For some, it's always seemed like "how things should be". But, it's certainly not a common approach. Indeed, for most people, marketing is just a department of people who generate "marketing materials", which are usually seen as hit-or-miss (mostly miss) pieces for sales people to use. Or, marketing can be the essentially fluffly and useful "mass" communication tools that no one reads. Either way, marketing is usually considered a necessary evil at best and expendable at worst. So, what do we do about this? Many marketers have a sense of their own importance and dislike those who don't "understand" marketing. They think that marketing has it's own intrinsic value. That might be true, but it's not realistic. The reality today is that each component of a business organization must be accountable to contribution to that business's financial success. Luckily, marketing can contribute in this way. The role that marketing should take in the organization is lead generation. Marketing needs to be accountable for creating and handing-off qualified leads to the sales team (or salesperson).