Page 16 - DMGT408DMGT203_Marketing Management

Unit 1: Marketing: Scope and Concepts

major means of increasing sales and profits during 1920s to 1950s in the developed countries of Notes
that period. Companies believed that the most important marketing activities were personal
selling, advertising, and distribution. Selling concept is geared towards converting existing
product(s) into cash rather than first finding and then satisfying customer needs. Sales concept is
often observed in practice when companies show heavy reliance on their promotional capabilities
based on "hard sell" approach. It is obvious that if a company's products do not match the
changing tastes and requirements of customers, with many alternative choices available,
managers might be inclined to go for aggressive promotional efforts to sell enough quantities.

Example: In his book, The End of Marketing as We Know It, Sergio Zyman writes that
the purpose of marketing is to sell more stuff to more people more often for more money in
order to make more profit. Of late, this has been happening in case of some Credit Cards in our
country.

Generally, "hard sell" is often seen in case of products or services that people buy without giving
much thought to the matter, such as non-essential goods, and tend to postpone such purchases.
With ever intensifying competition, products becoming more standardised without any
meaningful differentiation i.e., commoditization, heavy promotional efforts in all possible
manners are bound to remain the practice, in order to grab more share of the customers' purse.
The consequences of "hard sell" might harm the customer base to the extent that, in some cases,
they might even bad-mouth the product if the product fails to match up to their expectations.

1.2.4 Marketing Concept

After World War II, the variety of products increased, people had more discretionary income,
and could afford to be selective and buy only those products that more precisely met their
changing needs and wants. However, these needs were not immediately obvious. Sometime
during the mid-1950s, there was growing recognition among American business people that
merely efficient production and extensive promotion, including hard selling, did not guarantee
that customers would buy products. With the passage of time, more knowledge, and experience,
customers increasingly seemed unwilling to be persuaded. More and more companies found
that determining what customers wanted was a must before making a product, rather than
producing products first and then persuading them to buy. The key questions became:
1. What do customers really want?
2. Can we develop it while they still want?
3. How can we keep our customers satisfied?

Thus, the marketing concept era began. Marketing concept proposes that an organisation should
focus on customer needs and wants, coordinate its efforts, and endeavour to accomplish
organisational goals. Geraldine E Williams reported that the CEO of Nike said, "For years we
thought of ourselves as a production-oriented company, meaning we put all our emphasis on
designing and manufacturing the product. But now we understand that the most important
thing we do is market the product." The major focus of all sets of organisational activities should
be satisfying customer needs. This requires carefully listening to customers as a student listens
to a teacher. Stanley F Slater and John C Narver reported that there is positive relationship
between market orientation and performance.
Sometimes, philosophies that sound quite reasonable and appear attractive on paper, are difficult
to put into practice. To embrace the marketing concept as the guiding philosophy, the concerned
firm must accept certain general conditions and manage some problems. Alan Grant and Leonard
Schlesinger are of the view that market-orientation requires organisation-wide generation of
market intelligence across departments, and organisation wide responsiveness to it. It means

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