Special Report

When trying to assess performance, there is no business function top executives worry about more than marketing. Most of them look at the marketers in their companies as something between vacuum-cleaner salespeople and saviors. They fear being sold fancy marketing gizmos they do not want, and they worry that the pledges of marketing salvation will bring real and measurable returns only in a “better world to come.”

A version of this article appeared in the September–October 1989 issue of Harvard Business Review.