Эволюция маркетинга

It is impossible to speak about marketing without understanding what "needs and wants" mean. So let's begin with the definition of needs and wants. A need occurs when a person feels physiologically deprived of basic necessities like food, clothing, and shelter. A want is a felt need that is shaped by a person's knowledge, culture, and personality. So if you feel hungry, you have developed a basic need and desire to eat something. Let's say you then want to eat an apple or a candy bar because, based on your past experience and personality, you know these will satisfy your hunger need. Effective marketing, in the form of creating an awareness of good product at convenient locations, can clearly shape a person's wants.

The American Marketing Association, representing marketing professionals in the United States and Canada, states that "marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives." Many people incorrectly believe that marketing is the same thing as advertising or personal selling. This definition shows marketing to be a far broader activity. Further, this definition stresses the importance of beneficial exchanges that satisfy the objectives of both those who buy and those who sell ideas, goods, and services – whether they be individuals or organizations.

То serve both buyers and sellers, marketing seeks (1) to discover the needs and wants of prospective customers and (2) to satisfy them. These prospective customers include both individuals buying for themselves and their households and organizations that buy for their own use (such as manufacturers) or for resale (such as wholesalers and retailers). The key to achieving these two objectives is the idea of exchange, which is the trade of things of value between buyer and seller so that each is better off after the trade.

For marketing to occur, at least four factors are required: (1) two or more parties (individuals or organizations) with unsatisfied needs, (2) desire and ability on their part to be satisfied, (3) a way for the parties to communicate, and (4) something to exchange.

Finding the right market 

It only makes sense that, before you go after new customers or bring a product or service to market, you should make sure the product or service has a market. Likewise, you should know who has a desire and need for your product or service. This means digging up all the information you can – about present and potential customers, about the competition, and about the image people have of your company, product, or service. This brings us to three highly important words in marketing – demographics, psychographics, and geographies.

Demographics provides the most frequently used information. It includes data about age, sex, occupation, income, race, religion, family size, level of education, and nationality.

Psychographics gets personal. It gives psychological characteristics. It zeroes in on the behaviour that reveals people's personal values, self-concepts, interests, opinions, and lifestyles. It tells, for instance, why people buy certain products over those of the competition, how often they make such purchases, and whether they are impulse buyers or planned purchasers.

Geographies is particularly useful for direct-mail programs. With geographies, a target market is defined by its location – a neighbourhood, city, or state, or sometimes according to population density (urban, suburban, or rural market, for example).

Lifestyle is defined as how one lives. One's lifestyle is a function of inherent individual characteristics that have been shaped and formed through social interaction as one moves through the life cycle. Thus, lifestyle is influenced by such factors as culture, values, demographics, subculture, social class, reference groups, family, and individual characteristics such as motives, emotions, and personality. Individuals and households both have lifestyles. While household lifestyles are in part determined by the individual lifestyles of the household members, the reverse is also true.

Our desired lifestyle influences our needs and attitudes and thus our purchase and use behaviour. It determines many of our consumption decisions which, in turn, reinforce or alter our lifestyle. Thus, marketers view lifestyle as central to the consumption process. Lifestyle analysis can be used by marketers with respect to specific areas of consumers' lives, such as outdoor recreation. This is a common, much applied approach. A second approach is to capture the general lifestyle patterns of a population.

Attempts to develop quantitative measures of lifestyle are initially referred to as psychographics. In fact, psychographics and lifestyle are frequently used interchangeably. Now psychographics or lifestyle studies typically include the following:

– Attitudes: evaluative statements about other people, places, ideas, products, etc.

– Values: widely held beliefs about what is acceptable and/or desirable.

– Activities and interests: nonoccupational behaviours to which consumers devote their effort, such as hobbies, sports, public service, and church.

– Media patterns: which specific media the consumer utilizes.

– Usage rates: measurements of consumption within a specified

product category. Often consumers are categorized as heavy, medium, light, or nonusers.

Consumers can be categorized also according to their self-orientation and resources. Marketers differentiate three primary self-orientations:

– Principle-oriented – these individuals are guided in their choices by their beliefs and principles rather than by feelings, events, or desire for approval.

Status-oriented – these individuals are heavily influenced by the actions, approval, and opinions of others.

Action-oriented – these individuals desire social or physical activity, variety, and risk-taking.

The second dimension, termed resources, reflects the ability of individuals to pursue their dominant self-orientation. It refers to the full range of psychological, physical, demographic, and material means on which consumer can draw. Resources generally increase from adolescence through middle age and then remain relatively stable until they begin to decline with older age.

Consumers are so different

Consumer's self-orientation determines the types of goals and behaviours that individuals will pursue. Marketers differentiate the following groups of consumers.

Believers are conservative, conventional people with concrete beliefs based on traditional, established codes: family, church, community, and nation. Many Believers express moral codes that are deeply rooted and literally interpreted. They follow established routines, organized in large part around their homes, families, and social or religious organizations to which they belong. As consumers, they are conservative and predictable, favoring native products and established brands.

Achievers are successful career- and work-oriented people who like to, and generally do, feel in control of their lives. They value consensus, predictability, and stability over risk, intimacy, and self-discovery. They are deeply committed to work and family. Work provides them with a sense of duty, material rewards, and prestige. Their social lives reflect this focus and are structured around family, church, and career. Achievers live conventional lives, are politically conservative, and respect authority and the status quo. Image is important to them; they favor established, prestige products and services that demonstrate success to their peers.

Makers are practical people who have constructive skills and value self-sufficiency. They live within a traditional context of family, practical work, and physical recreation and have little interest in what lies outside that context. Makers experience the world by working on it – building a house, raising children, fixing a car, or canning vegetables – and have sufficient skill, income, and energy to carry out their projects successfully. Makers are politically conservative, suspicious of new ideas, respectful of government intrusion on individual rights. They are unimpressed by material possessions other than those with a practical or functional purpose (e.g., tools, pick-up tracks, or fishing equipment).