a small business need its own marketing department?
Not necessarily. It needs someone accountable for all 4Ps and one number tracked every month, such as the cost of acquiring a new customer. That person can be the owner.
If you need to build a marketing plan and split your budget between brand building and conversion ads, contact Adtek to talk with our Brand Strategy and advertising teams.
