Экономические науки/ Маркетинг и менеджмент

J.N.Egorov

The doctor of economic sciences of Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation

Current treatments of the term “marketing”

Nowadays it has become rather “popular” to use all sorts of interpretation of the term “marketing” in various spheres, like business, politics, science, manufacturing, and everyday life. Marketing is integral to every sphere of today’s life. It can be found in business and public activity, all levels of state activity, particular workers’ business strategies and even in private life. Consumers make use of it in the process of shopping, salesmen use it to make profit of consumers’ choices, politicians use marketing strategies to promote their ideas, states draw investors and tourists via altering their image through marketing strategies, NGO’s use marketing to direct social attention to important problems, individuals use it to improve understanding with the society, etc.

Generally the term “marketing” stands for organizing economic activities in a market economy in order to meet consumers’ desires. The term marketing originated in late XIX century in US economic literature and business practical activity.

Marketing is aimed at shaping relations with consumers, and eventual growth of their loyalty to the company’s products and services.

According to a widespread belief, “marketing” stands for market analysis. However, particular analysis elements are typical for all sorts of human activity. This idea rather inaccurate, since it lacks specifics and does not disclose marketing experts’ work practical effect. In effect, marketing helps figure out several practical issues:

- goods and services development for a particular consumer target group - parameter optimization of particular goods and services ;

- development of brands or means of identification of services, goods or companies;

- distinguishing business partners for the development, production, delivery and distribution of production;

- formulization and improvement of production retail distribution (trading network development);

- advertising production ad its characteristics;

- boosting demand.

Marketing’s primary economic function consists in facilitating the process of distribution and promoting production or services. In order to fulfill this task a wide range of marketing tools is used, called the marketing- mix: range of articles development, price determination, distribution and various forms’ of sales development, production promotion.

In particular, in the process of range of articles development, a marketing specialist tackles practical issues, such as defining the parameters of a product line (its general characteristics, types and modifications), economic product engineering (defining its primary cost and functional indicators), overall production planning, defining of time and place to put goods, especially innovative ones, on the market, selecting means of production promotion, etc.

Marketing should not be equaled with trade. A marketing specialist undertakes various interrelated actions aimed at increasing the products’ characteristics and improving the process of its promotion, thus making it more attractive for consumers. The best way to promote a product is to achieve a precise correspondence between the products characteristics and the consumers’ demands. For example, when it comes to clothes, it is difficult for a consumer to define the composition of a cloth (the percentage of polyether, for example), but when it comes to marketing it has a fundamental significance, since it defines the functional characteristics of a product( how many washes it can take, how long will it last, its prime cost, etc.). In this context in clothes production marketing starts with thread development: its precise composition, production technology, etc. Thus, nowadays, “marketing” is a complex term, used in various spheres of life with a vast range of tools.

The recent period of marketing development is characterized by the rise of business complexity due to several reasons:

· The increase of consumers demands in terms of goods and services quality

- the increase of options in terms of production choice. One can analyze the information about the firms rivals, consumers’ opinions and specifications via the Internet;

- the correspondence system, order placement and receipt cimplification;

- the intensification of competition both on the national and international markets leads to the increase of promotion expenses and the demise of revenues

- continuous growth of the range of goods and services in the context of geographic expansion of the market – it is possible to order any product from anywhere around the world (via E-bay for instance!);

- the glut of supply in retail trade, while bigger firms outcompete smaller businesses,

- huge amount of various information for consumers

Nowadays marketing has become much more socially responsible which means that it has to meet the consumers’ demands in a way that would increase the wellbeing of both: the consumers and the society. Meanwhile safety has become one of the essential characteristics of production. In accord with the socially responsible marketing conception the production has to be safe and clear for a consumer. Speaking about the product being clear, it must be easy for a consumer to understand the composition of the product, its application target, and whether it will not cause any unlikely side effects. When it comes to safety, it means that the product will not inflict harm neither on physical nor mental health of the consumer and the people around. Sometimes, it happens so that a particular consumer might find it pleasant using a good or service (for instance, public smoking), while everyone around, who do not smoke, and have to inhale cigarette smoke, may find this situation disturbing.

The socially responsible marketing conception is characterized by the following features:

- the primary goal of a company must consist in meeting reasonable and sound consumer demands in accordance with the interests of the society;

- a company must be continuously seeking opportunities to create new production in accordance with the demands of the society;

- it is essential to abandon the production of goods deterrious for the society (leading to the pollution of environment, for example) ;

- the consumers must support the companies producing goods intended to meet normal, sound demands;

- the consumers should not buy products produced via environmentally “unfriendly” technologies.

F. Cotler believes that morality a very important feature a company has to obtain, according to the socially responsible marketing conception. Meanwhile, a company can do charity, donate huge sums of money for good purposes, but remain an “empire of evil” at its core.

Cotler says, that any company should evaluate its activities from two points of view: ethical norms of business and corporate social responsibility.

There are many definitions of the term “marketing”. According to the original one “marketing- is marketing”. Albert V. Emery believes that marketing is just a civilized form of warfare, where most of the battles are won by words, ideas and skilled thinking.

J. R. Evans and B. Berman say that “marketing is foreseeing, controlling and fulfilling the demand for goods, services, companies, people and land via exchange”

F. Cotler defines marketing as a social process aimed at fulfilling individual and group needs and demands via creating the supply of valuable goods and services and making it possible for the individuals to exchange them with each other. Apart from that, he believes that marketing is “an activity category aimed at meeting demands via exchange”.

We believe that today marketing is such a complex phenomenon used in various spheres, that instead of describing it with a single universal definition, it would be better to formulate a number of key characteristics that result from the diversity of its definitions. We believe that marketing is characterized by the following features:

1. Marketing is a type of human activity in some way related to the market. Marketing intends work with the market aimed at accomplishing exchanges oriented at meeting human needs and demands.

2. Marketing’s primary task consists in the accomplishing of a particular goal that can be estimated quantitatively: the increase of profit, market share, clients’ loyalty

3. A company dos not gain profit via all possible means, but through qualitative satisfaction of the target group’s demands

4. Marketing activity begins with the process of manufacturing (development of product assortment, manufacturing innovative production, optimizing productions characteristics etc.) and spreads to various commercial stages (distribution, production promotion of production), and thus it is not used only in the distribution sphere.

5. Marketing activity is aimed at a wide range of clients including individual clients and corporate clients ( manufacturing, commercial, non-commercial, territorial etc.)

6. Marketing is a social process. A company has to make sure that its activity recognizes both its own interests and those of clients and the society

7.Marketing’s primary feature is creativity, in the sense of human activity, creating original ideas and knowledge, often via testing combinations of extraordinary ideas or knowledge in order to acheive unique results. (L. Bun, D. Katz)

Thus, we believe that marketing should be defined as creative and beneficial for a company social and economic process of creating and manufacturing production and promoting it to various consumer categories