Of course you need both if you want the company to survive over the long term but...

...you can make a $h1tload of money through marketing without having a real product!

This is exactly what crowd funding is, money is invested into a product that DOES NOT YET exist...people fund the CONCEPT or the IDEA. If they are lucky they get something in return, if they are like 90% of funders they get nothing but empty promises.

Thus; I will say it again and again and again: You can make a lot of money without having a real product and further, you can position a crappy product in the market so that people think that it is a good product through marketing.

I think that product delivery is the most important for a weeny little company and marketing is the most important for a large company. The reason I say this is because the little company is dependent on each sale for its survival whilst the large company is predominantly dependent on its brand image for its survival.

If you are operating in market saturated by similar products then the only weapon that you have is marketing. BMW, AUDI & Merc are all brilliant vehicles with brilliant service centres, the only thing that sets them apart are brand image which is a direct function of marketing.

Think about it this way, there are 10 second-hand car dealers in a row, who will you buy from? - they all got a mixture of crap cars and good cars, they all have the same finance arrangements, the same insurance arrangements, service centres etc. You will buy from the best MARKETER...of course I will buy from the pretty girl in the tight skirt (which incidentally is also pure marketing aimed at my monkey brain rather than my left brain.

I bet that more high class high value cars are sold to powerful men by pretty ladies than men, and also that men would rather buy a bakkie from a guy that looks like a farmer than from a pretty girl dressed in high heels.

Don't kid yourself, marketers have us all by the short & curlies, we are simply to caught up in our perceptions that we do not realize that we are being played like soldiers who getting killed for the delusions of grandeur of an insane dictator.