Why do students who are otherwise intelligent get caught up in tools and lose sight of purpose? They go to the stationery shop filled with different types of ball pens and think that they are in a "competitive market" and that the "ball pens are now a commodity". To become a great marketer they should not look at the products (industry) but look at the customers (market). Once they do that, there will be a sea change. They will see many opportunities for usage of ball pens where they are not used. They will see many people still not using ball pens at all. Then they will get out of the commodity mind set.
One girl asked me are safety pins not a commodity. I asked her to put 50 pins side by side on a table and then conceive, for each pin, a different customer and a different application. I told her by the time she comes to the 20th safety pin in front of her, she will have at least one good idea how to break out of the commodity mindset.
That's the difference between engineers and marketers. Engineers consider the ball pen as a product and looks at finding a customer for the product. A marketer considers "giving gift" as an occasion which creates a market and ball pen as just one of the things that a customer can buy to fulfill that market role.
