Marketing: meaning, concepts, approaches and objectives
Marketing and Service Management · Unit I · Topic 1 of 15 · 6 min read
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Cases checked to exist. Read the judgment before quoting a holding.
Every case cited here has been checked to exist — the citation resolves and names the right parties. The propositions attributed to each case have not been verified line by line against the judgment. Case names link through to the full judgment: read it before quoting a holding in an examination answer, and never carry a proposition from notes into court on trust.
1. Meaning and definitions
In ordinary speech marketing means buying and selling in a market. In management it means the whole set of activities by which a firm finds out what customers want, makes a product to meet that want, prices it, gets it to them and tells them about it, at a profit. It begins before production (with research into needs) and continues after the sale (with service and relationship).
- American Marketing Association (approved 2013, reaffirmed 2017): “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”
- Philip Kotler: marketing is “a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others.”
- William J. Stanton: marketing is “a total system of business activities designed to plan, price, promote and distribute want-satisfying products to target markets to achieve organisational objectives.”
- Peter Drucker: “The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous” — to know the customer so well that the product sells itself.
Characteristics (asked November 2022): it is consumer-oriented; it is a continuous process; it rests on exchange; it covers goods, services and ideas; it is both a managerial function and a social process; it aims at profit through satisfaction; and it is integrated, every department working towards the customer.
2. Marketing and selling distinguished
| Point | Selling | Marketing |
|---|---|---|
| Starting point | The factory and existing product | The customer and the market |
| Focus | Seller’s need to convert goods into cash | Buyer’s need and satisfaction |
| Means | Selling effort and promotion | Integrated marketing mix (4 Ps) |
| Aim | Profit through sales volume | Profit through customer satisfaction |
| Time view | Short term | Long term, repeat customers |
| Scope | One part of marketing | Wider; includes selling |
Theodore Levitt put it in one line in “Marketing Myopia” (Harvard Business Review, 1960): selling focuses on the needs of the seller, marketing on the needs of the buyer.
3. The marketing concepts (philosophies)
A marketing concept is the philosophy that guides a firm’s marketing effort. Five are usually listed, in the order in which they appeared.
- Production concept. Consumers prefer products that are widely available and cheap, so the firm concentrates on efficient mass production and wide distribution. It suits a seller’s market where demand exceeds supply (Henry Ford’s Model T: “any colour so long as it is black”).
- Product concept. Consumers favour the product of the highest quality and performance, so the firm keeps improving the product. The danger is building a better mousetrap no one asked for — Levitt’s “marketing myopia”.
- Selling concept. Consumers will not buy enough unless persuaded, so the firm relies on aggressive selling and promotion. Common for unsought goods (insurance, encyclopaedias) and when there is excess capacity.
- Marketing concept. The firm’s goals are achieved by finding the needs and wants of target markets and satisfying them better than competitors. Its four pillars are target market, customer needs, integrated marketing and profitability.
- Societal marketing concept. The firm should satisfy customer wants in a way that also preserves or improves the long-run well-being of consumers and society: no harmful products, no pollution, honest advertising. It answers the criticism that satisfying immediate wants (fast food, plastic packaging) may harm society.
Traditional and modern concepts (January 2026, December 2019). The traditional concept treats marketing as the transfer of goods from producer to consumer; the production, product and selling concepts belong to it. The modern concept starts and ends with the customer: it includes the marketing and societal concepts, and today relationship marketing (long-term relationships with customers, partners and society). Write the answer as a comparison:
| Traditional | Modern |
|---|---|
| Product-oriented | Customer-oriented |
| Starts after production | Starts before production, with research |
| Emphasis on selling and distribution | Emphasis on integrated 4 Ps |
| One-time transaction | Lasting relationship and after-sales service |
| Profit through volume | Profit through satisfaction and social welfare |
Benefits of the marketing concept in the modern business environment (January 2026): products match needs, so failure rates fall; customer loyalty and repeat sales; early warning of changes in tastes; better coordination of departments; competitive advantage; and public goodwill under the societal concept.
4. Approaches to the study of marketing
- Commodity (product) approach. Studies the flow of a particular commodity (rice, coffee) from producer to consumer: sources, middlemen, storage, grading, pricing. Detailed but repetitive across products.
- Institutional approach. Studies the institutions that perform marketing — wholesalers, retailers, agents, warehouses, banks, transporters — and their role.
- Functional approach. Studies marketing by its functions: buying, selling, transport, storage, financing, risk-bearing, standardisation and information (see the next note).
- Managerial (decision-making) approach. Looks at marketing from the manager’s chair: deciding the marketing mix under uncontrollable environmental forces. The approach of Kotler.
- Systems approach. Treats marketing as a system of interacting parts (firm, suppliers, intermediaries, customers, environment) with inputs, processes, outputs and feedback.
- Societal approach. Studies the effect of marketing on society: consumerism, ethics, environment.
- Legal and economic approaches are sometimes added: marketing as transfer of ownership under contract law; marketing as the allocation of resources through demand and supply.
5. Objectives, goals and importance
Objectives (August 2024): identifying customer needs; creating and retaining customers; increasing sales and market share; earning profit through satisfaction; building brand image and goodwill; meeting competition; and raising the standard of living by making goods available.
Goals (December 2019, January 2026 short note). Textbooks list four alternative goals of a marketing system: maximise consumption, maximise consumer satisfaction, maximise choice, and maximise quality of life (the last corresponds to the societal concept).
Importance to the economy: marketing creates time, place and possession utility; links production with consumption; generates employment in trade, transport, advertising and finance; helps mass production by creating mass demand; and earns foreign exchange through export marketing.
How this is examined
The 10-mark Unit I essay is either this note or the functions of marketing. “Define marketing. Explain the different concepts of marketing” (December 2018), “Explain the modern concept of marketing” (December 2019), “What are the concepts of marketing?” (April 2021) and “Explain the traditional and modern marketing concepts” (January 2026) all take section 3. “Approaches to marketing” (April 2022, April 2023, February 2025) takes section 4. Start with one exact definition, set out each concept or approach under its own heading with an example, and end with the comparison table. “Marketing and selling” and “goals of marketing” are 6-mark short notes.
Now try the real questions: Marketing and Service Management past question papers.