Marketing as a concept in business - Essay Example

?Exam study question Question Marketing is a concept in business through which business people increase their brand awareness. Consumers only buy a product or service that they recognize and know about. This is a fact that has often compelled entrepreneurs to engage in different marketing activities key among which is advertising. Advertising is a brand awareness tool that uses the mass media to increase the reputation of either a product or service (Fournier, 1998). It is a paid form of either non-personal representation of a good or service by an identified sponsor. The mass media is a means of reaching a large audience strewn over a wide geographical region. Most marketers use the different forms of mass communication to advertise their products thereby improving their brand visibility among their target market. Among the most common mass media are radio, television, newspapers and the modern day media the internet (Gieszinger, 2001). Mass media as a tool of advertising has a number of advantages over other forms of brand promotions key among which is the fact that mass media overcomes the geographical barriers some of which prevent accessibility of certain regions. Mass media communicates spontaneously; this implies that the information communicated reaches its consumers equally provided they have the ability to access it. Furthermore, some forms of mass media provide details and are stored for future references. Such mass media as newspapers and magazines have longer lifespans and therefore provide exhaustive information about a product in case of an advert (Marchand, 1985). The above features coupled with the possibilities of the internet as a mass media makes the media the most powerful tool for entrepreneurs to increase the visibility of their products and possibly the sales. Richard Ohmann evaluated these among other possibilities of the media in constructing his thesis statement, which is adequately accurate. Capitalism is a form socioeconomic system based on the abstraction of resources into privately owned. Capitalist therefore aim at increasing their sales and possibly the profitability of their goods and services. Capitalists are aggressive in their production, service delivery and marketing strategies, they attempt to use progressively smaller amount of money in the production and conducting business to yield an abnormally huge profits. They are profit oriented and rarely consider the needs of either the consumers or the society. Ohmann therefore postulates that capitalists will employ the media in increasing their product visibility with an aim of improving profitability (Bogomolova, 2011). Tom & Jacqueline, (2003) explains that the modern day society consists of marketers who desire to increase their product presence by using the least amount of money possible. However, the cost of advertising is progressively increasing in accordance to the quality of advertising services as most entrepreneurs express preference for the established media thereby resulting in competition. So while the established capitalists scramble for the prime time the other less established capitalists parade their products and services in the off peak hours of the media. These activities by marketers result in a media fraternity filled with advertisements for products and services all day. Ohmann describes such a scenario in his hypothesis by claiming that capitalists will eventually saturate the market with their goods and products. The modern day market is literally saturated with products and services. The internet provides yet another advanced platform currently packed with entrepreneurs and marketers all of who have resorted to the cheaper social networking sites to advertise their products (Stewart, 1976). Question 2 Advertisement just as defined earlier is a means to improving the visibility of products and services thereby improving the sales. Products and services have an aspect of sex appeal to them thereby validating the use of women and sexuality in advertisement. The development of the media and the liberalization of the societies have resulted in both men and women identifying their capabilities. The media is one sector of the economy that has continually appealed to women who consequently pursue media related careers thus compelling them to perform active roles in advertising and marketing of products. Additionally, women are more likely to sue their sexuality in social spheres than men are. This implies that they therefore relate effectively with the sexual connotation of products and services (Tom & Jacqueline, 2003). Women have an attractive physique; they look better and always have a better representation than men have. This makes their sexual aspect more conspicuous thereby making women better advertisers than men. Most marketers exploit this aspect of women to supplement the sexual connotation of their products. Women are used in advertising such masculine products as cars and even housing most of which target the male segment of the market because of the sexuality value women add to the products thereby making them more appealing to the target market. Women attract men and the more beautiful they are the more intense the attraction becomes. The women in advertisements are always beautiful and present an aspect of the product that relates to their beauty. Nivea, a leading cosmetics manufacturer for example uses women in advertising male lotions and in their brand-positioning slogan is the “Want men want phrase”. Alongside this phrase are always beautiful women an aspect of the advertisement that solicit more male customers for the product most of who believe that the lotion will make them impress more beautiful women. Besides the elitist view to the role of women in advertising, the social responsibilities of women make them better tools in advertising certain goods and services. Women are the centerpiece of societies; they are mothers, sisters, aunties and grandmothers among many other roles. Furthermore, the society relates certain chores readily to women than to men. This has often compelled most advertisers to use women in promoting such products as kitchen facilities, laundry products, baby products and toiletry among many others (Williams, 1980). Such products relate to women more easily than they do with men. Such are not discriminatory since women take care of the children and often feed their families. The fact that such products are often more than any other in the markets make women more common on televisions, radios and newspapers running the adverts than men. Some products target women thereby making women their better advertisers since they know better how to use them. Such products as beauty soaps, lotions and certain type of clothing target women. Women are often more conscious of their look and will always consider beauty products, additionally, women outnumber men in any society. This makes their products more than those that target the male market. Women understand such products better than men do; this makes them better advertisers and marketers of the products. Such possibilities couple with the high number of women and the large number of beauty and other female oriented products to result in an advertisement industry that prefers the use women to men. Question 3 Advertising agencies and publishers are both intermediaries in the advertisement industry bridging the gap between marketers and their media. However, some of their roles are redundant and they often obscure each other in the performance of their roles. Advertising agencies are independent firms that develop adverts in accordance to the dictates of the marketer and the intended media before presenting it to the media for communication to the audience. The agencies advise the marketers informing them of the most effective media and the effective mechanisms of packaging the adverts (Thomas & Michael, 2001). The publishers on the other hand purposely publish the printable advertisement products. The roles of the publishers are very redundant since both the media and the agencies perform similar roles. This implies that advertising agencies are more legitimate in their operations and have more validity in the claim of pioneering the modern advertisement. Marchand, (1985) asserts that publishers receive the advert requirement from the marketers and publish it or advise the publishing process. In most cases, the roles of the publishers gained more relevance in the print media. The modern expansion in media that has resulted in such dynamic media as the internet therefore has no use for the publishers. The relationship between publishers and advertising agencies dictated that the marketer identify an advert need after which they approach the agencies who help conceive and formulate the advert. The publishers come later therefore to publish the advert as formulated by two. This appeared redundant since the agencies are holistic institutions with the publishing equipment and therefore sum up the roles of publishers. This therefore validated the claims by the agencies that they pioneered the modern advertising and that publishers have often hindered the growth of modern day advertising (Gieszinger, 2001). Modern advertisement and media in general have specific features unique to the agencies. The modern day consumer is more literate and therefore has a higher conceptual ability. Such people therefore require realistic advertisements, which do not only aim to popularize the product but also to sell specific feature of the product to the audience. The advertising agencies have the effective organization and structural management to carry out market studies and therefore make informed marketing decisions that promise returns for the investments of the marketer (Willey, 2012). The internet has created a scenario in the advertising industry that has threatened the survival of advertising agencies. As explained earlier, agencies are intermediaries purposely bridging the gap between marketers and advertisers. The internet on the other hand, as a late entrant, gives the marketer an opportunity to access the audience and therefore sell the product specifications to the individually. This renders the agencies redundant too and in need of a reason to convince the marketer of their relevance. However, advertising agencies gain more relevance in the fact that they have an understanding of the market, and keep up to date information about the audience group (Kreshel, 1993). They have all the time to interact with the audience and can therefore maintain the social networking sites for the marketers most of who have multiple responsibilities. Additionally, the growth of the internet has not in any way affected the operation of other media most if which continue to grow and expand. This makes the advertising agencies still of relevance despite the growing number of internet users in the modern society and the fact that all media outlets have also resorted to maintain online versions. Question 4 The earlier society had a different structure and composition that supported the growth of smaller and numerous enterprises. At the time, the world had not developed technologically as it is today and the regions therefore marked the markets. The smaller enterprises therefore had adequate control of their small markets without straining their resources. However, with time the world evolved into a global village, one in which every region is accessible and therefore open for trade (Chandler, 1977). This expanded the market for most of the small enterprises, which could not suddenly meet the increased demand. Additionally, the technological developments required a change in the manner of conducting business. First, the businesses required more capital to maintain relevance and the demand alike. Capitalism was an economic concept, which resulted in the creation of few producers who made their self-relevant by creating a monopolistic market. They therefore exploited the market by implementing policies that safeguarded their survival. A few corporations became powerful because of amassing wealth and reducing the cost of both production and that of doing business by using replacing humans by machines. This resulted in massive profits for the capitalists who further enhanced their hold on the market by stifling competition. They either acquired newer enterprises or diversified their products thereby giving the market the notion of a liberal market while they continued to enjoy unrealistic profits. Capitalism favored the growth of small entrepreneurs each trying to create a market for itself (Marchand, 1985). Smaller enterprise lacked adequate resources to operate effectively. They lacked satisfactory finances to reach their targeted market a factor the resulted in the dissolution of most of such institutions this also implied that they could not manage their market (Twenge, 2006). Additionally, management is of essence in the operation of an enterprise, the smaller enterprises had no effective management structure to coordinate their operations across the regions they claimed ownership. The market was constantly expanding with the technological expansion of the communication and transportation sectors of the economy. This implied that the smaller enterprises required seamless expansion to diversify their operations and expand their presence to the expanding market (Richard, 2003). The increased demand resulting from the expanded market prompted the development of the large modern day bureaucratic corporations. The bureaucratic nature of the organizations makes management easier, the wide market requires the corporations to have adequate presence to retain relevance and this requires effectively coordinated and preplanned operations, which include franchising and formation of outlets. Such corporations as the Coca cola have earned an effective understanding of the management structure and have therefore successfully earned an international presence in more than two hundred countries (Espinoza, 2012). In such a wide market, the cost of operation is high and corporations require adequate financing. Smaller business do not have sufficient assets to enable them access necessary funding from financial institutions to expand their operations to reach the international market. The bigger modern day corporations on the other hand have acquired wealth through the effective management of profit among other resources. They therefore have the capacity to obtain funding from banks and other financial institutions to expand their operations and therefore meet the global market easily. The increased operational costs of doing business coupled with other pertinent management issues therefore seamlessly brokered the transition from the production oriented smaller enterprises to the large modern day corporations (Tom & Jacqueline, 2003). Question 5 The period preceding 1980 experienced a number of changes some of which influenced the change in doing business by expanding the role of advertising in the business. The period witnessed the invention of television, a more interactive media that relayed motion pictures to its audiences. Additionally, the subsequent invention of the frequency modulation (FM) wavelength revolutionized radio communication by accommodating more channels thus opening regions to interaction through communication. The resulting increase in the use of the broadcast media aided advertisement thereby promoting the market presence of a number of goods. Advertisement increases the awareness of the existence of a particular product or service among a particular market group. The lack of effective mechanism of improving a product presence in a particular market stifled a number of businesses in the early times (Tabbush, 2011). In the periods before the invention of the broadcast media, people relied on the word of mouth to sensitize the population on the existence of a product or service in particular regions. The word of mouth is an effective method of advertisement only that it is slow since it relies on the ability of the speaker to reach the targeted population. Besides the slow speed, the information is often distorted as it passes down through people thereby diminishes in effectiveness. Most businesses relied on this method of advertisement owing to the evident lack of more effective and efficient forms of mass communication. The invention of the basic forms of the broadcast mass media such as radio and television later changed people’s view on communication thereby revolutionizing advertising. For once, the news on the existence of a product or a service could reach thousands of people strewn all over the region spontaneously without the entrepreneur incurring additional costs (Gieszinger, 2001). Tom & Jacqueline, 92003) asserts that the success of the mass media attested itself in the type of responses that most of the businesses of the time received. Victorian business, a marginal and regional business that had previously not had effect in regions preceding its locality for example grew to become a modern day business empire. The company engaged in extensive advertisement with the sole view of improving its presence in the market. it had initially relied on the rudimentary form of communication and advertisement most of which relied on the word of mouth. However, with the advent of the broadcast media in the late 1980s, the region quickly b linked up through the efficient medium of mass communication. Furthermore, the population embraced the new technology and most people quickly purchased the radios and televisions. This implied that the entire market had a form of effective and highly efficient communication connection. Adverts could therefore obtain higher efficacy in the target population (Espinoza & Mick, 2010). The broadcast media is an elitist media, the increasing use of the broadcast media in the society was therefore an indication of the increasingly literate population. Such a population has a substantial understanding of the various product features and consumes their products both cautiously and sparingly (Aaker & Aaker, 2010). To increase the worth of the new broadcast media, the marketers required effective decisions resulting from informed market researches. The period therefore witnessed a number of effective market researches most effective of which resulted in the subsequent success story of the Victorian businesses. Question 6 The modern day consumer is different in a number of ways and is greatly unpredictable thereby requiring the entrepreneurs to carry out effective and timely market researches to determine the changing consumption trends. Money has however remained a constant determinant of consumer patterns further dividing the market into two classes. The upper class consisting of quality oriented consumers. Such people pay any amount for quality goods and services, they have the ability to afford any product at any price provided it is of essence to them and of desirable quality features. However, this category of consumers is fewer compared to the lower category of consumers (Lane, 2005). Products and services targeting the class therefore sell slower and fewer but still make adequate profit owing to the higher profit margin per product. the other category consists of the poor. These people attach more importance on the price of the products and often prefer the basics and bare minimums provided they are relatively cheaper than other brands in the market. the degree of expression of such consumer behaviors vary with the level of income but the group consists the majority of the population in any economy. Products targeting the group therefore have a wider market but may incur loses if not effectively managed considering the fact that the product and services have smaller profit margins. Selling fewer of such products therefore result in loses for the manufacturers. Despite the existence of these two groups of modern day consumers, the modern society consists of an increasingly literate population who have adequate understanding of the products and goods they purchase from stores. Additionally, the increase in literacy results in an employable population implying that most of the modern day consumers have some basic source of income and therefore can afford the product more often than not. Such a people plan their spending and conduct effective reviews of the brands they purchase and the outlets from where they buy the products. The increasingly literate consumer requires effective understanding and different ways of doing business. This explains the different operational mechanisms employed by different firms globally (Stewart, 1976). Marchand, (1985) explains that the modern day consumer forms loyalty to both the brand and the outlets. This follows the consideration of a number of factors apart from the price. The spread of chain store and he subsequent development of customer loyalty card among other modern means of retaining customers is an indication of the changing means of doing business. The loyalty to brand results from a feature of either the product or a specific quality of the brand to which every customer attaches some value thereby earning his or her loyalty. Another special feature about the modern day consumer is the availability of numerous choices to select. Several companies produce similar products thereby resulting in heightened competition among the brands. This compels each of the several brands to develop a competitive advantage over the other products in the same market. This requires the producers of such product to carry out effective market research and determine specific qualities lacking in other products. 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