marketing

Definition:
There is no single, universally agreed definition of marketing and a selection of those in common currency underlines the diversity of perspectives adopted by different authors, viz.: (1) Marketing is the process of determining consumer demand for a product or service, motivating its sale and distributing it into ultimate consumption at a profit (E.F.L. Brech, Principles of Management, 1953). (2) Marketing is selling goods that don't come back to people who do. (3) Marketing is not only much broader than selling, it is not a specialized activity at all. It encompasses the entire business. It is the whole business seen from the point of view of its final result, that is, from the customer's point of view. Concern and responsibility for marketing must therefore permeate all areas of the enterprise (Peter F. Drucker, The Practice of Management, 1954). (4) Marketing is the distinguishing, the unique function of the business (ibid.). (5) Marketing - The performance of business activities that direct the flow of goods and services from producer to consumer or user. Marketing is the creation of time, place and possession utilities. Marketing moves goods from place to place, stores them, and effects changes in ownership by buying and selling them. Marketing consists of the activities of buying, selling, transporting and storing goods. Marketing includes those business activities involved in the flow of goods and services between producers and consumers (Converse, Huegy and Mitchell, Elements of Marketing, 7th edn, 1965). (6) Marketing is the set of human activities directed at facilitating and consummating exchanges. (Kotler, Marketing Management, 2nd edn, 1972). (7) The delivery of a standard of living. (8) Marketing is the process whereby society, to supply its consumption needs, evolves distributive systems composed of participants, who, interacting under constraints - technical (economic) and ethical (social) - create the transactions or flows which resolve market separations and result in exchange and consumption (Robert Bartels, 'The General Theory of Marketing', Journal of Marketing, XXXII (Jan 1968) pp. 29-33). (9) The function of marketing is the establishment of contact (Paul T. Cherington, The Elements of Marketing, 1920). The proliferation of definitions was the subject of an article entitled 'What Exactly is Marketing' (Quarterly Review of Marketing, Winter 1975) in which Keith Crosier reviewed over fifty definitions and classified them into three major groups: (a) Definitions which conceive of marketing as a process 'enacted via the marketing channel connecting the producing company with its market', e.g. 'The primary management function which organizes and directs the aggregate of business activites involved in converting customer purchasing power into effective demand for a specific product or service and in moving the product or service to the final customer or user, so as to achieve company-set profit or other objectives' (L.W. Rodger, Marketing in a Competitive Economy, 3rd revised edn, 1971). (b) Definitions which see marketing as a concept or philosophy of business - 'the idea that marketing is a social exchange process involving willing consumers and producers', e.g. 'Selling is preoccupied with the seller's need to convert his product into cash; marketing with the idea of satisfying the needs of the customer by means of the product and the whole cluster of things associated with creating, delivering and finally consuming it' (T. Levitt, 'Marketing Myopia', Harvard Business Review, 1960). (c) Definitions which emphasize marketing as an orientation - 'present to some degree in both consumers and producers: the phenomenon which makes the concept and the process possible'. Only one example is cited by Crosier (from the philosopher Erich Fromm) and is felt to be an unconvincing argument in favour of a third category beyond the view of marketing as a function or as a concept. However, one cannot argue with Crosier's final group of definitions, which seem agreed only on the point that marketing is a complex and confusing phenomenon that combines both the philosophy of business and its practice. There is a general consensus in these definitions but there is no single definition. An explanation of this is to be found in M. Halbert, The Meaning and Sources of Marketing Theory (1965): 'Marketing, however, has no recognized central theoretical basis such as exists for many other disciplines, notably the physical sciences and, in some cases, the behavioural sciences.' Despite the absence of a central theoretical core there are clear indications that marketing, like medicine and engineering before it, is emerging as a practical, synthetic and applied discipline in its own right.

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