Is loyalty really killing marketing dead?

Image credit: http://bavofel.deviantart.com/art/Gun-to-head-334056040In response to Alexander Jutkowitz’s recent article in BRW "How loyalty killed marketing”, I have to disagree (sort of). Far from dying off, the role of the marketer should be set to grow as the importance of brand loyalty increases.The premise of the article is that brands like Apple succeed not because of TVCs and billboards, but because of loyalists who pre-order the next iPhone without a second thought and that this is unrelated to any marketing efforts. This idea takes a very one-dimensional view of marketing as simply advertising (or “shilling”) for direct sales.To be clear, the type of loyalty being discussed is not your typical incentive based loyalty scheme; what we’re talking about is brand loyalty. “Brand” has traditionally been the domain of marketing teams, but in recent times the expression of brands has escaped the marketing department’s four walls and has started to show up in unexpected places. Some examples used in the article are Chipotle (ie. people buy their food because they do things like publish short written pieces from famous smart people on their cups) and J. Crew (ie. people buy their clothes because they want to identify with the lifestyle the brand represents through storytelling). In each of the examples, it is accurately illustrated that people are loyal to a particular brand because it allows them to express their own personal identity (or their aspirational self). "I’m an iPhone guy because style and simplicity is more important to me than having all of the latest features”I absolutely agree that brand loyalty often occurs as a result of an organisation that is able to consistently express their brand at every touchpoint (assuming the brand personality resonates with the target audience). However, I absolutely disagree that marketing doesn’t have a large role to play in developing and proliferating this brand expression. What it does illustrate is that marketing is no longer siloed to a traditional team churning out offers and promotional communications… but we’ve known that for a while now, right? The rise of content marketing platforms over the past decade and entire internal teams and agencies specialising in the use of them should clearly indicate that the marketing world is hip to their shifting responsibilities.The fact that some of the ideas in the above examples didn’t come from marketing teams doesn’t mean that marketing is becoming less important, it just means those specific marketing teams were beaten to the punch. In a world where consumers have so many choices available at the click of a button, marketing teams and agencies will increasingly need to extend their scope of influence beyond promotions to ensure a consistent brand experience is present at every step and within every department of an organisation. Rather than dying off, the role of marketing and brand specialists should actually grow as a result of this shift.As the conversation around the changing role of marketers continues, perhaps a more accurate (but less attention grabbing) headline might be: Brand loyalty is important - but is an outcome of great marketing, not a replacement for it.