Marketing Debate

Marketing Debate – Does Marketing Create or Satisfy Need?
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Research and experience have shown that marketing is one of the most important activities of a company despite the industry the firm is located in. As the market gets increasingly competitive today, there need to be strategies created to give any company an upper hand in the market. However, a great controversy has surrounded the marketing activity, as to whether it creates or satisfies the needs of the customer. While the consumers feel that Marketing does create the needs they have by exposing them to, marketers argue that their clients can distinguish between their wants and their needs. Marketing, however, does not create needs of the consumer but enlightens and satisfies the needs of the customer.
With a lot of competitors looking to profit from a tiny market, marketing strategies need to use the best possible strategies to attract the most consumers. These strategies include the analysis of consumer’s behavior, the geography of the market and the demographic composition. With this information, they can communicate and convince their target customer. This, therefore, means that marketing is “the process of creating customer value through creative strategies around consumer wants and needs, in turn, increasing brand awareness and overall profits throughout the industry.” (Kotler & Keller, 2015)
While marketing the products, needs are viewed as the “state of felt deprivation, where one lacks the necessity deemed necessary in society, such as physical needs for food, clothing, warmth, and safety.

” This, therefore, means that the marketing advertisements do not create the necessity, but amplify the necessity that stems from the lifestyle of the consumer. This consequently causes wants to become needs, especially when the need to satisfy it is attached to the want. Therefore, since the needs of the consumer remain the basis of the decision to make a purchase, and the marketers analyze these needs, grouping them into different categories, “stated, real, unstated, delighted and secret needs.” (Emrouznejad & Cabanda, 2014)
The stated needs are those that the consumers will expressly demand, such as food and need for a home. Real needs are those that define the stated needs, such as the size of the house, providing a more specific aspect to the needs. Unstated needs are those the consumers expect the market to have although they are not expressly stated, such as getting convenient services. Delighted needs are those that the consumer does not necessarily need, but will be pleased to have, such as the quality of the lawn of their house. The secret needs lastly are the ones that consumers never express, but are attached to the purchases they make, such as status that comes with owning a home.
However, as the marketing process takes place, the companies do not stop looking into the industry and the ever-changing needs of the consumers and keep on upgrading the product about the current needs of the consumer. This is clear that marketing does not create a need, based on the fact that all the marketing activities stem from the needs, the pre-existing needs the customers already have. Any production in a market is based on the need of the consumer and, therefore, aimed at creating empowerment to the consumer. As market analysts state, “consumers are king of this free-enterprise system, and the market responds to their demands. Consumers have the ability and capability to decide whether they want a product or not. Marketing has no power over the consumer, but can be used as a means of product selection.” (American Marketing Association, 2000)
References
American Marketing Association (Chicago, IL). (2000). Marketing management. Chicago, IL: American Marketing Association.
Emrouznejad, A., & Cabanda, E. (2014). Managing Service Productivity: Using Frontier Efficiency Methodologies and Multicriteria Decision Making for Improving Service Performance.
Kotler, P., & Keller, K. L. (2015). Marketing management. Boston: Prentice Hall.