by Mario Luis Tavares Ferreira

Created on: April 22, 2009   Last Updated: April 24, 2009

About Marketing, we would like to place not a definition, but several focuses that, at the same time, are complementary and create a broad vision on the functions and practices of the modern marketing in the universe of the company, product and market.

Peter Drucker says that marketing is the unique function and the only function of the company. He also says that the aim of marketing is making selling superfluous. Marketing should understand so well the customer's needs that the product or service fits him and sells itself.

Al Ries and Jack Trout highlight what they call the fourth law of marketing, which says that marketing is not a battle of products; it is a battle of perceptions.

Philip Kotler has two visions, one is with a social approach and the other is with a managerial approach.

The social approach defines marketing as a process where individual or groups obtain their needs and what they want through creating, offering and exchanging products and services freely with others.

The managerial approach, he starts with a generic description as the art of selling products, and later he defines marketing management as the art and science of applying core marketing concepts, to choose target markets and get, keep, and grow customers through creating, delivering, and communicating superior customer value.

Regis McKenna, a marketing consultant, defines marketing not as a function, but, as a way of doing businesses.

According to McKenna, it is an activity that should be practised from the receptionist to the senior management. Marketing is an expression of the character of the company. It is company's responsibility, as a whole.

The French writer, Armand Dayan, defines marketing as a group of techniques, based in a particular state of mind, which seeks to satisfy, in the best psychological conditions to the market and in the best financial conditions for the distributor, the natural needs and the new ones.

The marketing concepts and applications are having a fast evolution in applications and focus, generating in its progress the marketing of high quality, first, second, third and fourth generation, the guerrilla marketing, the maxi-marketing, the marketing of services, the relationship marketing, viral marketing, the marketing of niches, and so on.

All those interpretations, theories and practices, we, actually, can consider them as complementary or extensions and in a continuous and dynamic evolution and application, as well it is the market.

Nowadays we also have a "soup of letters" and diverse technical expressions to deal with new strategies and methodologies. We can mention: CRM Customer Relationship Management, One-to-One, from Peppers and Rogers Group, Lateral Marketing, X Marketing, and so on.

With so much marketing concepts, methodologies and strategies, it seems to be a Babel tower.

Actually, each definition corresponds to a simple and applied concept, and its simplicity will be nothing more than the use of intuition, experience and knowledge, according to the product, market, moment and the environment, and less based on appearance and sophistication.

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