Question

1. Four competing philosophies (orientations/eras) strongly influence the role of marketing and marketing activities within an organization. Name and briefly describe each of these four philosophies/orientations/eras

2. Using the personal value equation, provide an example of how value is achieved for a consumer. Give also an example.

3. What is positioning? Explain why a company may need to position its product(s).

4. Explain why marketers must consider their macro-environment when they make decisions

Answer 1

1) Marketing and Marketing activities are strongly influenced by these four philosophies;

a) Production Orientation : The production orientation is where the firm or producer lays emphasis on what the producer or firm wants, based on its ability,resources and effieciency, rather than what is the need of the consumers or the market as a whole.

b) Sales Orientation : This is a philosophy where the emphasis is layed on sales techniques so that the larger quantities of goods are purchased by the consumers resulting in high sales of the firm and therefore high profit. Here, the firm makes sure that the consumers buy all kinds of goods, above and beyong essential goods.

c) Market Orientation : In this philosophy, the saying "A Customer is a King" comes into place. Complete emphasis is given on what a customer wants and what are his needs. The taste and preference of the customer is evaluated and a sales technique is improvised to push the sales. Here, the firm also analyzes the market competitiveness and the market policy of demand and supply.

d)Societal Marketing orientation : This philosophy is imporatant from a 'welfare of society' point of view. The firm should satisfy their customers keeping in mind the organizational objectives so that the consumer's as well as the society's best interests are taken care for a long-term.

2)

Firstly, the personal value equation is

Value = benefits received – [price + hassle]

wherein,
benefits received are the benefit that a consumer will receive from the consumption of a product. Hence it is very clear that this will vary with every customer as the benefit received from one product by a consumer will obviously be different from the other.

Price is the price at which a product is being offered to a consumer or the price that a consumer will be paying to get a product.

Hassle refers to time incurred by a consumer to get a product. In other words, hassle can be thought of as the effort of the consumer, the time that the consumer will be spending on getting that product from say a departmental store. Hence this is what makes the personal equation personal because the equation even takes into account the time and effort being incurred by the consumer.

Let's take an example to see how a consumer achieves value from this equation

Say a consumer is going to a restaurant with two of his friends. Now, to reach the restaurant the consumer will take some effort and definitely time will be incurred to reach the restaurant. So this will be termed as hassle in the personal equation. After reaching the reastaurant the consumer with his friends will take some effort in choosing the meal they want to have, again this will form part of the hassle. After having the meal all the three consumers will gain satisfaction and derive some benefits and obviously the satisfaction and benefits derived will differ among the three consumers. This will be termed as benefits received and will differ as also with hassle.
Further, the meal would have been bought at a price which is the same for all the consumers and forms a part of the equation.

Therefore, according to the personal value equation the value varies from consumer to consumer based on each consumer’s satisfaction, needs, benefits derived, the time and effort taken i.e. the hassle and lastly the price paid. This is how value is achieved by a consumer i.e. subtracting price (the cost) and hassle (the time and effort incurred, can be termed cost) with the benefits received on the consumption of a product.

3)

Positioning refers to where a product is placed in comparison to others who are offering same/similar products in the market. Positioning can also refer to the place a consumer has placed a particular product in his/her mind. Hence overall positioning refers to where a product is placed in the market and the minds of the consumers in comparison to other similar products.

Positioning is very important for any product and any company must take efforts to create this positioning of its product as this helps to create a niche in the market. A positioning of a product makes it different from other similar products available in the market and makes a consumer consider the positioned product in this cut throat competitive market. Further this also helps a product to have its own value and creates a USP or a brand value among consumers and in the market place.

In this modern era, there are hundreds of similar products and everyone is competing with one another. So it also becomes difficult for a company to create that positioning of its product and simultaneously it also forces a company to create a niche so as to have its product sold and last long in this competitive market. It is also important because positioning creates a position in the minds and psychology of the consumers and it is said and believed that if a product has created such positioning, consumers are more likely to consume such product and become attached with the product.

Hence, all in all positioning has a varied benefit for a product and a company must strive to create a position for its product.

4) Macro-environment is the external environment or external factors on which the businesses depend. A marketer should always consider their macro environment before making a decision because the purchasing capability of a consumer will also depend on the macro-environment.

Some of the factors because of which the marketers should consider the macro environment are ;

a] Economic Factors : These factors affects the purchasing power and spendings of the consumers. Marketers should check for economic policies that are prevelant, the inflation or the recession rate, the distribution of wealth among the consumers.

b) Cultural Factors : Factors like change of culture, the change in music globally, the generation change etc. will affect the buying patterns of the consumers, therefore the marketer should consider this macro environment.

c) Technological Factor : In this dynamic era of 2020, where technology innovates on a daily basis, this factor is a must which should be considered by a marketer. Which social media platform to choose to market products and what benefit to derive from technology, all needs to be analysed. Also, this factor helps in keeping up with the competitors in the market.