MAL 25/18 MAL25/18 | Page 56

The production disappeared. orientation has not There are still many companies that are operating in the product orientation like the cell phone manufacturers and most electronic appliances makers which compete on differentiating their products on features, aesthetics and functionality. In our analysis many companies are still in the sales orientation phase like insurance, entertainment, property development, food supplements, logistics and even financial services. They have to push their products and put them in front of their consumers. There will always be a product or service that will have a price and that will have to be made available at a place and there will al- ways be a need to let people know how to access the product or service. Therefore the fundamentals of mar- keting will not change There exists in the American marketing annals another marketing orientation called the societal marketing which states that companies should not only satisfy consumer wants and achieve their company goals but take into consideration societies’ long term interests. like the marketing orientation are still in infancy, and we hope to have socially responsible companies in future. So where did the concept that marketing is dead or dying come from? As you would imagine this altruistic orientation is still foreign in many companies but we have started to see some responsible behavior from chemical manufacturers and plastic makers who have realized that their activities are killing the blue planet. It appears that the culprit has been technological advancement that has introduced new channels of communication and the resultant excitement has prompted our marketing pundits to proclaim the death of marketing in its traditional format. So all the known marketing orientations are still in operation today and some Coupled with this is the fact that governments started collecting personal 54 MAL25/18 ISSUE data for administrative reasons and soon other organizations like utility companies and financial institutions also were collecting information for their use. Technology has made it possible to share this data. The sharing of the data plus insights gleaned from social media and the fact that retailers can now track buyer behavior means that one can profile the customer more accurately and using machine learning technology even have predictive capabilities. The advent of digital capability and social media has opened a new dimension to our communication ability and the internet of things has allowed us to understand the consumer better than before and delve deep into his daily habits. To understand the consumer needs and respond to his individual wants has been the holy grail of marketers and as soon as that capability was possible it did not take business seers long to project into the future and see the death of marketing. There will always be a product or service that will have a price and that will have to be made available at a place and there will always be a need to let people know how to access the product or service. Therefore the fundamentals of marketing will not change.