As a planning and execution activity, marketing includes the development, production, pricing, promotion and circulation of a product, a service or an idea, and its purpose is to meet the needs of organizations or individuals through the process of exchange and transaction.
Marketing refers to a series of market-related business activities such as product production, circulation and after-sales service under the guidance of customer demand.
Some scholars define marketing from a macro perspective. Like e.j. McCarthy? Marketing is defined as a process of social and economic activities, and its purpose is to meet the needs of society or human beings and achieve social goals. For another example, Philop Kotler pointed out, "Marketing is a human activity related to the market. Marketing is dealing with the market, in order to meet people's needs and desires and realize potential exchange "(Marketing Management, 5th edition, 13 ~ 14 pages). ?
There are also some definitions expressed from a micro perspective. For example, the American Marketing Association defines marketing in 1960: marketing is "an enterprise marketing activity that guides products or services to flow from producers to consumers".
The definition of marketing MBA: refers to the whole process that an enterprise takes customers as the center, takes the market as the guide, starts with product planning, and comprehensively uses various marketing means to finally achieve its business objectives.
J.E.Mccarthy also defined micro-marketing in 1960: Marketing "is the responsibility of an enterprise's business activities, which leads products and services directly from producers to consumers or users, so as to meet customers' needs and realize the company's profits" (basic marketing, p. 19). Although this definition points out that satisfying customers' needs and realizing enterprises' profits become the company's business objectives, both definitions indicate that marketing activities begin with the end of product production activities and end with the transfer of goods to users. Therefore, enterprise marketing activities are limited to the narrow scope of circulation and are not regarded as the whole process of enterprise sales, including market research, product development, pricing, distribution advertising, publicity and promotion.
Philop K otler defined marketing in 1984 as: Marketing refers to the function of an enterprise, "knowing the unsatisfied demand and desire at present, estimating and determining the demand, selecting and determining the target market that the enterprise can best serve, and determining the appropriate products, services and plans (or schemes) so as to serve the target market" (preface to Marketing Management).
The American Marketing Association (AMA) gave a more complete and comprehensive definition of marketing in 1985: Marketing "is a process of planning and implementing the design, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, products and services, thus generating communication to meet personal and organizational goals." This definition is more comprehensive and perfect than many previous definitions. The main manifestations are as follows: (1) The concept of products has been expanded, including not only products or services, but also ideas; (2) The concept of marketing has been expanded, and marketing activities include not only profitable business activities, but also activities of non-profit organizations; (3) emphasizing the communication process; (4) Highlighting the formulation and implementation of the marketing plan.
In addition, we can also understand this:
1. Marketing is an enterprise activity and a purposeful and conscious behavior of the enterprise. ?
2. Meeting and guiding consumers' needs is the starting point and center of marketing activities. Enterprises must take consumers as the center, face the changing environment and make correct responses to meet the changing needs of consumers. Meeting the needs of consumers includes not only the current needs, but also the potential needs in the future. The current demand is the tendency to buy existing products, while the potential demand is the desire for a certain function of products that have not yet come out. Enterprises should stimulate and guide consumers to generate new demands by developing products and using various marketing methods.
3. Analysis of environment, selection of target market, determination and development of products, product pricing, distribution, promotion and provision of services, and their coordination, cooperation and optimal combination are the main contents of marketing activities. There are four basic variables in the marketing mix that can be controlled artificially, namely, product, price, place and promotion method. Because these four variables all start with the letter "P" in English, they are also called "4Ps". What an enterprise needs to do in its marketing activities is to pay close attention to the changes in the uncontrollable external environment, properly combine the "4Ps" and do everything possible to make the controllable variables (4Ps) of the enterprise quickly adapt to the uncontrollable variables in the external environment, which is also the key to the success of its operation and the survival and development of the enterprise. ?
4. Achieving enterprise goals is the purpose of marketing activities. Different enterprises have different business environments, different enterprises will be in different development periods, and different products will be in different stages of their life cycle. Therefore, the goals of enterprises are varied, such as profit, output value, output, sales volume, market share, production growth rate and social responsibility. But no matter what the goals are, they must be exchanged through effective marketing activities and reach a deal with customers.
Marketing concept
1) Why do you say that the formation of marketing ideas is a fundamental change in marketing ideas?
2) What was the great development of marketing concept in 1970s?
Business philosophy is the guiding ideology of business activities, and it is the key to how enterprises treat customers and social interests, that is, how to deal with the proportion of interests among enterprises, customers and society. The evolution of business philosophy of Chinese and western enterprises has gone through the process from "production-centered" to "customer-centered", from "sales by production" to "production by sales". The evolution of enterprise management concept not only reflects the development of social productive forces and market trends, but also reflects the deepening of enterprise leaders' understanding of the objective laws of marketing development. This can be seen from the evolution of American business management thought.
The marketing management concepts of modern enterprises can be summarized into five kinds, namely, production concept, product concept, promotion concept, marketing concept and social marketing concept.
(A) the concept of production
The concept of production is one of the oldest concepts to guide the behavior of sellers. This concept came into being before the 1920s. Business philosophy is not based on consumer demand, but on enterprise production. Its main performance is "what I produce, what I sell". According to the production concept, consumers like low-priced products that can be bought everywhere, and enterprises should devote themselves to improving production efficiency and circulation efficiency, expanding production and reducing costs to expand the market. For example, from 1869 to the 1920s, Fort Pierce Flour Company in the United States always used the concept of production to guide the operation of enterprises. At that time, the slogan put forward by the company was "The goal of our company is to make flour". Henry Ford, the American car king, once proudly declared, "No matter what color car customers need, I only have a black one." It is also a typical performance. Obviously, the concept of production is a business philosophy that emphasizes production and ignores marketing.
The concept of production came into being under the seller's market conditions. In the early stage of capitalist industrialization, the end of World War II and a period after the war, due to the shortage of materials and products in the market, the concept of production was quite popular in enterprise management. Under the old planned economy system in China, due to the shortage of products in the market, enterprises are worried that their products have no market, and industrial and commercial enterprises also pursue the concept of production in their operations, which is embodied in the following aspects: industrial enterprises concentrate on developing production, despise marketing, and implement fixed sales by production; Commercial enterprises concentrate on the supply of goods, buy whatever they produce in industry, and buy as much as they produce in industry, without paying attention to marketing.
In addition to the shortage of materials and products, the marketing management of some enterprises is also dominated by product concepts in the case of high product costs. For example, at the beginning of this century, Henry Ford devoted himself to mass production of automobiles, striving to reduce costs and make them affordable for consumers, so as to increase Ford's market share.
(2) Product concept
It is also an early enterprise management concept. According to the product concept, consumers like products with high quality, multi-function and certain characteristics best, and enterprises should devote themselves to producing high-value products and constantly improve them. It comes from the situation of "seller's market" in which the market products are in short supply. The easiest place to breed product creativity is when enterprises invent new products. At this time, enterprises are most likely to lead to "marketing myopia", that is, improperly focusing on products rather than market demand, lacking foresight in marketing management, only seeing the good quality of their own products, but not the changes in market demand, which leads to the dilemma of enterprise management.
For example, the American ××× Watch Company was founded in 1869, and was recognized as one of the best watch manufacturers in the United States until the 1950s. The company emphasizes the production of high-quality products in marketing management, and distributes products through the marketing network composed of famous jewelry stores and department stores. Before 1958, the company's sales have been on the rise. But since then, its sales volume and market share began to decline. The main reason for this situation is that the market situation has changed: many consumers in this period are no longer interested in expensive watches, but tend to buy those economical, convenient and novel watches; Moreover, many manufacturers began to produce low-grade products to meet the needs of consumers, and actively promoted them through mass distribution channels such as cheap shops and supermarkets, thus winning most of the market share of XX Watch Company. Xxx Watch Company did not notice the change of the market situation, but still insisted on producing exquisite traditional style watches and still sold them through traditional channels, thinking that its products were of good quality and customers would come to you. As a result, the operation of the enterprise suffered a major setback.
(c) selling ideas
The concept of promotion (or sales concept) came into being from the late 1920s to the early 1950s. It is another concept adopted by many enterprises, which embodies "what customers buy and what I sell". In its view, consumers usually show a purchasing inertia or rebellious psychology. If left alone, consumers generally will not buy enough enterprise products. Therefore, enterprises must actively promote sales and vigorously promote sales to stimulate consumers to buy their products in large quantities. Under the condition of modern market economy, the concept of promotion is widely used to promote those goods that are not expected, that is, buyers generally do not think of buying products or services. Many enterprises often pursue the concept of promotion when there is a surplus of products.
The concept of promotion originated from the transitional stage from "seller's market" to "buyer's market" in capitalist countries. During the period of 1920- 1945, due to the promotion of scientific and technological progress, scientific management and mass production, the output of products increased rapidly, and a new situation of oversupply of products and fierce competition among vendors gradually appeared in the market. Especially during the economic crisis of 1929- 1933, a large number of products could not be sold, forcing enterprises to pay attention to promoting products by means of advertising and promotion. Many entrepreneurs feel that even if there are good and cheap products, they may not be able to sell them; In order to survive and develop in the increasingly fierce market competition, enterprises must attach importance to promotion. For example, under the guidance of this business philosophy, the Fort Pierce Flour Company of the United States proposed at that time that "our company aims at promoting flour". The concept of promotion still exists in today's enterprise marketing activities. For example, for products that customers don't want to buy, forced sales promotion is often adopted.
Although this concept is one step ahead of the first two concepts and has begun to attach importance to advertising and promotion, its essence is still production-oriented.
(D) the concept of marketing
Marketing concept is a challenge to the above concept and a new enterprise management concept. This concept is based on meeting the needs of customers, that is, "what customers need, they produce." Although this idea has a long history, its core principles were not basically finalized until the mid-1950s. At that time, social productive forces developed rapidly, and the market trend was a buyer's market with oversupply. At the same time, residents' personal income has increased rapidly, and it is possible to choose products. In order to realize the intensification of competition among enterprises, many enterprises begin to realize that in order to survive and develop, they must change their management concepts. According to the marketing concept, the key for an enterprise to achieve its goal is to correctly determine the demand and desire of the target market, and deliver the goods or services expected by the target market more effectively than competitors, so as to meet the demand and desire of the target market more effectively than competitors.
The appearance of marketing concept has brought about a fundamental change in the business philosophy of enterprises, which is a revolution in marketing. The concept of marketing is quite different from that of promotion.
Theodore levitt once made a profound comparison between the concepts of sales promotion and marketing, pointing out that the concept of sales promotion focuses on the needs of sellers. Marketing concept focuses on buyers' needs. The idea of promotion is to take the seller's demand as the starting point and consider how to turn the product into cash; The marketing concept considers how to meet the needs of customers by manufacturing and delivering products and everything related to the final consumer products. It can be seen that the four pillars of marketing concept are: market center, customer orientation, collaborative marketing and profit. The four pillars of the promotion concept are: factory, product positioning, promotion and profit. In essence, the concept of marketing is a philosophy oriented to customers' needs and desires, and it is the embodiment of consumer sovereignty theory in enterprise marketing management.
Many excellent enterprises are pursuing the concept of marketing. For example, Honda Motor Company of Japan will launch a new Accord brand car in the United States. Before designing the new car, they sent engineers and technicians to Los Angeles to inspect the expressway, measure the length and width of the expressway on the spot, collect the asphalt of the expressway and photograph the design of the entrance and exit roads. After returning to Japan, they specially built a 9-mile-long highway, and even the road signs and signs were exactly the same as those on American highways. When designing the luggage, the designers had different opinions, so they went to the parking lot for an afternoon to see how everyone put their luggage. In this way, opinions were immediately unified. As a result, Honda's Accord became very popular as soon as it arrived in the United States, and it was called a good car acceptable all over the world.
Another example is Disneyland in America, where joy is as ubiquitous as air. It makes every child's dream come true from all over the world, and makes adults of all colors have the love of forgetting friends. Because when Disneyland was founded, its goal was clear: its products were not Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, but happiness. People come here to have fun. Parks provide all the fun. Everyone in the company should be a happy soul. No matter who the tourists ask, they must answer with "Disney etiquette" and never say "I don't know". Therefore, tourists come back here again and again, enjoy the fun and are willing to pay the price. On the other hand, some entertainment cities, folk villages and world scenic cities. In China, monotonous programs, expressionless explanations and indifferent faces make people feel very cold. How can they be happy? Thus, it is urgent for China enterprises to establish marketing concepts.
(E) the concept of social marketing
The concept of social marketing is a revision and supplement to the concept of marketing. It came into being under the new situation of western capitalist energy shortage, inflation, increasing unemployment, serious environmental pollution and the prevalence of consumer protection movement in the 1970s. Because the concept of marketing avoids the reality of the conflict between consumer demand, consumer interests and long-term social welfare. According to the concept of social marketing, the task of an enterprise is to determine the needs, desires and interests of each target market, and provide the target market with goods or services that can meet their needs, desires and interests more effectively and favorably than competitors by protecting or improving consumers and social welfare. The concept of social marketing requires marketers to consider three interests when formulating marketing policies, namely, corporate profits, meeting consumer needs and social interests.
The emergence and existence of the above five business management concepts have their historical background and inevitability, and they are all interrelated and adapted to certain conditions. At present, foreign enterprises are shifting from production to management or service. In order to survive and develop, enterprises must establish modern marketing concepts and social marketing concepts. However, it must be pointed out that due to many factors, not all American enterprises have established marketing concepts and social marketing concepts. In fact, there are still many enterprises that are oriented by product concept and marketing concept.
At present, China is still in the primary stage of socialist market economy. Restricted by the development degree of social productive forces, the market development trend, the situation of economic system reform and the income of ordinary residents, China's business concept is still in the stage of sales promotion and coexistence of various concepts.