Marketing games. Some people consider it a necessary evil at best.  At worst, it’s the root of all of the industry’s ills. But what is marketing? The problem is that most people don’t know – and don’t realize they don’t know. And if you don’t know what it is, you can’t effectively develop a marketing strategy or manage the people who do so. You can’t ask your marketing department the right questions if you don’t know what the right questions are. So, before we dive into the functional aspects of marketing, let’s formalize our understanding of the field.