Marketing makes life better!

Don’t you wake up every morning with questions like

·      What should I wear?

·      What should I eat?

·      Where should I party?

·      Where should I go for a holiday?

·      What should I buy?

There are thousands of decisions we take daily and its astounding the find the number of decisions that revolve around products and services. This is the amount we are dependent on brands and service providers to deliver. If you invest a few minutes to think about it, the result would be an endless chain of products, services and life decisions – many of which are made without much thought.

Have you ever wondered how it would be if firms didn’t care what customers wanted and just produced goods for the sake of production? You would just end up with a set of firms selling goods that no one wants to buy and a set of consumers with needs no one fulfils. Therefore, we need that superhero that bridges the gap, the guy who caters for the customer and the guy who tells firms what is needed in the market – That guy called Marketing!

“Our jobs as marketers are to understand how the customer wants to buy and help them to do so.” - Bryan Eisenberg

Marketing has acquired an important place not only in individual lives but also for the economic development of the whole country. It can achieve social welfare in the following ways:

Improving the standard of living:

A diverse society has many tastes and preferences and modern marketing has always aimed at satisfying customers. So, providing necessary goods and services at reasonable prices becomes a priority for marketing. Hence marketing improves the standard of living by catering to the needs of various segments of society.

Advertising:

While firms discover needs of society, produce the goods and services according to these needs, they also need to communicate this value to the customer. Hence promotions are done to make people aware of the goods and create a demand for the goods, encouraging customers to use them. Thus, improving the standard of living of the society.

Reducing distribution costs:

Marketing in its capability also controls the cost of distribution. Effective marketing can reduce distribution costs to a large extent and this directly affects the cost of the product. Lower the distribution cost, lower the final price and hence the amount end users pay. This enables more people to consume at lower costs, increasing overall societal welfare.

Employment:

As a function, marketing comprises of many occupation areas that include advertising, sales, distribution, branding, product development and many others. Hence firms require marketing teams or workforce to carry out these activities. This automatically gives rise to more jobs and increases employment in society. Also, for marketing to be successful it needs support services like IT, Knowledge management, operations, supply chain and research. This also gives more opportunities to create jobs and produce work.

Resists slump:

Business slump is a major problem in modern society and it causes unemployment in large scale. It causes hindrance in the success of business and hence great loss to economy. Marketing protects firms and hence society against all these problems.

National Income:

Good marketing operations creates and increases demand for goods and services in society. To meet the increase in demand, firms need to produce more, and this increases their income. The increase in turn adds to taxes, corporate social responsibility and overall welfare of society. The additional taxes and funds increase national income. Further effective marketing leads to export of goods, leading to national income by exchange. This benefits the whole society.

International scene:

In the International arena, marketing is making the world a smaller place. Products are being exported like never before and hence marketing are growing like never before. Imagine a small village in Rajasthan producing dolls for children in America or villages near Pune producing roses for people all over the world on Valentines day. Marketing does this for products all over the world.

Moreover, you can get products one couldn’t even think of a decade ago, right next door. This is the result of effective marketing and distribution. Marketing done right, can drastically change the world.

Here is an illustration of effective marketing:

Half a century ago in the US an orange was a scarce commodity and could be enjoyed only few times a year, mostly as a festivity. But today, orange juice and citrus fruits find themselves as a common component in American breakfasts.

There are many examples like this one, but it can it all be attributed to marketing? What is the real cause for this change? Well for starters this could be due to technology changes, improvements in agriculture, quicker transport or storage science. But as always science and technology fail to completely explain the business process and hence improvement of a process.

For example, mass industrialization has been seen for many decades now, but mass consumption has been seen only for the last decade. Why this gap? Well product marketing and reach has only increased this decade giving consumers what they need, where they need it!

All this being stated marketing like any other tool can be used for the wrong reasons in society and this is where we need policies in place to protect society from bad marketing. But overall, marketing has enhanced our living standards and customer expectations.

Good marketing makes the company look smart. Great marketing makes the customer feel smart. - Joe Chernov