I don’t know if there have been any studies done to describe how many marketers there are in the world today. However, within the United States and Canada, I can say that the American Marketing Association is among the largest associations for marketers and is made up of over 38,000 professional members. While many Marketing associations focus on one specific area of marketing, (like advertising, market research or public relations) I’ve found the AMA to reach a wider audience because it covers every area of marketing. As great as the AMA is, I decided that 38,000 couldn’t be the whole universe…

So, for starters, I looked at the Marketing universe on LinkedIn:
Within LinkedIn there are more than 567,000 individual bios that contain the term “Marketing” in their profiles. While only 292,000 have selected “marketing and advertising” as their professional category and only 141,000 have selected the “market research” category to identify themselves. To include PR in the mix, I found that 277,000 have selected “public relations and communications” as their professional category. Keep in mind that a person can only select ONE category for their profile.

Oddly enough, if you add up the three distinctions together (Marketing and Advertising, Market Research and Public Relations and Communications) you will have 710,000 individual profiles on LinkedIn who have identified themselves as marketers… even though only 567,000 actually use the word “Marketing” in their profile.

I find it quite interesting that 20% of all these Marketing individuals did not feel the need to use the word, “marketing” in their profile in order to best describe their job, their work experience or their interests.

Myles Bristowe
President-elect, AMA Boston

This winter, tantalize your palette and warm your soul by joining AMA Boston for an exclusive evening of tasting Northern Mediterranean food & wines at Vlora. Located in the historic Back Bay, Vlora is Boston’s destination for the authentic and delicious cuisine of Southern Italy, Greece and Albania.

REGISTER NOW!

Date: Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Time: 6:30pm - 8:30pm (registration opens at 6:00pm)
Place: Vlora Restaurant, 545 Boylston Street, Boston
Price: $30 for members; $45 for non-members; $25 for student members
Vlora Website: www.vloraboston.com

Special guest Stephen Hodges, President Hult International Business School

As this is the first post of the new blog for the Boston chapter of the American Marketing Association, I think it is appropriate to write a few words about the purpose of the blog.

A blog can enable an organization to publish information quickly, allow readers to subscribe to the blog RSS feed, and give organizations another way and form to communicate. The style of writing a blog post can be very different and informal than a traditional website. We hope to showcase the events, programs and local members of the Boston AMA, but we also want to be involved with the wider marketing community. The AMA Boston constitution has been my starting point in thinking about the topics we should cover and the focus of any advocacy in the community. The constitution boils down to the following:

-Help everyone do better marketing work
-Promote professionalism in the practice of marketing
-Promote a greater understanding of marketing principles and practices

If you want to help get involved with the blog and contribute articles that about these themes contact me or the AMA Boston blog team directly.

John Cass
Past President, AMA Boston

Director of Events (3 to 4 positions open)
This position is responsible for the planning and execution of event(s) as well as helping other volunteers prepare and manage events. If you are interested in learning more about what volunteering is about or how it can benefit you, email our VP of Volunteers.

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