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.