Marketing management involves carrying out tasks to achieve desired exchanges with the target market. The question then is, what philosophy do we use to guide these marketing effects?. Again, what weight should we give to the interests of the organisation, customers, and society in this process of trying to achieve the desired exchanges with the market?. These interests often clash on a number of occasions.
Generally, there are five alternative concepts or philosophies under which organisations can conduct their marketing activities. These are the production, product, selling, marketing, and societal marketing concepts.
THE PRODUCTION CONCEPT
This is one of the oldest philosophies guiding marketers. It is of the opinion that consumers will always favour those products that are widely available and highly affordable. Thus, business organisations that reason along this line usually concentrate their efforts on achieving high production efficiency and wide distribution coverage.
It has been observed that this concept is appropriate under two situations. The first is where the demand for a product exceeds supply. This makes customers to be more interested in considering the core product rather than its five points. The major task confronting the firm here is to look for ways of increasing production.
The second situation is where the cost of production is high and has to be brought down through increased productivity to expand the market.
Some companies have been making use of this philosophy of increased production and lower costs in order to bring down prices, so as to capture more shares of the market.
However, the adoptions of this philosophy often lead to the risk of focusing too narrowly on their own operations. Hence, such organisations are often accused of impersonality and consumer insensitivity. For instance, the low-priced goods being produced may not be attractive enough to a large section of the market.
THE PRODUCT CONCEPT
The underlying philosophy here is that consumers will favour those products that offer the best in terms of quality, performance, and innovative features. Management in these product-oriented organisations usually focus their energy on making good products and improving upon them over time. In this way, it may be said that an undue concentration is placed on the product rather than the needs of the consumer and his ability to make an effective demand for such high-quality products.
The selling concept
The selling concept holds that customers if left alone, will ordinarily not buy enough of the organisation’s products. The organisation must therefore undertake aggressive selling and promotion efforts. It is assumed that consumers typical y show buying resistance and have to be coaxed into buying more.
This concept is undertaken most aggressively with unsought goods. Most firms also practice the selling concept when they have over-capacity. Their aim is to sell what they make rather than make what the market wants. Hence, marketing based on hard-selling carries high risks. For instance, it focuses on creating sales transactions instead of building a long-term, profitable relationship with customers. Once customers are dissatisfied, they may not want to buy from such organisations again.
THE MARKETING CONCEPT
The marketing concept holds that the key to achieving organisational goals consists in determining the needs and wants of target markets and delivering the desired satisfactions more effectively and efficiently than competitors.
The concept starts with the company’s target customers and their needs and wants The company then integrates and coordinates all the activities that will affect customer satisfaction. The achievement of the company’s profit goal is made through creating and maintaining customer satisfaction.
The marketing concept expresses the company’s commitment to consumer sovereignty, that is, the determination of what is to be produced should not be in the hands of the companies or in the hands of government but in the hands of consumers themselves.
THE SOCIETAL MARKETING CONCEPT
Recent developments all over the world, especially with respect to environmental degradation, resource shortages, explosive population growth, worldwide inflation, and neglected social services have questioned the aim or appropriateness of the organisational goals of the marketing concept. The feeling of Underestimate the concept sidetracks the potential conflicts between consumers’ interests, and in the long-run societal welfare
Because of such matters, a cal has been made for a new concept to revise or rep taco Inc marketing concept. This has led to the emergence of the societal mastering concept.
The concept folds that the organisation’s task is to determine the needs, wants, and interests of target markets and to deliver the desired satisfactions more effectively and efficiently than competitors in a way that preserves or enhances the customers and society s well-being. The societal marketing concept cal s upon marketers to balance three considerations in setting their marketing policies, viz company profit, consumer want-satisfaction, and social interests.
