No, that does not create value. It creates the impression of creating value, but in actual fact the same number of $ are spent online so the only thing that changes is where the money is spent. Value creation is a way to get out of the zero sum game.
If a business X is 5% better than business Y (for whatever reason) and marketing helps a customer go to business X rather than business Y then value is being created.
If you ask the business owners of X and Y which business is the better one then I'm sure that you'll get two different answers.
I don't think it is so hard to see that value creation is something that can't exist without creation. So when you take a set of low value inputs and you combine them (say, raw materials + energy + labour) and you then get something that you can sell for more than the inputs were worth then you have created value.
Marketing by itself does not create value (other than that it diverts some funds to the marketeer and possibly some funds from consumers to companies whose products are being marketed). Marketing creates turnover, not value.
Typically marketing is used to put more expensive inferior products in the hands of more people rather than cheaper, higher quality products in the hands of more people.
So in that example value is destroyed, which is a ton easier (and much more likely) as a result of marketing than creating value (even if it is possible it likely is not going to happen, those that engage in marketing are rarely philanthropists).
I'm not sure I agree about "typically" although I certainly agree that marketing can be used in that way.
Why is value much more likely to be destroyed as a result of marketing? Per unit of product I can see that this is the case as some of the value must be spent on marketing, but if more product is sold than would have been otherwise extra value can be created overall.
Engineers are also not philanthropists. I don't see what difference this makes
> Per unit of product I can see that this is the case as some of the value must be spent on marketing
You got it perfectly.
> but if more product is sold than would have been otherwise extra value can be created overall.
But selling product does not equate to value creation, it equates to an exchange.
I'm not sure why I am incapable of communicating this point more clearly, but value creation is a totally different thing than increasing turnover or profits or taking more or less money out of the hands of consumers.
Maybe there is a double meaning to this that I'm not aware of but for me 'value creation' is a fairly narrowly defined term and marketing does not enter into it.
> Engineers are also not philanthropists. I don't see what difference this makes
Engineers don't claim to improve the world by marketing either, neither do they claim to 'create value' when they write a piece of software.
However that is much closer to my view on value creation than the view that a marketeer creates value by getting a consumer to spend money on some product.
Business X may easily gain more than business Y loses, if the site cleanup
yields a site that's easier to find, has more descriptive content, and is
more accessible. Y's previously higher ranking may have caused some potential
buyers in a product space to abandon looking--even if temporarily--due to lack
of time or loss of interest. X might have a good product that missed some sales
due to a "meh" reaction to Y's previously higher-ranked site.
Marketing effect can be difficult to quantify, but it's about more than ad
dollars and the bottom line is definitely not a zero-sum game. While SEO
doesn't lack for bad actors, white-hat SEO can help grow markets.
