Does it really matter whether we can actually “generate” demand?

One camp argues it’s ludicrously naïve to say marketing can ‘magic up’ demand where none previously existed. The marketer’s job is to make sure their brand is in the best position when the customer decides to come to market of their own accord. The other camp says of course we don’t magic demand out of thin air, but we can have a meaningful, and perhaps definitive, influence on whether a purchase is made or how a budget is spent. 

Both positions seem reasonable, nor do they contradict each other. Why, then, is everyone getting so worked up? 

Partly I think it is because, behind the question about demand creation, there is a deeper one. A question which pokes a stick in the ribs of some of our deepest anxieties: how much agency do we marketers really have?