Paradigms (Philosophies) of Marketing
How marketing thought evolved: production, product, selling, marketing, societal and holistic marketing concepts, with their focus, examples, benefits and drawbacks, plus marketing myopia and the four pillars of holistic marketing.
1Marketing has a history
Marketing didn't appear suddenly. Like other disciplines it evolved over many years through different orientations, also called philosophies or paradigms. Businesses use these philosophies as a guide for how they do marketing.
- Each orientation has gains and drawbacks.
- The right choice depends on the type of product, operations, business size and objectives.
- Production concept
- Product concept
- Selling concept
- Marketing concept
- Societal marketing concept
- Holistic marketing concept
2
- Production concept
- Belief: consumers favour products that are readily available and affordable.
- Focus: production and distribution efficiency. Get the product to market somehow, at low cost.
The same black car with no differentiation, mass-produced and sold at a low price. ("Any colour you like, as long as it's black.")
Economies of scale gained
These are cost advantages a firm gets by expanding:
| Type | How |
|---|---|
| Purchasing | Bulk buying of materials through long-term contracts |
| Managerial | More specialised managers |
| Financial | Lower interest on loans; access to more financial instruments |
| Marketing | Advertising cost spread over a larger output |
| Technological | Able to adopt cheaper technologies |
Management focuses too narrowly on its own operations and loses sight of the real objective: satisfying customer needs and building relationships. It ensures efficiency but not effectiveness.
Suitable for: firms making the same undifferentiated product through mass production and mass marketing.
3
- Product concept & marketing myopia
- Belief: consumers favour products with the highest quality, best performance and most innovative features.
- Focus: enhancing the product's performance. R&D aims only at quality. The firm assumes quality sells regardless of affordability and availability.
"The mistake of paying more attention to the specific products a company offers than to the benefits and experiences produced by those products."
In short, it means focusing on the product rather than the consumer's need.
"Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door."
Do people need a better mousetrap? No. They need a better solution to the mouse problem: a spray, a pest-control service, a cat. If you only build a better trap you might win the first customer but not the second, so you miss the goals of marketing.
4
- Selling concept
- Belief: consumers won't buy enough unless the firm aggressively sells and promotes. "Sell what you make."
- Focus: sales transactions driven by excess capacity. Push product benefits and persuade customers to buy.
- Typically used for unsought goods: products consumers aren't aware of or don't normally think of buying, bought only out of danger or need. Examples: funeral services, encyclopaedias, fire extinguishers, reference books, insurance.
It starts with the factory, not the customer. There's no real attempt to understand needs or build long-term relationships.
5
- Marketing concept
- Belief: the key to success is customer satisfaction. A firm earns sustainable profits only by identifying and satisfying existing and potential customers' needs effectively.
- Focus: customer needs and wants, delivering satisfaction more effectively and efficiently than competitors.
Five steps of the marketing concept:
- Identify the target market.
- Understand the needs and wants of that target market.
- Develop products and services to satisfy them.
- Satisfy them better than competitors.
- Do all this at a profit.
Selling concept vs marketing concept (classic exam table)
| Factor | Selling concept | Marketing concept |
|---|---|---|
| Starting point | Factory | Market |
| Focus | Existing products | Customer needs |
| Means | Selling and promoting | Integrated marketing |
| Ends | Profits through sales volume | Profits through customer satisfaction |
The selling concept is inside-out: make it, then push it. The marketing concept is outside-in: find the need, then make what satisfies it.
6
- Societal marketing concept
- Belief: marketing should maintain or improve the well-being of consumers and society, on top of the marketing concept's aims.
- "Meeting needs profitably" covers human needs, company objectives and society's needs. Meeting social and human needs delivers a higher standard of living.
Society (human welfare) · Consumers (want satisfaction) · Company (profits)
The role of marketing in society:
- A society's standard of living is determined by the level and quality of marketing activities.
- Marketing creates the flow of goods and services from the production sector (firms) to the consumption sector (households).
Examples: recyclable packaging, reduced-sugar drinks, ethical sourcing, and avoiding harmful products even when they would sell.
7
- Holistic marketing concept
The latest development. Kotler: holistic marketing is based on the development, design and implementation of marketing programmes, processes and activities that recognise their breadth and interdependencies. It is an integration of the marketing concept and the societal marketing concept.
| Pillar | Meaning | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Relationship marketing | Build mutually satisfying long-term relations with key parties: customers, channel members, partners. It serves marketing's goal of keeping customers | Loyalty programmes for customers and channel partners, CRM systems, long-term promotions |
| Integrated marketing | Fully integrate marketing programmes to create, communicate and deliver superior value. Remove non-value-adding waste; integrate with suppliers, operations and channels | Consistent product, price, promotion and place working as one |
| Internal marketing | Everyone in the organisation is a marketer, not just the marketing department. Every member should understand the value created and how it differs from competitors | Staff as brand ambassadors, training, internal communication |
| Performance marketing | Understand the financial returns from marketing and its broader legal, ethical, social and environmental effects | Measuring marketing ROI; CSR and sustainability reporting |
Relationship · Integrated · Internal · Performance. Together they make marketing see the business as a whole from many perspectives.
Typical questions:
- Explain each philosophy with a real-world example, plus its drawback
- Compare the selling and marketing concepts (use the 4-row table)
- Explain marketing myopia (Levitt and the mousetrap)
- Explain the societal concept (the three-way balance)
- Explain holistic marketing (all four pillars)
- "What changed after the marketing orientation?" Before it (production, product, selling) firms were inside-out; from the marketing concept on they are customer-driven, outside-in.
8Quiz 02: model answer
From Week 03/Quiz 02.docx in the Marketing folder.
Question: A multiple-choice quiz. Only the answer key is in your folder; the questions aren't.
What the model answer covers:
Q1 a · Q2 a · Q3 a · Q4 b · Q5 c
9Quick revision sheet
| Concept | Remember it as |
|---|---|
| Production | Available + cheap; efficiency; Model T; economies of scale |
| Product | Best quality and features → marketing myopia (Levitt; mousetrap) |
| Selling | Sell what you make; unsought goods; excess capacity |
| Marketing | Customer satisfaction; 5 steps; outside-in |
| Selling vs marketing | Factory/market · products/needs · selling/integrated marketing · volume/satisfaction |
| Societal | Consumers + company + society's well-being |
| Holistic | Marketing + societal; RIIP pillars |
| Economies of scale | Purchasing, managerial, financial, marketing, technological |
?Self-check quiz
10 questions on this week. Answer them all, then press Check my answers. Your best and latest scores are saved and shown on the subject page.