How do you define "Marketing" ?

[TSuellentrop]

In my Principles of Marketing class, I have an assignment to find out how non-business majors define Marketing. Everyone on the MR forums would probably agree that Apple has marketing down pretty well. So if you could all help me out, all I need from you is:

1. Your name (First works)

2. Major (Whether you are a current student or what you majored in)

3. Your definition of Marketing

4. Your outlook on Marketing (Is it productive from an economic point of view, whether is benefits society, and whether is should be encouraged or possible regulated)


Thanks,

Tim

 

[chown33]

1. ch.

2. Engineering.

3. Convincing people to buy your product or service.
Technically, that's the definition of effective marketing.

4. Marketing is only productive when it convinces people to buy your product or service. If it doesn't, then how could you possibly call it productive, since it hasn't produced anything (no sales = no business)?
All business, in whole or in parts, is regulated in one way or another. Why should the marketing part be any different?

 

[nobunaga209]

^^ what he said.

 

[Tomorrow]

1. Tomorrow

2. Most recently, Information Systems

3. Marketing is identifying the segment of the buying market you're targeting and positioning your product or service to appeal most to that target.

4. Marketing generally isn't altruistic; firms market goods and services to increase sales and maximize profit, not to benefit society. In the U.S. marketing (at least advertising) is already pretty well-regulated.

 

[carlgo]

1. CB
2. Poly sci
3. Marketing can of course be legitimate or not. But, today when I hear of "marketing" I immediately think of junk being sold under false pretenses.

4. Marketeers do not design, manufacture or service their products. There are no accessible phones, no real tech support, no customer service at all. Unless you buy the product through a responsible seller like Amazon you will not be able to recover.

Let's take a recent example of a product i bought. It was an after-mart battery for my MBP. It was indeed a "good deal", but soon failed. Nobody answered the emails. They simply hoped I would go away.

This was a company run by marketeers. They found a product that people wanted, found a manufacturer that made the thing and simply marked it up and sold it through a variety of techy-sounding companies.

Tomorrow, they might find a Chinese company making, say, a battery charger. They can get these amazingly cheap, because they are junk, and can mark them up and sell many thousands of them. When they fail, the customers will have no recourse and the marketeers will be on to something else.

To me, that is the definition of marketing today and what makes it different from traditional manufacturing and advertising.

 

[Giuly]

1. Have a look at the left.

2. Life.

3. Selling stuff by obscuring their values and psychologically manipulating customers, mostly targeting the subconscious based on research of what people would mostly buy.

4. Reallocating the money of the marketing department to the development units would be more useful for the people, but as competitors with worse products may have a better marketing and sell more of their products, you need to spend money to out-marketing them, resulting in worse products - aka "the wheels on the bus go round and round".