Marketing in the 21st Century

Concepts, Challenges and Imperatives

Henry Kyambalesa

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138707726
• eBook ISBN: 9781351781718
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This title was first published in 2000: Designed to explore the emerging challenges for marketing executives and their organizations, as well as to survey the viable strategies for meeting these challenges. The book updates marketing concepts, terminologies and practices dictated by changes in social, economic, competitive and technological conditions. Additionally, the role governments need to play in order to create an enabling environment in which business institutions can provide goods and services at reasonable costs and prices is clearly spelt out.

Chapter 1
The Marketing Function

This chapter is devoted to a survey of both traditional and emerging marketing concepts. First, several existing definitions of the term "marketing" presented by selected authoritative marketing associations, authors and scholars are examined and their deficiencies identified. In the light of deficiencies in existing definitions, a versatile and more preferable definition is tendered. Moreover, marketing mix elements (the product, pricing, promotion, and distribution) are discussed in a nutshell.

Second, the Internet - a new and relatively inexpensive tool which marketing managers and their employer-organisations can use to reach potential clients worldwide is discussed. Specifically, the following are discussed in the section: growing popularity of the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW), importance of Webtrade, shortcomings of the Internet, and important information sources for marketers and their organisations.

Third, the process by which marketing activities are managed, that is, marketing management, is examined; each of the four elements of the process - that is, marketing planning, marketing organisation, implementation of marketing plans, and marketing control - is discussed in detail. Fourth, the promotional mix is re-examined and broadened to include the following elements: advertising, publicity, sales talk, bait promotion, shop garnishment, extensive exposure, customer relations, impulsive mail, and emissary-style promotion. Traditionally, the promotional mix is conceived of as comprising only the following elements: advertising, publicity, personal selling, and sales promotion.

In the fifth section, the stages through which marketing is generally said to have developed - namely, the production, sales, and customer orientation eras - are presented. Also, the coming of a new era in marketing, that is, the "market-driving era," is heralded; the new era represents a trend characterised by producers spontaneously drifting away from the age-old concept of identifying needs to that of creating needs, so to speak.

1.1 The Nature of Marketing

What is Marketing?

There are perhaps as many marketing definitions today as there are marketing associations, authors, and practitioners. This has apparently culminated in a situation whereby the status of the marketing function in organisations' formal structures has, by and large, tended to vary according to the nature of the definition of marketing that is generally most appealing to individual executives and/or groups of decision makers. The following are among the numerous definitions tendered by some authoritative marketing associations and various scholars and pundits in the field:

Marketing is a system of interrelated activities designed to develop, price, promote, and distribute goods and services to groups of customers.¹

Marketing consists of individual and organisational activities that facilitate and expedite satisfying exchange relationships in a dynamic environment through the creation, distribution, promotion, and pricing of goods, services, and ideas.²

Marketing is a matching process, based on goals and capabilities, by which a producer provides a marketing mix (product, services, advertising, distribution, pricing, etc.) that meets consumer needs within the limits of society.³

Marketing is the set of activities that facilitates exchange transactions involving economic goods and services for the ultimate purpose of satisfying human needs.⁴

Marketing is the business process by which products are matched with markets and through which transfers of ownership are effected.⁵

Marketing is a human activity directed at satisfying needs and wants through exchange processes.⁶

Marketing is the performance of business activities that direct the flow of goods and services from producer to consumer or user.⁷

A careful examination of these definitions reveals certain deficiencies in them. The first one, for example, suffers from a syntactic problem. The last portion of the definition, "goods and services to groups of customers" implies that the terms "develop," price," and "promote" can each be meaningfully connected to it. But can one "develop goods and services to groups of customers," "price goods and services to groups of customers," and "promote goods and services to groups of customers"?

The second definition also suffers from a syntactic problem; the "individual and organisational activities" part of the definition implies that an individual or organisation cannot engage in marketing activities without the other. This is not true because there are, for example, individuals who are not attached to organisations who are actually involved in the creation, pricing, promotion, and distribution of tangible and/or intangible products.

The third definition is inadequate tor two very obvious reasons. First, it reduces the "promotion" aspect of the marketing mix to "advertising." Second, the term "product and services" in the definition is misleading since services are essentially products, too - they are "intangible" products, as opposed to the "tangible" form of output we commonly refer to as "goods."

The other four definitions imply that product planning and development are not among marketing activities. They suggest that marketing starts after the product has been created. But can an organisation be said to be engaged in marketing if it procures products from producers and sells them to its customers? Is this not merely playing the role of a middleman, a role that is associated with only the distribution aspect of marketing?

Moreover, all these definitions (including the first two) suffer from failure to portray marketing as involving both profit-oriented and non-profit-oriented activities. They seem to restrict marketing to business activities that are in the nature of supplier-buyer exchanges. But marketing has broadened in both its scope and nature to include the non-business dimension involving such activities as the following: the marketing of political candidates, socialised health care, social welfare programmes, and, among many other things, the goods and/or services provided by non-profit-making institutions. In other words, marketing, as Kotler and Levy have observed, is a pervasive human activity;⁸ it transcends the dispensation of tradable goods and services.

Marketing Redefined

Given the deficiencies in most, if not all, existing marketing definitions, the following broad and general definition should provide a much more versatile and preferable description of the marketing function in modern socio-economic settings: "marketing is a set of human activities involved in creating, costing, promoting, and delivering economic and/or social outputs that are intended to satisfy the needs and desires of existing and/or potential customers, users, audiences, or beneficiaries."⁹⁵

There are several important aspects in this definition that need to be identified here; first, marketing involves human activities, that is, the activities of an individual, a group of individuals, or an organisation. Second, marketing involves creating, costing (or pricing), promoting, and delivering economic and/or social outputs (useful goods and/or services), with or without a profit motive. Further, the purpose of marketing activities is to create and deliver economic and/or social values to satisfy the needs and desires of existing and/or potential customers, users, audiences, or beneficiaries. Clearly, this is a more versatile and acceptable definition because it can be applied widely in traditional business, in music, in politics, in health care settings, and by charitable organisations.

In passing, it should be noted that marketing, whether it takes the form of domestic marketing or international marketing, is a very simple idea; it essentially encompasses several basic beliefs; these are: (a) that the assets of a company have little value on their own; (b) that a company's livelihood is based on providing customer satisfaction; (c) that customers are attracted through promises, but held by satisfaction; (d) that marketing can make the promises, but it requires an entire organisation to create customer satisfaction; and (e) that marketing must permeate other organisational units and influence them to contribute positively toward the attainment of marketing and, subsequently, corporate objectives.¹⁰

The Marketing Mix

This sub-section is devoted to a cursory description of the four elements of what is commonly referred to as the marketing mix; these are: (a) the product; (b) pricing; (c) promotion; and (d) distribution, which is sometimes referred to simply as "place." Table 1.1 provides a summary of the nature of decisions that are associated with each of these elements of the marketing mix.

Table 1.1: Marketing Mix Decisions

[1] Product Decisions. Making changes to existing products, branding, packaging, labelling, adding new products, phasing out unprofitable products, and so on.

[2] Pricing/Costing Decisions. Determining marketing costs and setting prices (which may be in the form of fees, charges, fares, rent, premiums, rates, interest, commissions, and the like) that will yield returns consistent with the overall goals of the organisation, while considering such factors as the following: (a) customers’ sensitivity to changes in prices; (b) costs of production; (c) prices of competing products, if any; and (d) government policy pertaining to pricing, if any.

[3] Promotional Decisions. Determining the appropriate promotional mix of advertising, publicity, sales talk, bait promotion, shop garnishment, extensive exposure, customer relations, impulsive mail, and emissary-style promotion; all these promotional tools are discussed later in the fourth section of this chapter.

[4] Distribution Decisions. Making decisions regarding distribution channels (selling directly to ultimate users or through agents, wholesalers, and/or retailers), warehousing or storage, transportation methods, and the like.

According to Philip Kotler, however, marketing executives and their organisations also need to consider two additional elements in their pursuits and endeavours; these are: (a) politics, which requires them to use lobbying and political activity in order to affect market demand; and (b) public opinion, which needs to be managed ingeniously in order to enhance an organisation's long-term success and survival.¹¹

1) THE PRODUCT. The product is the most important element of the marketing mix because it is at the core of the firm's marketing efforts. A product may be described as anything that an organisation can offer to a given market for attention, acquisition, use, or consumption that might satisfy a need or want. It includes physical objects, services, persons, places, organisations, and ideas.

When developing a product, marketing executives and other organisational members who may be involved in product planning and development need to think about the product at three levels, namely, the "core product," the "tangible product," and the "augmented product." The most fundamental level is the core product level, which refers to the benefits or services (and not the features).

For example, consider a vehicle's rear-view mirror. The core product (safety on the road) has to be converted into a tangible product (rear-view mirror), which may have as many as five characteristics: features, styling, quality level, packaging, and a brand name. Finally, an organisation may offer additional services and benefits (a one-month guarantee, for example) to make up an augmented product. This augmentation may be used as a competitive tool to differentiate the organisation's product offerings.

In theory, products generally go through a number of stages in their life spans; each set of stages constituting any given product's life span is commonly referred to as a "product life cycle." The life cycle for any given product normally consists of four distinct stages; these are: (1) introduction, which may sometimes follow the test-marketing of a product; (2) growth; (3) maturity; and (4) decline.

This means that a company'...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface
• 1 THE MARKETING FUNCTION
• 2 THE CHANGING BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT
• 3 CULTURE IN CROSS-BORDER MARKETING
• 4 THE JAPANESE CHALLENGE
• 5 THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENTS
• END NOTES
• GLOSSARY
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX
• THE AUTHOR