5 Emerging Concepts in Marketing

Kulbhushan Chandel

1. Learning Outcome:

After completing this module, the students will be able to:

Understand the meaning and definitions of marketing.
Explain the various objectives of marketing.
Know the emerging issues in the marketing.
Explain E-Marketing.
Understand the concepts of green marketing, social marketing and reverse marketing.
Explain service marketing, global marketing and rural marketing.

2. Introduction

Marketing is one of the important parts of doing business. Marketing is managing the profitable customer relationships. The basic objective of marketing is to attract the new customers by promising and offering superior value and to retain and grow current customers by delivering satisfaction. Marketing deals with customers more than any other business function and deals mainly with the customers. Building customer relationships based on the customer value and satisfaction is at the very core of modern marketing. Sound marketing is essential for the success of any company. Marketing is practised by the large profit making organisations like Microsoft, IBM, Reliance, Godrej, etc. as well as it is practiced by the non profit making organisations like churches, schools, colleges and charitable institutions like CRY, Help Age, etc. . In the modern era, new methods of marketing and concepts came into way of life. One cannot be successful by sticking to the old. So, in order to survive in this age of competition, every business concern should adopt the new advancements in production sector, selling sector as well as in marketing and so on.

The historical evolution of marketing is found to have moved through the distinct stages. The major eras are the production era, sales era, marketing era and the relationship era. The production era was based on the philosophy that good products at affordable prices will sell by itself. When this philosophy failed and piles of unsold inventory resulted as the goods did not sell themselves, the sales era started. Selling was the prime importance in this era and the major concern was to find customers for inventories that went unsold. Next came the era of marketing with more importance on the identification of customer needs and wants prior to producing the product. During the marketing era, marketing moved to the forefront of the business strategy and satisfying the customer needs become the responsibility of everyone in the organisation. Then came the relationship marketing era which stressed on the customer oriented marketing, value and potential of the customer retention and creating the long-term relationships by providing reasons to keep existing customers.

3. Meaning of Marketing

Marketing is a process through consumer and producer came together to exchange the goods and services in order to get their respective benefits. In marketing, the product physically and mentally moves from producer to the consumer. In other words, marketing is an organisational function and is a set of functions for creating, communicating and delivering values to customers and also for managing customer relationships in such ways that benefits the organisations and all other stakeholders. Marketing includes selling also. The main preference is given to the consumers. Thus, it focuses on the customer needs.

4. Definitions of Marketing

“Marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging of products and value with others.”

–Philip Kotler

“Marketing in a free economy is the skill of selecting and fulfilling consumer desires so as to maximise the profitability per unit of capital employed in the enterprises”

–Professor Glasser

“Marketing is concerned with all the resources and activities involve in the flow of goods and services from the producer to the consumer”

–Wheeler

“Marketing includes all those activities having to do with effecting changes in ownership and possessions of goods and services. It is that part of economics which deals with the creation of time, place and possession Utilities and that phase of business activity through which human wants are satisfied by the exchange of goods and services for some valuable considerations.”

–American Marketing Association.

5. Objectives of Marketing

The main aim of any business is to earn maximum profits. Thus, for achieving this aim of earning higher profits, products and services are to be sold to the consumers in a very effective and efficient manner in the market. Consumers will buy commodities only if the products satisfy their needs. Therefore, following are the objectives of the marketing:

Creation of Demand: The first and foremost step of marketing is to create the demand. Products should be produced according to the demand and preferences of the consumers as ‘consumer is the king of the market’. Demand can be created by attracting the customers through creative advertisement, personal selling, sales and promotion.
Capturing Market Share: Marketing also aims at capturing reasonable market share. More the share higher will be the profits. New and innovative high quality products can attract the consumers more. Market share can also be captured through advertisement, low cost products, and better after sales services and etc.
Services to the Society: It is the acute need of every business so as of marketing to serve the society. Marketing aims to provide services to society by-

Providing large variety of goods and services.
Supply new and socially useful goods.
Providing better quality products at very reasonable prices.
Generating employment opportunity.

Marketing Policies: Policies are the guidelines to action. Marketing manager must formulate effective and intelligent policies of marketing for the better results. Marketing objectives can be achieved by keeping close to the customers and by knowing their tastes and preferences. In order to fulfil this, policies should be developed and implemented.
Build Goodwill: Goodwill is the image and reputation of the business. It effects the sales of the business to a great extent and hence the profits too. Marketing also aims at enhancing the goodwill through the marketing techniques such as providing good quality products at affordable prices, timely supply of the goods, satisfying the customer needs and so on.
Profitability: No business can live without earning the profits. So, marketing plays a vital role in earning the profits. As profit has direct relation to the sales, therefore, marketing management tries to increase its sales by market development and exchanging goods. However, such profits should not be earned at the cost of customers because customer can affect the sales of the business. In order to earn the products only those goods are to be produced which are needed by the customers.

6. Emerging Issues in Marketing

Marketing, which originated as mere an exchange of goods and services, has changed its force with the passage of time and due to economic reforms including globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation. In the present scenario, various new advancements have taken place which helps in the growth and development. Enormous issues are there in every field of life whether it is business, education, medical, banking etc. Moreover, internet has changed the life of everyone. Products and services can be sold online. This gives rise to many contemporary issues in the area of marketing. Like online banking, online marketing has also come into existence for the benefit of producers and consumers. This technology made the life easier for people and it is very economical also.

Various new emerging issues in marketing are as follows:

6.1 E-Marketing: – E-Marketing or Internet Marketing means marketing via electronic medium. It refers to advertising and marketing efforts that use internet in order to sell the goods to the customers worldwide by assessing web with the help of electronic commerce. E-Marketing is the application of the broad range of the information technologies in marketing functions so as to achieve the following:

Transform marketing strategies to create more customer value through more effective segmentation, targeting, differentiation and positioning strategies.
More efficient planning and execution of the conception, distribution, promotion and pricing of goods and services and ideas.
Create exchanges that satisfy individual consumer and business customer‟s needs and wants.

E-marketing is the result of application of information technology applied to the traditional marketing. It increases efficiency in all traditional marketing functions. The technology of e-marketing transforms many marketing strategies resulting in the new business models that add customer value and increases the company‟s profitability.

E-marketing evolves from the company‟s overall e-business strategies and selected business models. It starts from the business environment where legal, technological, competitive, and market-related and other environmental factors external to the company create both opportunities and threats. Companies perform SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threats) analyses to discover what strengths they have to deploy against threats and towards opportunities. This SWOT analysis leads to e-business and e-marketing strategies. Companies select e-business strategies and e-business models, and create e-marketing plans that will help the company accomplish its overall goals. The final step is to determine the success of the strategies and plans by measuring the results.

Kotler and Armstrong defines internet marketing: “Internet marketing is the company’s efforts to market products and services and build customer relationships over the internet.”

6.1.1 Types of E-Markets: E-Marketing is basically carried out in the following types:

B2B: This involves business to business marketing or intercompany business online. Business organisations sell their products online and services to other business organisations using the internet. It covers the purchasing, service, support and payment systems.
B2C: This involves business to customer marketing, where the products and services are marketed by business organisations directly to the ultimate consumers using the internet. Activities include sales, services, customer information and customer support.
C2C: This involves consumer to consumer marketing, where consumers directly sell their products or services to other consumers using the internet. Firms like eBay provide such facilities.

Among these types, the maximum e-marketing activities take place and the maximum online marketing opportunities lie in the B2C where marketers sell directly to ultimate consumers.

6.1.2 Benefits of e- marketing

Benefits to consumers	Benefits to companies
Comprehensive product information	Reduced cost of sales
Anytime, anywhere service	Enhanced brand loyalty
Most economical and saves time	Quick adjustment to market conditions
More convenient	Relationship building

6.2 Social Marketing: – Social marketing is the systematic application of marketing along with other concepts and techniques to achieve specific behavioural goals for a social good. It can be applied to promote, for example make the society avoiding demerit goods and thus to promote the society‟s well being as a whole. It can include persuading people not to smoke in public areas, using helmets while driving two-wheelers, and wearing seatbelts while driving cars. Social marketing began as a formal discipline in 1971, with the publication of “social marketing‟ by father of marketing Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman in 1971 in their article “Social Marketing: An approach to planned social change.” Social marketing aims at providing benefits to the society as whole and to promote the quality of life of human beings on long term sustainable basis. Moreover, social marketing has welfare objectives and is also concerned with ideas, behaviour and practices.

In the words of W. Smith, “Social marketing is a process of influencing human behaviour on a large scale using marketing principle for the purpose of social benefit rather than commercial profit.”

6.2.1. Features of Social Marketing:

Consumer oriented process to realise organisational (social) goals.
Emphasis on the voluntary exchange of goods and services between producers and consumers.
Social marketing is consumer oriented.
It focuses on the consumer behaviour.
Using social networks for the distribution of products.
Continuous monitoring and revision of program helps in removing various obstacles and help to achieve the desired goals.

6.2.2 Evolution of Social Marketing

Social marketing began as a formal discipline in 1971, with the publication of “Social Marketing: An Approach to Planned Social Change” in the Journal of Marketing by marketing experts Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman. Kotler used the term “Social Change Campaigns” to describe activities expected to promote behavioural changes. According to him, a social change campaign is an organised effort conducted by one group which attempts to persuade others to accept, modify or abandon certain ideas, attitudes, practices or behaviour. In 1988, Craig Lefebure and June Flora introduced social marketing to the public health community, where it has been most widely used and explored. They were convinced that there was a need for large scale, broad-based, behavioural change focussed programmes, to improve public health and outlined eight essential components of social marketing that still hold good today. They are as following:

A consumer oriented to realise the organisational goals.
An emphasis on the voluntary exchanges of goods and services between providers and consumers.
Research in audience analysis and segmentation strategies.
The use of formative research in product and message design and the pretesting of these materials.
An analysis of distribution channels.
Use of the marketing mix- utilising and blending product, price, place and promotion characteristics in intervention planning and implementation.
A process tracking system with both integrative and control functions.
A management process that involves problem analysis, planning, implementation and feedback functions.

Examples of Social Marketing:

Ariel: Ariel is a detergent manufactured by Procter and gamble. Ariel runs special fund raising campaigns for deprived classes of the world specifically the developing countries. It also contributes the part of earning for the development of the society.
Body Shop: It is a cosmetic company found by the Anita Roddick. The company uses only vegetable based materials or the products. It is also against animal testing. Thus completely follow the concept of social marketing.

6.3 Green Marketing: – The concept of green marketing came into existence for the safety and for making the environment clean. Green marketing is the holistic marketing concepts in which the production, marketing, consumption and disposal of products and services happen in such a way that it cause less or no harms to the environment. It is quite broad concept and includes recycling, reuse, refill, eco friendly, phosphate free etc. This concept of green marketing is concerned with the ecological environment. Thus, Green marketing emphasises on protection of long term welfare of the consumers and society by providing them pure and pollution less goods and services. Green marketing also affects the health of people in a positive manner.

American Marketing Association defines Green Marketing as “The study of positive and negative aspects of marketing activities on pollution, energy depletion and non-energy resource depletion.”

Examples of Green Marketing

Digital Tickets by Indian Railways: – Recently IRCTC has followed its customers to carry PNR number of their E-Tickets on their laptop and mobiles. Customers do not need to carry the printed version of their ticket anymore.
No Polythene Carry Bags For Free: – Forest & Environmental Ministry of India has ordered to retail outlets like Big bazaar, more, Reliance Stores, d mart etc. that they could provide polythene carry bags to customers only if customers are ready for pay money for it.

6.3.1. Importance of Green Marketing

Green marketing shows the combined effort for purity in production and consumption of goods. Various significant points of importance are as follows:

Providing eco- friendly products to the customers.
Encouraging customers to not to use plastic bags.
The firms using green marketing have competitive advantage over those firms which do not use this concept of green marketing.
With the use of Green Marketing, companies get higher profits due to cost reduction. Moreover, it is very time saving and economical.
It helps in making and keeping the environment and Nation clean as well as pollution free.
King of the market i.e. consumer is more satisfied with green marketing as compared to traditional marketing.
Green products help people to keep fit and healthy. It encourages worldwide efforts to recycle waste of the consumers and industrial products.
Increased use of herbal medicines, therapies and yoga.
It is a long term investment opportunity for the investors and corporate sector. It also taken into consideration the corporate social responsibility which is becoming mandatory for every company.
Green marketing uses the strategies of reconsumption, redirection, reorientation and reorganisation. It increases the efficiency.
Green marketing leads to extension of the business. There is optimum utilisation of the resources when concept of green marketing is adopted.

6.4 Service Marketing: Marketing of different services requires varied approaches. Service marketing may be defined as the exchange of services from seller to the customer. A service is any act or performance that one party offers to another which is usually intangible. These are economical activities.

6.4.1. Classification of Services-

6.4.2. Service Marketing Mix

In addition to the main 4 P‟s of marketing mix, 3 more P‟s are there in service marketing mix. All the seven factors or P‟s are necessary to provide qualitative and effective service to the customers. Now the 7 P‟s of service marketing are given below:

Product: Product here services refers to the activities which are performed by the marketer and offer the service to the buyer which results in the satisfaction of a need or want of the customer. So it should be according to the needs and preferences of the ultimate consumer. These services are intangible in nature and must be of good quality, branded, prompt service.
Price: Price is the main factor in marketing. It is the consideration to be paid by the customer to the service provider for getting the service. So the price should be affordable for the customer. Various pricing strategies should be adopted in order to get higher earnings.
Place: Place is concerned with the delivering aspect. Here the services are exchanged between the buyers and sellers. The place should be assessable. There are various distribution channels to perform the activities like electronic and physical, door to door, wholesaler and retailer.
Promotion: It is used to communicate the information about the services to the ultimate consumers. It can be done through personal selling, advertising on television, radio, newspaper etc.
People: Human resources including employees in addition to customers are very essential in the marketing process. The staff providing services should be skilled and trained. It is necessary to put the right man on the right job at the right time.
Physical evidence: Physical evidence means from where the services are delivered. This element will distinguish the company from its competitors. It includes positivity, clear cleanliness, tangible facilities, equipments etc.
Process: The process refers to the method or the way of performing the services. It refers to the system that is used for delivering the services to the customers.

6.5 Global Marketing

We are living in a borderless world today which is a global market. Global marketing involves a company focusing its resources and activities on global opportunities and threats. Global marketing requires the thorough understanding of the relevant concepts, considerations and strategies that must be skilfully applied in conjunction with the universal marketing fundamentals to ensure the success in global markets. Global marketing is the process of marketing at global level. It is the process of planning, producing, placing, promoting the products and services all over the world. It provides diversified products. Global marketing reflects the trend of selling service and goods at international level. It is concerned with finding and satisfying global customers. According to Oxford University Press, “Global marketing refers to marketing on world wide scale reconciling or taking commercial advantage of global operational differences, similarities and opportunities in order to meet global objectives.”

There are three main principles of global marketing and these are explained as below:

Customer Value Creation: The main task of a marketer is creation of customer value. It can be created and increased by recuperating product or service excellence and benefits or by dropping price or by both.
Competitive Advantage: The competitive advantage can exist in any element of the company‟s offers may be product, price, promotion or distribution of product or service.
Focus: The focus means deliberation of concentration. This is necessary in current competitive environment to achieve success in the chore of creating customer value.

6.5.1 Forces Affecting Global Marketing

Global marketing is affected by many forces which could be grouped into driving forces (favourable) and restraining forces (unfavourable).

Driving Forces: Technology is a major driving force in global marketing. When a new technology is developed, it soon becomes available all over the world. Satellite TV, internet, mobile phones, computers all are examples. Consumer needs and wants around the world are converging today and global customers are emerging with similarities in product preferences and buying habits. Heavy cost of new product development is a driving force for going global, to recover the expenses faster. High quality standards, uniformity and cost reduction are all driving forces. Economic growth all over the world has been a driving force for the growth of global marketing. It created market opportunities, reduced local resistance by governments and introduced privatisation and deregulation of businesses by opening up the economies.
Restraining Forces: These forces that restrain a company‟s efforts to go global are mainly of three types. Myopic or nearsighted management will not consider global marketing opportunities. National trade controls and trade barriers restrict access in some global markets.

6.5.2 Examples of Global Marketing

Coca cola is now selling their products in more than 200 countries.
McDonald‟s provide different types of eatables in various countries.
Starbucks also provide different meals in different countries according to the local taste.

6.5.3 Advantages and Disadvantages Of Global Marketing

Global marketing is one of the contemporary issues in the marketing. It is very opportunistic and came into existence after the economic reforms. It has various advantages and disadvantages:-

6.6 Rural Marketing: – It is crystal clear from the name itself that the practice of producing placing and promotion done for the people of rural areas is called rural marketing. Here, needs and demands of the rural people are satisfied because more than half of the Indian population is living in rural areas. The environment is eco-friendly. Thus, rural marketing refers to distinct activity of attracting and serving rural markets. According to National Commission on Agriculture, Rural Marketing is a process which starts with the decision to produce a saleable farm commodity and involves all the aspects of market system and includes pre and post harvest operations i.e. assembling, grading, storage, transportation and distribution.” Rural marketing is a two way process in which inflow of products into rural markets for consumption or production along with this there is outflow of products to urban areas. The rural to urban flow consists of agricultural products like wheat, rice, sugar, tobacco, cotton & vegetables. Products of cottage & village industries like handloom textiles, silk saris & handicrafts also enter urban areas. The movement of rural production takes place within rural areas also. the movement of urban to rural flow consists of agricultural inputs, FMCG like soaps, detergents, cosmetics, textiles & consumer durables like two wheelers & cars, television sets and electrical appliances.

6.6.1 Significance of Rural Marketing

The unexploited market provides vast opportunities to the corporate world. There are number of factors which have attracted the attention of various companies, some of these are:

Large And Scattered Market: Rural markets in India are quite large in numbers. According to census 2011, the number of villages in India was 640,867.
Agriculture Productivity: Due to modernisation, the agriculture productivity has been improved significantly in the recent time. Many new methods of cultivation came into existence.
Increase in literacy and Education level: In India, the literacy rate has improved. Various programs have been organised by the regulating authorities and corporate houses. This results into rise in awareness level and thus, income level.
Strengthen Rural Credit System: The government has taken various initiatives to strengthen the credit system of rural areas by expanding branches of commercial banks. Moreover, various housing finance institutions put efforts for the development of rural sector like NABARD, SIDBI etc.

6.7 Reverse Marketing: – Reverse marketing is that marketing process in which the customer seeks the firm rather than the seller seeks customer. In other words, reverse marketing is where the customer becomes marketer. The best example of this is Social Media. Reviews are also the example of reverse marketing. It is also known as value or attraction marketing. It focuses on building trust and letting customers to know and assess the brand. It is a great way to increase the goodwill of the firm.

6.8 Introduction of 5th P in marketing

Father of marketing Philip Kotler added 5th P in addition to other 4 Ps in marketing. This P stands for Purpose. He said purpose of every business is to earn more profits. He felt that this is not enough in country like India. Every firm should have higher purpose with the regular purpose. The purpose should be two-fold. The marketer should try to make your country more advanced in technology. Secondly, you should try to uplift the life of poor people.

7. Summary

Marketing is the activity of selling and buying goods between buyer and seller in an effective way. With thechangeintimeandadvanced technology, various emergingissueshavetaken place. Moreover, the Father of Marketing Philip Kotler along with other scholars and professors has contributed a lot in the concept of marketing and made it broader. Various emerging issues are green marketing, social marketing, rural marketing, internet marketing, and global marketing. Customers are more aware now days, so they want to get full information in order to get the good quality products and services at affordable prices. Furthermore, enhancements in the marketing increase its value as well as the goodwill of the firm. Today‟s world is a borderless world which is a global market. Marketing which is done on worldwide level by taking commercial advantage of international functioning, various available similarities and opportunities for achieving global objectives is called global marketing. The winning strategy for the corporate world is International Market share. There are numerous strategies available for pricing products globally. The main objective should be to contribute to company sales and profits. When customers‟ perceptions are determined by the value equation then customer oriented strategies can be used. The global marketer has to take many strategic decisions like how to enter global market, which market to be selected and which products are to be produced. Unless a company has good position in all the markets worldwide in contrast to its competitors, it is impossible for it to have a marketing plan. As the company goes globally, all the “Four P‟s” of marketing i.e., product, price, place and promotion all are influenced. Finally, when the company goes global, it has to face numerous challenges during creation of global marketing plan. The application of wide range of information technology in marketing is termed as e-marketing. The application in numerous areas of marketing including beginning, distribution, pricing of goods and services, creation of customer value and also in renovating marketing strategies for generation of effective marketing segmentation, targeting and positioning strategies.

Suggested Readings (Books and Websites)

Ghosh PK, Sales Management-Text and Cases, Himalaya Publishing House, 2010.
Jobber David and Lancester Geoff, Selling and Sales Management, Pearson Education, Sixth Edition.
McCarthy, Jerome E. (1964). Basic Marketing. A Managerial Approach. Homewood, IL: Irwin.
Needham, Dave (1996). Business for Higher Awards. Oxford, England: Heinemann.
Kotler, Philip (2012). Marketing Management. Pearson Education. Kotler, P. and Keller, K. (2006), Marketing and Management, Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, USA
McCarthy, Jerome E. (1975)”Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach,” fifth edition, Richard D. Irwin