Demand Generator
By Jed Jones
Like many complex subjects,
it is difficult to find a
consensus definition of
marketing. For the purposes
of this article, I define
marketing as: any activity
involved in the facilitation
of the sale of a good
or service, excluding
(but constantly feeding
information back into) the
actual production of the
good or the performance
of the service itself.
As a field, marketing has
become increasingly sophis-
ticated and powerful in
recent decades. Indeed, it
has become not only an art
but a mathematically-based, research-driven social science funded by billions of corporate, governmental, and
nonprofit dollars each year.
Marketing seems to have two
faces in the eyes of the public-at-large. Some view it as a manipulative practice
designed to lure people into buying things they do not need and contributing to environmental decline by encouraging consumerism. The advent of junk mail, disruptive tele-marketing practices, spam,and online pop-up browser windows indeed contribute to an unfavorable image of marketing in the eyes of the public-at-large.
At the same time, almost all
organizations and consumers alike unmistakably benefit from the practice of marketing each day. Marketing can act as a conduit between companies and other organizations offering some sort of value and those consumers who stand to benefit from consuming that value.
This article explores tworoles of marketing in terms of its effects on consumers and the environment.
Marketing as Empowered Communicator
In the cases whereby there is
actually value to be realized by a would-be buyer through the act of consuming a particular product or service, the argument can be made that marketing is an empowered communicator
of this value. I use the adjective empowered because the voice
of promotion today is far louder, more sophisticated, and subtle than the voice of any single person or company. In the cases whereby marketing
serves as a helpful assistant
that bridges the knowledge gap between seller and consumer, then marketing is fulfilling its role as an empowered communicator.
Marketing as Demand
Generator
Marketing can also play a
different type of role: it can
actually help create the need
for a product or service in
the mind of a would-be consumer. When promotional activities serve to create a need for value that was previously not perceived by the consumer, we can view marketing as a demand generator. In other words: the buyer sometimes has no need for a product or
service until becoming the
target of a marketing campaign.
Is this latter role of marketing
ethical? We need to ask
ourselves: do we really need
many of the plastic, paper,
wooden, and metal products
in our homes and yards today? Do we really need all of the services available to us at our local strip mall or shopping center? This is a question for the modern age, and it is difficult to single out any one product or service and state that is universally without any inherent value to a would-be buyer. On the
other hand, given our
planet’s looming environmental problems, on the aggregate we could likely say with confidence "No, we do not really need all of this STUFF!" In this sense, the
demand generator role of
marketing seems to have
merit.
Which is Role is Correct? I
believe that both roles of
marketing are valid. Marketing can perform a needed role in educating people about goods and services that may be of
value to them. On the other
hand, the marketing machines of the world have become so finely-tuned that consumers may at times buy goods or services that may not really want or need.
To mitigate the effects of the
demand generator role of
marketing, we as consumers
and marketers need to consider each transaction in terms its potential impact on ourselves and the environment.
Download your FREE copy
of my eBook, "The Anatomy
of a Winning Brand" at:
http://www.jedcjones.com/
brandmybusiness/
Article Source:
EzineArticles.com
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