There are five alternative concepts under which organizations design and carry out their marketing strategies: the production, product, selling, marketing, and societal marketing concepts.
Goods were scarce and buyers were willing to accept virtually any goods that were available and make do with them.
Production concept holds that consumers prefer products that are widely available and inexpensive.Therefore, the organization should focus on improving production and distribution efficiency.
The production concept is still a useful philosophy in some situations. But the production concept can lead to marketing myopia.
Companies adopting this orientation run a major risk of focusing too narrowly on their own operations and losing sight of satisfying customer needs.
The product concept holds that consumers will favor products that offer the most in quality, performance, and innovative features. Under this concept, marketing strategy focuses on making continuous product improvements.
Product quality and improvement are important parts of most marketing strategies. However, focusing only on the company's products can also lead to marketing myopia.
Managers are sometimes caught in a love affair with their products.
Manufacturers found they could produce more goods than buyers could consume. The competition heats up. Firms hired more sales people to find new buyers.
Many companies follow the selling concept, which holds that consumers will not buy enough of the firm's products unless it undertakes a large-scale selling and promotion effort.
The selling concept is typically practiced with unsought goods—those that buyers do not normally think of buying, such as insurance or blood donations.
Such aggressive selling, however, carries high risks. It focuses on creating sales transactions rather than on building long-term, profitable customer relationships.
The marketing concept emerged in the mid-1950s as a customer-centered philosophy.
The marketing concept is the idea that an organization should strive to satisfy the needs of consumers while also trying to achieve the organization's goals.
The marketing concept holds that achieving organizational goals depends on knowing the needs and wants of target markets and delivering the desired satisfactions better than competitors do.
The job is to find not the right customers for your products, but the right products for your customers.
The selling concept takes an inside-out perspective. In contrast, the marketing concept takes an outside-in perspective.
The marketing concept holds that the key to achieving organizational goals is being more effective than competitors in creating, delivering, and communicating superior customer value to your target markets.
The societal marketing concept is an idea that the company's marketing decisions should consider consumers' want, the company's requirements, and consumers' long-run interests.
It calls for sustainable marketing, socially and environmentally responsible marketing that meets the present needs of consumers and businesses while also preserving or enhancing the ability of future generations to meet their needs.
Companies should balance three considerations in setting their marketing strategies: company profits, consumer wants, and society's interests.
Production concept, product concept and selling concept are traditional concepts in marketing strategies, and marketing concept and societal marketing concept belong to contemporary marketing concepts.
Each concept has its advantages and disadvantages. Companies should choose proper concept accordingly.
中外案例对比
Case Study Comparison
微信背后的营销观
截至2015年10月,微信月活跃用户接近6亿家,称得上是每个智能手机用户最常用的应用。人人都说,微信是个伟大的产品,它集成了众多丰富的、能给用户带来不同功能和体验的模块和工具,融入我们的生活,并逐步影响着我们的生活方式。
微信的立项在很大程度上是受到Kik的启示:Kik作为一种免费短信,很有可能成为QQ在移动互联网时代的强大竞争对手。从战略角度上看,腾讯必须开发一款移动通信工具。但由于国内运营商提供了丰富的套餐服务,以省短信为卖点的微信1.0并未引起较大反响。考虑到移动互联网是一个以图片为王的时代,微信1.2的主体功能变成图片分享,但也并未获得市场的认可。
直到微信2.0的出现,才真正奠定微信在竞争中的绝对优势。微信2.0从用户手机输入的便利性出发,产品重心完全投入在语音通信上,虽然语音功能腾讯QQ早就做过,但将其放在手机上之后,因其便利性,瞬间捕获了大量的用户。
为了满足用户与陌生人的沟通交流,微信在2.5版本中增加了“查看附近的人”功能,通过查找附近的人,使用户轻松找到身边其他正在使用微信的人。也正是这个功能,让外界第一次感受到了微信功能的强大。就这样,微信开始甩开了所有的竞争对手,发布包含“摇一摇”和“漂流瓶”两个功能的微信3.0版本。这两个功能相当于给微信这个基于熟人关系的通信工具增加了陌生人社交的功能,使产品具备了有趣好玩的特性,增加了用户互动,保持了用户黏性。
微信4.0推出“朋友圈”,建立手机上的熟人社交圈,并开放了API接口,打造移动社交平台。朋友圈最初的目的是想让每个用户都参与到自己和他人的“图片塑造生活”的设计初衷上去,通过朋友之间的频繁互动,来增加用户的活跃度,保持产品的黏性。而且,朋友圈只有互相是好友关系才能查看对方的评论,这种设计既有效地保护了用户的隐私,又凸显了微信这款产品的社交特性。API接口开放后,微信支持从第三方应用向微信通讯录里的朋友分享音乐、新闻、美食等消息内容,进一步增加用户之间的互动,而且也为将微信打造成一个强大的移动应用平台奠定了基础。
2012年7月,微信公众平台开始内测,至此开启微信的商业化进程。在微信5.0中,微信公众平台分为订阅号和服务号,分别为不同的用户服务。订阅号主要为用户提供信息和咨询,服务号旨在为用户提供服务。5.0还增加了表情商店、扫一扫、游戏中心、微信支付等功能,满足用户的视觉化沟通需求,增加产品的趣味性,而且实现了用户快速便捷安全的移动支付需求。
微信正在从一个人与人交流的工具,逐渐进化成一个连接人、硬件和服务的生态系统,通过“连接一切”带来人体的延伸、生产效率的提高和日常生活的便捷。微信已经让我们看到,“微信,是一种生活方式”。
(资料来源:改编自微信是怎样炼成的——微信产品的发展历程,http://www.woshipm.com/pd/224359.html,2015.10.26)
UPS Sets“Green”Standards for Shipment Packaging
UPS today became the first carrier to offer its customers an assessment of their shipment packaging based on environmental standards. Under the Eco Responsible Packaging Program, UPS will evaluate a customer's packaging processes in three areas of sustainability: damage prevention, right-sizing and packaging materials. UPS will score the results and those customers who meet the requirements can display the program's logo on their shipment packaging.
Responsible packaging obviously begins with protecting the contents; damaged goods not only frustrate the recipient but often lead to the need to remanufacture and reship, doubling the carbon footprint. Shrinking the size of the box means less material used and fewer assets needed to transport the package. Finally, using packing and shipping materials with a more sustainable profile is important for the environment.
UPS' rigorous assessment methodology and processes are verified by Société Générale de Surveillance (SGS), an inspection, verification, testing and certification company. The service also has been praised by the Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) and Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), the latter a global business network and consultancy focused on sustainability.
“Our engineers have always directed our customers to use the right kind of packaging to protect their goods,”said Bob Stoffel, senior vice president.“This service gives our customers a new way to demonstrate that they are serious about sustainability when it comes to shipment packaging.”
The evaluation will assess the customer's transport packaging systems and procedures, rather than product packaging found on retail shelves. The contractual-based service is available to customers who commit to sustainable packaging solutions. Pricing is determined on a project basis. The program is conducted by the UPS Package Engineering Group, which is known for its expertise in transport packaging principles and also sought out the expertise of third-parties to ensure that its standards represent best practices.
“Embedding environmental evaluation in day-to-day packaging decisions is a critical step to improve the stewardship and conservation of valuable resources for the future,”said Anne Johnson, director of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition.“UPS brings an unprecedented scale to assessing the environmental impacts of transport packaging systems and their Eco-Responsible Packaging Program will raise awareness and continually inform more resource efficient and ultimately, recoverable transport packaging systems.”
(Source: UPS Sets“Green”Standards for Shipment Packaging, http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/29339-UPS-Sets-Green-Standard-For-Shipment-Packaging, 2010.4.15 )
Case Implications:
Marketing philosophies are attitudes, ideas and opinions which organizations design and carry out in the process of development and maximizing profits to deal with the relationships among the organization, customers, and society. In the above case, WeChat holds the marketing concept and focuses on customer needs, and UPS's Eco Responsible Packaging Program considers the balance among company profits, customer wants, and society's interests. No matter which marketing philosophy the company holds, if it can solve the problems for the company and adapt to the surroundings of the market, it will be good and successful.