Marketing seems to have the future. Nowadays a product won’t be even noticed without the proper research in identifying and meeting the needs of the customer. The success of the IPhone was for a great part caused by knowing what the consumer at that time wanted; an IPod, a phone and an internet communicator . Although nowadays a vast amount of people can’t imagine a life without their smartphone, the question arises if the need for the IPhone was really there or that Apple reinvented our needs like they reinvented the phone. In other words: are needs of consumers artificially created?
The term needs is usually described as some basic requirements, but that definition is, especially in marketing, very vague. From this point we will define needs as preferences from a microeconomic perspective, this implies that needs come from a rational consumer and the product designers try to satisfy these needs. In other words consumers will choose the best combinations of commodities with resources that are available (Becker, 1962). However the problem with this definition is that consumers can’t be assumed to be rational and aren’t able to define their preferences that easily. (Franke, Keinz, & Steger, 2009) In this framework we can assume that a consumer has limited resources, but a very wide variety of options. This restriction will mean that a consumer never can choose his best combination. Although it is implied that the cause of this lies in the idea that a consumer has too much options to choose from, one could argue that the problem lies in how the consumer can perceive their option. All in all it can be said that the consuming isn’t strictly maximizing utility but that consumers are influenced by how these options are presented (Huf...
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...consumer faces. With the use of framing a producer can meet the preference and thus the needs of the consumer without the consumer knowing what his preference exactly is. In the end marketing does really have the future.
Works Cited
Becker, G. (1962). Irrational Behavior and Economic Theory. Journal of Political Economy, 1-13.
Franke, N., Keinz, P., & Steger, C. (2009). Testing the Value of Customization:When Do Customers Really Prefer Products Tailored to Their Preferences? Journal of Marketing, 103-121.
Huffman, C., & Kahn, B. (1998). Variety for sale: Mass customization or mass confusion? Journal of Retailing, 491-513.
Kotler, P., & Keller, K. (2012). a framework for marketing management. Harlow: Pearson.
Levin, I., & Gaeth, G. (1988). How Consumers are Affected by the Framing of Attribute Information Before and After. Journal of Consumer Research,, 374-378.
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