Marketing

Marjeting Concepts

1. What is marketing? What is the marketing concept and discuss its evolution. How does the marketing concept differ from the production and sales concepts? What are the conditions that must exist before an exchange can take place? Describe the variables of the marketing mix and how they interact.

(i) Marketing: Marketing is the systematic process of identifying and anticipating the needs of actual or prospective customers for raw materials and consumer goods and services, bringing them to an optimal appreciation of these needs, and satisfying these needs profitably. Marketing begins with the identification of the (current or potential) needs of consumers, through close comprehensive survey, and ends with the gainful satisfaction of them.

(ii) The Marketing concept: The marketing concept is the philosophy that recommends identifying, analysing and satisfying consumer needs better than competitors (The Marketing Concept 2006). The marketing concept evolved from three preceding concepts: The product concept, the production concept and the selling concept (Robert D.).

Market Street

Asian Family Customers Shopping in The Super Marke...

[Fish market, Bergen, Norway] (LOC)

The product concept, a principle that encourages excellence in production and services in the belief that consumers have an appreciation of excellence, "emphasizes product quality and/or performance, and assumes that at least some consumers are knowledgeable enough to recognize and respect superior attributes in these areas." (ibid). Thus, once manufacturers come up with an idea for a new brand of a product which they decide is excellent, they go ahead to produce them in wholesale quantities, believing that consumers will readily see and appreciate the value they attach to the brand. There is obviously a certain element of high-handedness in this concept which makes the manufacturers set the standards of excellence irrespective of the tastes of the consumers.

This concept soon lost popularity and gave way to the production concept which places premium on quantity and affordability of...