Marketing PDF

marketing marketing, the sum of activities involved in directing the flow of goods and services from producers to consumers. For a discussion of how words, images,...

marketing marketing, the sum of activities involved in directing the flow of goods and services from producers to consumers. For a discussion of how words, images, and associations are used to represent and distinguish a product or service in the marketplace, see brand marketing advertisement for hair marketing. dressing Marketing’s principal function is to promote and facilitate exchange. Through marketing, individuals and groups obtain what they need and want by exchanging products and services with other parties. Such a process can occur only when there are at least two parties, each of whom has something to offer. In addition, exchange cannot occur unless the parties are able to communicate about and to deliver what they offer. Marketing is not a coercive process: all parties must be free to accept or reject what others are offering. So defined, marketing is distinguished from other modes of obtaining desired goods, such as through self-production, begging, theft, or force. Marketing is not confined to any particular type of economy, because goods must be exchanged and therefore marketed in all economies and societies except perhaps in the most primitive. Furthermore, marketing is not a function that is limited to profit-oriented business; even such public institutions as hospitals, schools, and museums engage in some forms of marketing. Within the broad scope of marketing, merchandising is concerned more specifically with promoting the sale of goods and services to consumers (i.e., retailing) and hence is more characteristic of free-market economies. For centuries, brand marketing has been a key element in advertising such goods and services, in profit and non- profit initiatives alike. Based on these criteria, marketing can take a variety of forms: it can be a set of functions, a department within an organization, a managerial process, a managerial philosophy, and a social process. The evolving discipline of marketing The marketing discipline had its origins in the early 20th century as an offspring of economics. Economic science had neglected the role of middlemen and the role of functions other than price in the determination of demand levels and characteristics. Early marketing economists examined agricultural and industrial markets and described them in