When did marketing get lost?

I have been holding off on penning these ramblings. But I just can’t anymore. So here it goes – I might lose a client after this – but it is going to have to be a chance I take. When did marketing start relying on PR to develop its strategies? When did marketing start relying on PR to define its target markets? When did marketing decide that PR needs to do all of its research? When did marketing get lost? Now as a PR I am all for being left alone by the marketing guys and being allowed to get on with my job. In fact I am really good at inventing the opinions of the executives I work with and I haven’t had too many of them complain. But I am more and more being faced with a dilemma that is sending my blood pressure skyrocketing and making me question my sanity and my perceptions of my very profession. Over the last couple of months my briefs have been less a brief, and more an instruction to create, to invent and to establish. Heaven help me if I say I don’t know – or if I ask if they do. Now I promise I am not being melodramatic. Surely it is my job as your PR to expand on your marketing message? To unpack the delicate fabric of your research, your target markets and your go-to-market strategy, and then put these in words, take them to market via media (social and traditional) in carefully packaged content that speaks to YOUR marketing plan? So why is it that today there is no plan? The content has to be made up. The opinions invented. The markets guessed. I have increasingly been put on the spot for not delivering. But I have to ask some questions. Ok what would you like me to deliver? Do you have a campaign we are running? What stock do you need to move? What are your highest sales targets for this quarter and what products / solutions must we focus on? Who are your main partners? What market would you like to reach? But instead of answers I get more instructions. Yes we are tweeting. Yes you are on facebook. No there weren’t 500 likes on your post but we can see that 300 people viewed it. Oh you think likes are the only way to measure this? Yes we are distributing those press releases we are inventing because you haven’t told us what you want us to say. No the business press aren’t interested in speaking to you. Ok you want me to make your brand sexy to the business press. Oh you want a blog. Ok no problem – who must the blog speak to? Ok you have no idea. Oh you want me to create the blog. Ok so you want me to develop a technical platform from which you can blog? But you must be able to drive the blog traffic to your website. Yes I am sure your design / Internet people can make that happen. No I don’t think your company should get a “free” blog you are a known brand who should be able to afford developing a blog. Excellent you have three people who can write and want to blog. Sure we will edit their blogs. Can you send them to me? Three months later…. Why haven’t you started our blog? *beat head on desk* It gets worse. And I can go on. And I will. But not today. I have to quickly go and write something on a technology I didn’t know you sold, for an undetermined target market and you want it to have a business slant. But before I go please help me understand. Has marketing lost the plot? When did we start to put the cart before the horse? And most importantly … Have I lost my mind? - C