Introduction

Marketing has changed over the centuries, decades and years. The production
centered system systematically changed into relationship era of today and over the
period; the specializations have emerged such as sales versus marketing and
advertising versus retailing. The overall evolution of marketing has given rise to the
concept of business development. Marketing has taken the modern shape after going
through various stages since last the end of 19th century. The Production oriented
practice of marketing prior to the twentieth century was conservative and hidebound by
rules-of-thumb and lack of information. Science & technology developments and
specially the development of information technology have now changed the way people
live, the way people do business and the way people sell and purchase.

Review

Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating,

communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer
relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders. According to
Hunt, Shelby D. (July 1976) in the Journal of Marketing. 40 (3): 17–28, Marketing is the
study and management of exchange relationships. Marketing is the business process of
creating relationships with and satisfying customers. With its focus on the customer,
marketing is one of the premier components of business management.

The 'marketing concept' proposes that in order to satisfy the organizational objectives,
an organization should anticipate the needs and wants of potential consumers and
satisfy them more effectively than its competitors. This concept originated from Adam
Smith's book The Wealth of Nations, but would not become widely used until nearly 200
years later.
Marketing and Marketing Concepts are directly related.
Given the centrality of customer needs and wants in marketing, a rich understanding of
these concepts is essential:

Needs: Something necessary for people to live a healthy, stable and safe life. When
needs remain unfulfilled, there is a clear adverse outcome: a dysfunction or death.
Needs can be objective and physical, such as the need for food, water, and shelter; or
subjective and psychological, such as the need to belong to a family or social group and
the need for self-esteem.

Wants: Something that is desired, wished for or aspired to. Wants are not essential for
basic survival and are often shaped by culture or peer-groups.

Demands: When needs and wants are backed by the ability to pay, they have the
potential to become economic demands.

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Marketing research, conducted for the purpose of new product development or product
improvement, is often concerned with identifying the consumer's unmet
needs. Customer needs are central to market segmentation which is concerned with
dividing markets into distinct groups of buyers on the basis of "distinct needs,
characteristics, or behaviors who might require separate products or marketing
mixes." Needs-based segmentation (also known as benefit segmentation) "places the
customers' desires at the forefront of how a company designs and markets products or
services." Although needs-based segmentation is difficult to do in practice, it has been
proved to be one of the most effective ways to segment a market. In addition, a great
deal of advertising and promotion is designed to show how a given product's benefits
meet the customer's needs, wants or expectations in a unique way

Four competing philosophies strongly influence the role of marketing and marketing
activities within an organization. These philosophies are commonly referred to as
production, sales, marketing, and societal marketing orientations.

The production orientation focuses on internal capabilities of the firm rather than on the
desires and needs of the marketplace. The firm is concerned with what it does best,
based on its resources and experience, rather than with what consumers want.

Sales orientation assumes that more goods and services will be purchased if
aggressive sales techniques are used and that high sales result in high profits.

The marketing concept states that the social and economic justification for an
organization's existence is the satisfaction of customer wants and needs while meeting
organizational objectives.

A market orientation involves obtaining information about customers, competitors, and

markets; examining the information from a total business perspective; determining how
to deliver superior customer value; and implementing actions to provide value to
customers.

The societal marketing orientation states that an organization exists not only to satisfy
customer wants and needs and to meet organizational but also to preserve or enhance
individuals and societies long-term best interests.

The production orientation focuses on internal efficiency to achieve lower prices for
consumers. It assumes that price is the critical variable in the purchase decision. A
sales orientation assumes that buyers resist purchasing items that are not essential and
that consumers must be persuaded to buy.

The marketing orientation is based on an understanding that a sale predominantly

depends on the customer's decision to purchase a product and on the customer's
perception of the value of that product. Responsiveness to customer wants is the
central focus of the marketing orientation.

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The societal marketing orientation holds that the firm should strive to satisfy customer
needs and wants while meeting organizational objectives and preserving or enhancing
both the individual's and societies long-term best interests

Conclusion

Marketing provides a delivery system for a standard of living, which is a monumental

task in a society. No matter what an individual's area of concentration in business, the
terminology and fundamentals of marketing are important for communicating with others
in the firm. Between one-fourth and one-third of the entire civilian work force performs
marketing activities. Marketing offers career opportunities in areas such as professional
selling, marketing research, advertising, retail buying, distribution management, product
management, product development, and wholesaling. As a consumer of goods and
services, everyone participates in the marketing process every day. By understanding
marketing, one can become a more sophisticated consumer.

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Reference

1. Evolution of Marketing, First Published: May 27, 2010,

https://www.gktoday.in/gk/evolution-of-marketing/
2. Hunt, Shelby D. (July 1976). "The Nature and Scope of Marketing". Journal of
Marketing. 40 (3): 17–28.
3. Kotler, P., Armstrong, G., Principles of Marketing, 12th ed., Upper Saddle River:
Pearson Education, 2008, p. 29
4. "Marketing library resources – content, knowledge databases". CIM. Retrieved 16
March 2017.

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