MARKETING CONCEPT

Marketing Concept



Marketing Concept

Part 1: What are the major differences between the marketing concept and the other four marketing management philosophies?

Marketing is the process associated with promoting for sale goods or services. It is considered a "social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and values with others."[1] It is an integrated process through which companies create value for customers and build strong customer relationships in order to capture value from customers in return.[1] (Kotler, Gary, 1999)

Marketing is used to create the customer, to keep the customer and to satisfy the customer. With the customer as the focus of its activities, it can be concluded that marketing management is one of the major components of business management. The evolution of marketing was caused due to mature markets and overcapacities in the last decades. Companies then shifted the focus from production more to the customer in order to stay profitable. (Kotler, Gary, 1999)

The term marketing concept holds that achieving organisational goals depends on knowing the needs and wants of target markets and delivering the desired satisfactions.[2] It proposes that in order to satisfy its organizational objectives, an organization should anticipate the needs and wants of consumers and satisfy these more effectively than competitors.[2]

Marketing is defined by the American Marketing Association [AMA] as "the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large."[3] The term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to a market to buy or sell goods or services. Seen from a systems point of view, sales process engineering views marketing as "a set of processes that are interconnected and interdependent with other functions,[4] whose methods can be improved using a variety of relatively new approaches." (Kotler, Gary, 1999)

The Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as "the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably."[5] A different concept is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value.[6] In this context, marketing is defined as "the management process that seeks to maximise returns to shareholders by developing relationships with valued customers and creating a competitive advantage."[6] (Kotler, Gary, 1999)

Marketing practice tended to be seen as a creative industry in the past, which included advertising, distribution and selling. However, because the academic study of marketing makes extensive use of social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics, economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the profession is now widely recognized as a science, allowing numerous universities to offer Master-of-Science (MSc) programmes. The overall process starts with marketing research and goes through market segmentation, business planning and execution, ending with pre and post-sales promotional activities. It is also related to many of the creative arts. (Kotler, Gary, 1999)

The marketing literature is also adept at re-inventing itself and its vocabulary according to the times and the culture.

Customer orientation

A firm in themarket economy survives by producing goods that ...