Marketing Concept: 5 Philosophy of Marketing Management

What is Marketing Concept?

Marketing Concept is the philosophy that an organization should analyze the needs of their consumers and then make decisions to satisfy those needs, better than the competition.

Clearly, marketing activities should be carried out under a well-thought-out philosophy of efficient, effective, and socially responsible marketing. Today most firms have adopted the marketing concept.

Philosophy of Marketing Management

Basically, there are five different philosophy of marketing management in marketing concept under which business enterprises conduct their marketing activity:

1. Production Concept
2. Product Concept
3. Selling Concept
4. Marketing Concept
5. Social Marketing Concept

Production Concept

The production concept specifies that consumers will prefer products that are widely available and inexpensive. The concept is based on the production orientation of the firm. It is based on the idea that the more we produce, the more revenue we will make.

So, the organization try to lowering production costs and achieve higher volume by following intensive distribution strategy. Managers believe that consumers prefer products that are widely available and priced low.

This seems a viable strategy in a developing market where market expansion is the survival strategy for the business. Application of this concept leads to poor quality of service and a higher level of impersonalisation in business.

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Product Concept

The product concept specifies that consumers will favour quality, performance and other innovative products.

Managers focus on developing superior, innovative products and improving the existing quality and product lines over a period.

Innovations in the scientific laboratory are commercialised and consumers get an opportunity to know and use these products. This is called “Technology Push Model”.

The drawback of this approach is that managers focus on launching products based on their own scientific innovations and technological research and forget to read the consumer’s mind.

It is often observed that innovations enter the market before the market is ready for the product. Innovative products are launched without awareness, educating the customers about them and the probable benefit or value that the consumer is likely to get by using the new products.

Examples of Production Concept of Marketing Management Philosophies

• The Golden Eye Technology was brought to the Indian market by the television major Onida but the market could not perceive the benefit of this advantage.
  
  
• LG brought new technology to the market and achieved marketing success as the customers were more aware of the brand and technology related to televisions.

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Selling Concept

The selling concept specifies that the consumers and business if left alone, will ordinarily not buy enough of the firm’s products. The organization must, therefore, invest in selling and promotion effort.

The selling concept proposes that customers, be individuals or organizations will not buy enough of the firm’s products unless they are persuaded to do so through the selling effort. So, companies should undertake selling and promotion of their products for marketing success.

Examples of Selling Concept of Marketing Management Philosophies

This approach is applicable in the cases of unsought for goods like life insurance, vacuum cleaner, fire fighting equipments including fire extinguishers.

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Marketing Concept

The marketing concept specifies that the company must be more effective than the competitors in creating, delivering, and communicating customer value to its chosen target markets, to achieve its organizational goals.

The concept proposes that the reason for success lies in the company’s ability to create, deliver and communicate a better value proposition through its marketing offer, in comparison to the competitors for its chosen target segment.

According to Theodore Levitt, “Selling focuses on the needs of the seller and marketing focuses on the buyer. Selling is preoccupied with the seller’s need to convert his product into cash, marketing deals with the idea of satisfying customer needs by offering a quality product and the whole cluster of things associated with creating, delivering and finally consuming it”.

The marketing concept is an elaborative attempt to explain the phenomenon that rests on four key issues like target market, customer need, integrated marketing communication and profitability.

Examples of Marketing Concept of Marketing Management Philosophies

The success of the marketing concept depends on the enterprise-wide adaptation of marketing culture. If every department thinks about the customers and keeps them in the forefront of their decision making, then the organisation can achieve a complete market oriented culture.

Read: 4Ps Marketing Mix

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Societal Marketing Concept

The societal marketing concept proposes that the organization’s objective is to determine the needs, wants and intentions of the target market and to deliver the expected satisfaction in a way to preserve or enhance the consumer’s and society’s well-being.

The goals of profit maximisation should match with the goals of customer satisfaction and responsible corporate citizenship.

Social marketing often termed as cause-related marketing, utilises concepts of market segmentation, consumer research, product concept development, product testing and brand communication to maximise the target segment response.

Examples of Societal Marketing Concept of Marketing Management Philosophies

Companies with strong Corporate Social Responsibility programs all follow societal marketing.

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Holistic Concept of Marketing

A marketing strategy developed by thinking about the business as a whole, its place in the broader economy and society, and in the lives of its customers is referred to as holistic marketing.

It attempts to develop and maintain multiple perspectives on the company’s commercial activities. This concept of marketing aligns with the concept of sustainable development that seeks to embrace economic, environmental and social factors.

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Relationship Marketing Concept

Relationship marketing can be understood as “an integrated effort to identify, maintain, and build up a network with individual customers and to continuously strengthen and network for the mutual benefits of both the sides, through interactive, individualized and value-added contracts over a long period of time”

In relationship marketing, customer profile, buying patterns, and history of contacts are maintained in a sales database. The database of customers serves as a paradigm for the organisation to learn and repeat best practices.

Read: What is Marketing Management

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Marketing Management Philosophies – Infographics

As we have discussed marketing concept with 5 philosophy of marketing management: Production, Product, Selling, Marketing, Social Marketing Concept.

Now, we must compare these philosophy of marketing management in marketing concept.

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Table: Difference between Production, Product, Selling, Marketing Concept

BASIS	PRODUCT	PRODUCTION	SELLING	MARKETING
Companies focus	Companies focus in developing superior products and improving the existing product lines over a period of time	Companies focus on the idea that the more we make, the more profitable we become	Companies focuses in manufacturing the product first the then decides to sell it	Companies first determines customers’ needs and then decides on how to deliver a product to satisfy these wants
Management Orientation	Management is oriented towards technological research and scientific innovations	Management is oriented towards number of units produced	Management is sales volume oriented	Management is profit oriented
Planning	Planning is long-term oriented in terms of 4 P’s – Positioning, Pricing, Packaging and Placement	Planning is neither long term nor short-term as it depends on the company’s philosophy to make the products widely accessible to buyers at lowpriced budget	Planning is short-run oriented, in terms of today’s products and markets	Planning is long-term oriented in terms of new products, tomorrow’s market and future growth
Stress	Stresses needs on quality of products	Stresses needs of own company’s expertise in producing products	Stresses needs of sellers	Stresses needs and wants of buyers
Business Condition	Views business as coming out with new innovations and technological process	Views business as goods producing and achieving maximum profitability process	Views business as a goods producing process	Views business as consumer satisfying process
Emphasis	Emphasis on quality generation and quality retention through innovations and technological efforts for attracting customers	Emphasis is on mass production and reducing costs.	Emphasis is on staying with existing technology and reducing costs. E	Emphasis is on innovation in every sphere, on providing better value to the customer by adopting a superior technology
Departments	R&D department works in close liaison with field personnel, value aids from government or private institutions relating to their field	Production departments work in different factory outlets at different locations	Different departments work in highly separate water tight compartments.	All departments of the business operate in an integrated manner, the sole purpose being generation of customer satisfaction.
Determination of Cost and Price	Cost determines price	Price determines cost	Cost determines price	Consumer determines price; price determines cost
Customer – eccentric	Product views customers as last link in the business as it aligns its innovative quality products to respective target audience	Production ignores customers for being prime purpose.	Selling views customers as the last link in the business	Marketing views the customer as the very purpose of the business.

Marketing Management Topics

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