The Definition and Functioning of Marketing

Introduction Marketing is entwined and entangled in our everyday lives. As we become more connected, more informed and more prosperous, we desire and have the capacity to demand more products and services. These products and services are aimed to satisfy our basic needs, and the wants that evolve from them. It is the process of marketing which creates and develops a relationship between the organisation that produces the products or service, and us: the consumer. It follows then, that marketing cannot merely be the advertising and selling of a product or service as “telling and selling” (Kotler & Armstrong, 2012, p. 5), but is the creation of customer value. Village Gold Class employs the marketing process to create customer value.

What is marketing and how is it defined?

The definition and function of marketing has evolved over the years to reflect the evolution of the environment that marketing operates in. Gamble, Gilmore, McCartan-Quinn and Durkan (2011), noted early definitions of marketing were too functional. Kotler (1983, p. 7) proposed that “marketing is a human activity directed at satisfying needs and wants through exchange processes.” The American Marketing Association expands on Kotler’s definition by providing a functional insight into marketing and the entities that are involved in the exchange process. They describe marketing as “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging ...

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..., J., Gilmore, A., McCartan-Quinn, D. & Durkan, P. (2011). The Marketing concept in the 21st century: A review of how Marketing has been defined since the 1960s. The Marketing Review, 11(3), 227-248.

Gold Class (n.d.). Village Cinemas. Retrieved March 2, 2014, from http://villagecinemas.com.au/gold-class

Kotler, P., Shaw, R., FitzRoy, P. & Chandler, P. (1983). Marketing in Australia. Sydney: Prentice-Hall. Chapter 1, 3-27.

Kotler, P., & Armstrong, G. (2012). Principles of marketing (14th ed., pp. 2-33). Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.

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