Marketing

It is undeniable that marketing plays a critical role in building brands and a loyal customer base in particular, and the success of any successful organisation in general. Marketing is the process of communicating value to customers and "meeting needs profitability" (Kotler P., et al, 2009, p. 5). It is both an art and a science and is ever changing to meet the needs of business. There are five concepts about marketing during the developing period that include the production concept, the product concept, the selling product, the marketing concept and the holistic marketing. The two last ones are fond of more than the rest. The marketing concept started in the mid-1950s when companies began to focus more on customers by developing products that might meet their needs, rather just mass producing what already existed. Therefore, someone claim that to achieve organizational goals, it is neccessary for managers to embrace the Marketing Concept. Other people, however, argue that persuing the concept is not enough, a more complete, cohesive approach that goes beyond traditional applications of the marketing concept is useful for 21st – century – marketers. This approach is the holistic marketing concept that recognise and resolve the scope and complexities of marketing activities. This essay will show that despite many arguments in favour of Marketing Concept, Holistic Concept is far more needed.

The marketing concept appeared in the mid – 1950s, by which businesses concentrate on customers instead of focusing on products. The "Make & Sell" philosophy gave way to the "Sense & Respond" philosophy. Therefore, to achieving orgainzational goals, the key of marketing concept is that gain competitive advantage in creating, delivering and communicating targeted customers. Diebold is a particular example from Mbacareerprogram website. As we can see, the $ 1.9 billion automated teller machine (ATM) maker Diebold is not only focused on but looks ahead to what its customers want. ATMs include on-demand banking statements automatic bill payment and instant crediting of deposits with or without a deposit envelope. With advances like these Diebold's customers, mainly financial institutions and retailers, can offer more services to their customers after banking hours. By centering on meeting customers' need, the company could obtain an immediate advantage. However, this approach was not always benefit, for example, for the insurance companies. According to Cristina PE., in the U.S in the 1980's and 1990's the life industry was found by the regularors, courts and media to be engaging in widespread marketing and sales practices that were deemed inappropriate, unethical and, at times, illegal. Consequently, business suffered and there was movement to enact new laws to impose new performance standards on the industry. That requires marketers apply a more complete, cohesive approach to remove mistakes of marketing concept.

The holistic marketing concept takes the marketing concept one step further where essentially marketing is done from every angle (e.g., internal and external to the company) and with every person (i.e., all relationships including the consumers and partners, employees).Modern marketing builds on the principles of traditional marketing, it focus thoroughly on new elements that include the development, design, and implementation of marketing programs, processes and activities. Holistic marketing recognizes that everything matters and it has four important components: relationship marketing, integrated marketing, internal marketing, and social responsibility marketing. Figure 1 depicts the structure of the concept:

Source: adapted by Kotler, Ph., Keller, K.L., Burton, S., 2009, pg 19.

Relationship marketing mentions build mutually satisfying long-term relationships with four key components, which are customers, employees, marketing partners and members of the financial community, in order to achieve profitable growth and have high customer loyality. Moreover, marketing should also have to build inseparably the relationship with partners – suppliers and distributors – in order to reduce cost, save time in delivering to final customers as an example.

One of the major tasks of marketers is to "integrate" all the marketing activities and programmes like "creating", "communicating" & "delivering" value to the customers. To be clear, McCarthy classified them as "marketing-mix