Marketing is an integrated communications-based process
through which individuals and communities discover that existing and
newly-identified needs and wants may be satisfied by the products and services
of others. Marketing is defined by the American Marketing Association as the
activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating,
delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients,
partners, and society at large. The term developed from the original meaning which
referred literally to going to market, as in shopping, or going to a market to
buy or sell goods or services. The Chartered Institute of Marketing defines
marketing as "The management process responsible for identifying,
anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably." Marketing
practice tended to be seen as a creative industry in the past, which included
advertising, distribution and selling. However, because marketing makes
extensive use of social sciences, psychology, sociology, mathematics,
economics, anthropology and neuroscience, the profession is now widely
recognized as a science, allowing numerous universities to offer
Master-of-Science (MSc) programmes. The overall process starts with marketing
research and goes through market segmentation, business planning and execution,
ending with pre and post-sales promotional activities. It is also related to
many of the creative arts. The marketing literature is also infamous for
re-inventing itself and its vocabulary according to the times and the culture.
A common set of conditions are present in the marketplace, viz., 1) Buyers
outnumber sellers 2) Any individual buyer is weaker than any individual seller
economically, but 3) The total economic power of even a fraction of the buyers
is enough to assure the existence of, or to put out of business, most sellers
or groups of sellers, and 4) Consequently, the sellers compete to sway the
largest number of buyers they can to their, rather than another seller’s
(competitor’s) offerings. Finally and intriguingly, 5) The sellers in their
attempt to meet competition and attract the largest number of buyers, are
influenced as well, regularly modifying their behaviours so they will have more
success, with more buyers, over time.
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