Marketing has not always distinquished itself as an intellectual discipline.  One measure: the "top ten" list for marketing books contains several titles that would be ridiculed in other more rigorous fields.   (They know who they are.  Um, no, probably they have no idea.)

Part of the problem is that marketing has been the bastard child of the professional world.  A certain stigma attaches to the field and I think its fair to say that this stigma is, to some extent, the propagandistic achievement of the likes of John Kenneth Galbraith and other post-war intellectuals. 

Marketer, heal thy self.   One of the ways to fight this public standing is to lionize the founders of the field, especially when these founders are people of remarkable talent and accomplishment.

This weekend we lost Peter Drucker. 

Peter Drucker invented the field of modern management. Through his 35 books and hundreds of seminal articles Drucker has had an enormous influence on the managers of corporations, nonprofits and government agencies around the world. … According to Drucker biographer Jack Beatty…, "this writer has had more influence on the lives of human beings than any other writer of this (20th) century." Procter & Gamble’s CEO A.G. Lafley calls Drucker the Babe Ruth and Ted Williams of management writers and consultants. GE’s former CEO Jack Welch: " Management around the world owes a debt of gratitude to Drucker who devoted his life to clarifying the role of an organization in our society."  (From the website "Leader to Leader" here.)

Peter Drucker is the Father of Management. For many of us, he is our role model, continually generating new ideas and refining old ones. I regard it as a compliment when some people call me the Father of Marketing. I tell them that if this the case, then Peter Drucker is the Grandfather of marketing. (Philip Kotler here.)