Definition of Marketing

Marketing plans can be essential to a company’s success in launching a new product or service. Without the proper research and development of a solid marketing plan, a new product or service could ultimately fail and cost a company a large amount of money. Prior to beginning to develop a marketing plan, one must first understand the definition of marketing. To some, including myself, it could be defined as advertising, price, consumer information and geographic information. Is this the correct definition or could it be more involved?

Ohiolink.edu, 2006 defines marketing as “In general, marketing activities are all those associated with identifying the particular wants and needs of a target market of customers, and then going about satisfying those customers better than the competitors. This involves doing market research on customers, analyzing their needs, and then making strategic decisions about product design, pricing, promotion and distribution”. They also quote the definition from a popular marketing textbook, Contemporary Marketing Wired (1998), which defines marketing as “Marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, services, organizations, and events to create and maintain relationships that will satisfy individual and organizational objectives." MSN Encarta dictionary, 2006, defines marketing simply as “selling of products or services: the business activity of presenting products or services in such a way as to make them desirable.”

Companies that want to market a new product or service need to follow these definitions of marketing. The product and/or service needs to be desirable to the consumer. This would include the pricing, promotion and distribution of the product and/or service. Once a company decides to market a new product and/or service based on research, the company then would need to define the pricing and how to promote the new service and/or product. Take for example, the Tickle Me Elmo doll. Originally the Tyco Toys Tickle Me Elmo doll was a slow-selling, expensive doll that became the must-have item in 1996 during the Christmas season (Media Awareness Network, 2006) The doll changed from slow selling to an overnight sensation that created department store stampedes and made millions for Tyco Toys all because of the promoting of the product. Tyco Toys marketing team sent Rosie O’Donnell’s son a doll and 200 more dolls to the show’s producer. On a show in October, every time a guest said the word “wall”, Rosie threw a Tickle Me Elmo doll into the audience (Media Awareness Network, 2006). The doll became an overnight sensation and a marketer’s dream-come-true. The original marketing plan in this situation did not prove to be successful, the alternative promotional plan, was a huge success.

Even if a company follows the above mentioned definitions of marketing, the launch of a new product and/or service may not always be successful and could be costly to a company. In 1985, The Coca Cola Co after two years of taste testing and research launched “New Coke”. The company promoted New Coke with prime time TV ads and proclaimed it to be ‘smoother, rounder yet bolder.” The consumers were not impressed. They were hoarding cases of the old coke and some were even purchasing old coke from black marketers (MSNBC Breaking News, 1985). The Coca Cola Co had to pull the New Coke from the shelves on July 11, 1985. The company made one fatal marketing error, no one ever asked the critical question of Coke users, do you want a new coke? The company did not find out if the new product would be desirable to their customers. By not asking this one question, the company lost money and had to return to the old product.

A success story of a smaller marketing plan is the marketing of the Pet Rock. Gary Dahl, the creator of the Pet Rock, wrote a training manual for the Pet Rock. He then introduced the Pet Rock at a gift show in San Francisco. A large department store ordered 500 Pet Rocks and the product begin to sell. Sending out homemade news releases of himself