Marketing: concept, orientations, tasks, value and satisfaction
Marketing creates, communicates and delivers customer value at a profit. Firms evolved from production to selling to marketing and holistic orientations; satisfaction compares performance with expectations.
Marketing orientations (company philosophies)
| Orientation | Core belief | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Production | Customers want cheap, widely available products | Efficiency and mass distribution |
| Product | Customers want the best quality and features | Product improvement (risk: marketing myopia) |
| Selling | Customers will not buy enough unless pushed | Aggressive selling and promotion; inside-out |
| Marketing | Find needs and satisfy them better than rivals | Customer needs; outside-in |
| Societal marketing | Serve needs while protecting long-run consumer and social welfare | Consumers, company and society |
| Holistic marketing | Everything matters | Relationship, integrated, internal and performance marketing |
Selling concept vs marketing concept
Levitt: selling is about the seller's need to turn products into cash; marketing is about meeting the buyer's needs.
Kotler's demand states and marketing tasks (1973)
| Demand state | Marketing task |
|---|---|
| Negative demand | Conversional marketing |
| No demand | Stimulational marketing |
| Latent demand | Developmental marketing |
| Declining (faltering) demand | Remarketing |
| Irregular demand | Synchromarketing |
| Full demand | Maintenance marketing |
| Overfull demand | Demarketing |
| Unwholesome demand | Counter-marketing |
Worked example: customer perceived value
A buyer values a Maruti car's total benefits (product, service, personnel and image) at ₹9,00,000. The total cost is the ₹7,50,000 price plus ₹50,000 of time, energy and psychic cost. Find the perceived value and the value ratio.
- Total customer cost = 7,50,000 + 50,000 = ₹8,00,000.
- Customer perceived value = total benefit − total cost = 9,00,000 − 8,00,000 = ₹1,00,000.
- Value ratio = benefit ÷ cost = 9,00,000 ÷ 8,00,000 = 1.125.
- Check: 8,00,000 × 1.125 = 9,00,000.
Perceived value is ₹1,00,000 and the value ratio is exactly 1.125. A positive gap means the buyer sees more benefit than cost.
Tasks, value, satisfaction and trends
- Core concepts (Kotler): needs, wants and demands; offerings; value and satisfaction; exchange; markets.
- Kotler's marketing management tasks: develop strategies and plans, capture insights, connect with customers, build strong brands, shape offerings, deliver value, communicate value and create long-term growth.
- Total customer benefit = product + services + personnel + image. Total customer cost = monetary + time + energy + psychic. Older Kotler editions call the difference 'customer delivered value' (total customer value − total customer cost).
- Kano model (1984): basic (must-be), performance (one-dimensional) and excitement (attractive) attributes; today's delighters become tomorrow's basics.
- Expectancy-disconfirmation (Oliver, 1980): satisfaction depends on whether performance confirms or beats expectations.
- Trends: digital and social media, omnichannel selling, data and AI, direct-to-consumer brands, sustainability, and Kotler's Marketing 3.0 (values), 4.0 (digital) and 5.0 (technology for humanity).
NET asks you to match orientations with beliefs, match demand states with tasks (overfull → demarketing), apply value = benefit − cost, and name Levitt for marketing myopia.
Typical MCQ: “Which marketing task suits overfull demand?” Demarketing: reducing demand for a time or for good. Trap: counter-marketing is for unwholesome demand, such as tobacco.
Typical MCQ: “Who wrote 'Marketing Myopia' (1960)?” Theodore Levitt. Trap: myopia means defining a business by its product rather than the customer need it serves.
Demand states in pairs: Negative-Convert, None-Stimulate, Latent-Develop, Declining-Remarket, Irregular-Synchronise, Full-Maintain, Overfull-Demarket, Unwholesome-Counter.