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Marketing has defined as “a social and managerial process whereby individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others” (Kotler, P. & Armstrong, G. , 2001, p. 6). “Marketing is the anticipating, management, and satisfaction of demand through the exchange process. It involves goods, services, organization, people, place, and ideas. ” (Evans, R. & Berman 2007, p. 7).
It might never arise to manager that they could be accountants or CFOs without sufficient training, but nowadays, in many organizations the marketing functions are carry out by people with little to no formal training in the discipline. Many have misperception that “Marketing Is Art” as if there is no “science” behind the discipline then one’s opinion is just as good as anyone else’s. Although this is not meant to diminish “on the job training” or an individual’s experience and innate skills, the latter certainly does not substitute for formal training. The body of knowledge that is relevant to marketing decision is large and complex.
Thus, the “Marketing Is Art” misperception can have dangerous effect for organizations where this is the prevailing belief. (Michael, J. & Peter, J. 1999, p. 96) Another belief has closely related is many have discounted marketing because it is the “art” side of business. Indeed, it is true that a good marketing will relies to a great degree on creativity and right-brain thinking. It can infrequently be reduced to formulas, statistics, and decision rules. However, many do not realize that good marketing represents creativity that is firmly rooted in data.
Marketing is best understood as the meeting place for data and intuition, analysis and creativity, left and right-brain thinking. (Michael, J. & Peter, J. 1999, p. 96) Marketing may be view from both business and consumers perspective. As a goods and services provider make marketing related decision such as choosing their customer are, what goods and services to offer, where to sell all this goods and services, what is the promotion technique, what is the market price, how to be ethical and socially responsible and whether to sell the product globally in addition to domestic market (Brown 1996, p. 50). Decision making are vary to everyone and it cannot be determine or base on science. However, we might use technology, scientific tools and research in order to help us making the right decision. As in consumers’ perspective, the marketing process affects whom we patronize, choices in the marketplace, where we shop, the availability of sales personnel, the prices we pay and many other factors. Marketing practice are in play when we are born, when we grow and when we conduct our daily lives and when we retire.
Is our life can determine by using scientific method and analyst? Think again. The marketing concept requires an organization or individual to be consumer-oriented, market driven, value-base, integrated effort, and goal-oriented (Evans, R. & Berman 2007, p. 10). Consumer-oriented is examines what consumer needs and what plan to satisfy them. Market driven approach require awareness of the marketplace especially strategies of competing firms. Value-base means offering goods and services to consumers with superior value relative to their cost and the offerings of competitors.
Integrated approach focusing all the activities relate to goods and services which include finance, production, engineering, inventory control, research and development, and marketing. Goal-oriented philosophy for a firm, institution and person is to achieve both short and long term goals. Marketing helps attain goals by orienting a firm toward pleasing consumers and offering desired goods and services. Through the marketing concepts, it is clear that a firm need to analyze, maximize and satisfy consumer demand.
Internal strategy directed by a firm and its marketers, line of business decide by top management, overall business objective and role of marketing and other business function and culture. These are the controllable factor where it can be monitor and control using a proper strategy with the help of information system and decision making system. Clearly, science plays an important role in decision making and provides different kind of decision toward different strategy. Market research is the systematic design, collection, interpretation and reporting of information to help marketers to solve specific marketing problem or take advantage of marketing opportunities” (Pride, W. , Elliot, G. , Rundle-Thiele, S. , Waller, D. , Paladino, A. & Ferrell, O. , 2007, p. 87). Marketing research is crucial to market segmentation, which involves subdividing a market into clear subsets of customers and choosing the target market.
In today’s technology, many firms use a business philosophy which known as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to understand customer need and to build, nurture and sustain long-term customer relationships than ever before. Statistical data are collect base on customer information such as names, addresses, contact numbers, age, sex, number of children, etc. These customers information are use to analyze which types of customers are best for their business by create a details profiles such as customer preference. These enable a firm to market their customer in personal way by using the information gained from them.
Market research systematically gathering, recording and analyzing data about specific issue related to the marketing goods, services, organization, people, places and ideas. Many firms look to database marketing for improving their customer interactions. This involves setting up an automated system to identify and characterize customers and using quantifiable information to better reach them. With the help of information technology, firms can seek out hidden opportunity related to specific customers. A firm also must consider its strengths and weakness in production, engineering, and finance.
To enable a firm to accurately access its strengths, weaknesses, opportunity and threat, marketing information is needed. The scientific method requires objectivity, accuracy, and thoroughness in research project. Collecting marketing information should not be viewed as and infrequent even. Acting in that manner can lead to negative and affect to firm performance especially misreading the competition and external factors. Marketing information system is a set of procedures to generate, analyze and store anticipated marketing decision information on a regular, continuous basis.
It can help a company operationally, managerially and strategically. The impact of competition, government regulations and other external force must also be evaluated. These are the uncontrollable factor to the firm. Although a firm has control over its target market selection, it cannot control the changing characteristic of its consumers. A firm cannot control consumer trend, income, age, marital status, occupation, education, place and type of residence. People act differently in buying various types of goods and services.
The consumer decision process, steps people go through when buying the product and image of the product to the customer are unpredictable. Government bodies have a great impact on marketing practices by placing restriction on specified activities. The Malaysian federal government has even banned such indirect advertising of tobacco brands, except in certain establishments licensed to sell tobacco products starting July 2003 (BNET 2008). Many technically-oriented people such as engineers, accountants, computer specialists and researcher like to think marketing success is to learn the secret of marketing formulas.
Thus, they study consumer behavior and predict consumer manner with a set of formula and variables. They try to look for scientific formulas in a field of art. They might predict behaviors of consumers and the market by using scientific methods, the decisions based on the scientific results are not always correct. After Classic Coke was consistently beaten by Pepsi in taste testes, New Coke was launched into the American market. The launch of New Coke turned out to be a nightmare for Coca-Cola. The failure of New Coke force Coca-Cola had to re-launch the classic coke to the market.
Coca-Cola did extensive market research when developing this New Coke. 200,000 consumers were interviewed prior to the launch, and although there has been much debate about the research methodology, there appears to have been little fault with it. Technically, the research showed that only about 10% would have a ‘problem’ with a new formulation. Management based their decision on these results and was sure of success when they launched the product (Peimer Sid, 2005). Keep in mind that scientific method attempts to predict the future such as using Mathematic probability by studying the past and random sampling.
It show that what people have done and what people might do in future but is not what people will do in future. Marketing shouldn’t be only categorized in art or only in science. It is a combination of art and science that work together. In other word, Marketing should be scientifically managed art. Marketing evolve since barter era where people trade one resource for another using exchange method until marketing company era where consumer research and analysis, company effort are well integrated and regular review. Marketing must evolve, and part of that is becoming more scientific.
With the help of technology and science, a firm can use their marketing strategy in the efficient way to combat the challenges of today’s competitive market environment. References Michael, J. & Peter, J. 1999, The Physician’s Essential MBA, Jones & Bartlett Publishers, United States of America. Kotler, P. & Armstrong, G. , 2001, Principles of Marketing, 5th edition, Prentice Hall, New Jersey. Evans, R. & Berman 2007, Marketing, 10e: Marketing in the 21st Century, 10th edn, Thomson, United States of America. Pride, W. , Elliot, G. , Rundle-Thiele, S. , Waller, D. , Paladino, A. & Ferrell, O. 2007, Marketing: Core Concepts & Applications, 2nd edn, John Wiley & Sons, Brisbane. Malhotra, Hall, Shaw, & Oppenheim 2004, Essentials of Marketing Research: An Applied Orientation, Pearson Education Australia, Australia. Brown 1996, ‘Art or Science? : Fifty Years of Marketing Debate’, Journal of Marketing Management, VOL12, 4, 243-267. BNET 2008, Malaysia to ban tobacco ads, sponsorship by next year, viewed 27 August 2008, <http://findarticles. com/p/articles/mi_m0WDP/is_2002_June_10/ai_87051681> Peimer, Sid 2005, Edsel, New Coke and Betamax – do you know what really happened? , viewed 27 August 2008, <