Historical Background And Analysis of Modern Marketing Science

For my capstone project I look to plan and create an effective form of marketing for State Farm Dumra Insurance. Of course, this entity already has a marketing plan but because it is a new agency in Austin, I believe I can support its growth with an effective marketing plan. With my skills and resources of being bilingual I believe I can reach out to a larger audience for this agency. I will look for more events that we can attend, become a licensed sales associate, and learn from my coworkers to become a better worker in the civilian world which I am new to. With this literature review I hope to educate myself with the history, purpose, and science of marketing.

Marketing could be simply defined by understanding a customer’s needs, wants and behaviors. Today the American Marketing Association defines marketing as activity for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for society at large. With the world in constant change, I feel many forget about the first people to market a business or product in the world. I believe how businesses market now is one business sees a method of marketing that is successful and attempts to mimic exactly what they see. After all, there are no laws against marketing in the same manner as others. I do not blame businesses for doing the copycat method, it is just easier. It seems as a lost art in some manner how marketers now do not fully understand how certain marketing methods came into fruition. Jones and Shaw (2017) state to fully understand marketing concepts, one must understand who developed those ideas and for what purposes when they were developed.

History of Marketing

Marketing is and has been used everywhere in the world today and it is not required to be a business to be considered marketing, it can be anything. People can market themselves by what they do in the world, what they wear, and how they speak. Everyone does it, in some cases it is how you sell yourself, whether it’s in a job interview, the classroom, or at work, people see how you carry yourself and that is that think of you. Marketing once was a simpler method in the business world, but as we all know things are always changing. The on-going process of change of in business and technology create a new meaning for marketing in the future. Earliest Methods of Marketing in History With the inadequate resources we once were limited to in the earlier centuries marketing was a true task to conquer. Some of the most common methods of marketing came through word of mouth across town or flyers posted in town or bigger signs such as billboards to be trying to reach more of an audience.

All these forms of marketing can be still be seen used presently. Obviously, historically these methods were more profound during their time and perhaps valued more. One of the earliest and most effective was the invention of the printing press invented by Johannes Gutenberg. The impact of the printing press accounted anywhere frome18% to 68% of European cities growth in the 15th century. The press allowed them to be informed of current events across the nation which helped market each city to their people. It makes sense for people wanting to be knowledgeable with what is happening. I think it’s safe to say that that everyone wants to be informed with the world around them, it’s like human nature. Certain battles or events would not have taken place if were not for this invention. Without a doubt this changed the course of history. Centuries later when America gained its independence from England began the expansion of even more marketing. Just like everything else marketing began to expand its forms of marketing with the newspaper, magazines, radio, and television. There began to more advertising through all the sources to help promote businesses. All the resources the marketing business was given more opportunities to expand and became more prominent than ever.

Today’s Methods of Marketing

Currently it seems as if we have an infinite number of tools for marketing, especially with the age of the internet and having technology available at our fingertips 24/7. It is now seemingly effortless for users to interact with a brand, product, or service. By 2020, Muzellec and Oraghallaigh predict there will be an estimated 7 billion smartphone subscriptions globally driven by huge growth in markets. It is also expected for smartphone subscriptions to overtake the number of active subscriptions worldwide (2017). Smartphones have driven and will continue to significantly influence how businesses market for time to come. Smartphones have become so connected with our life that we often feel naked without them. We see ads through YouTube, Snapchat, Facebook and so on. The most popular free apps being used use ads themselves, it is how they make their revenue. And if you want to obtain ad free apps, there will be a purchase required. Similarly to the printing press, smartphones made a great impact in the methods and field of marketing.

Effective Methods of Marketing

Conducting surveys are a concrete research technique to find effective methods of marketing. Surveys are also popular in marketing research, in part because it is difficult to imagine how certain topics could be studied without directly asking people questions. Surveys are typically preferred rather than observing an individual’s behavior by experimental conditions controlled by the researcher. It saves both the individual’s time and the researcher, allowing the researcher to become more resourceful. Surveys must be created well, and their data must be examined properly in order to attain valid conclusions. Some popular examples of effective marketing I see today are major clothing brands like Adidas, Nike, and Jordan. Three of the biggest brands in the world right now who understand exactly how to market to their end users. I call brands like these the epitome of high-quality marketing. Brands like these use social media, highlighted athletes, celebrities as well as sponsoring major artists. It is common to see these types of marketing all over social media as well as ads throughout various websites used daily.

Different Fields of Marketing

Most field of marketing overlap into different categories since all essentially have the same goal, to sell. Overtime marketing a business has continued to grow and grow in various categories. Some categories include branding, advertising, sales, social marketing, and public relations. We see all these types of occupations in all businesses. Even non-profit businesses do the same they just do not ask for you to pay them with currency, maybe it is with your time or your trust. Each marketing field has their own specific tasks to achieve, but they all work towards the same goal of expanding their business, whatever it may be.

Establishing a Brand

Once a brand is established for any person or entity they know precisely what they represent, what they sell, and who they want to sell to. All businesses hope to establish a brand because they want consumers to recognize what separates them from all others. No organization wants to sell the exact same product as another. Looking at the consumer’s perspective, no one wants to buy the exact same product at higher price, the consumer wants to get great value for their money. In other words, you get what you pay for whether you shop at Dollar General or at Gucci. Gucci’s brand is a luxury brand described as one of the cornerstones of contemporary marketing and as a more effective differentiator than quality. Gucci is widely known for its luxury and high prices. Their high-end products are meant for a particular market and not for everyone. Gucci does not want to sell to everyone because then they would not be Gucci. Gucci's primary target market is intended for people of high income and high status. On the other end of the spectrum we have companies who target low income consumers with strategies to sell for quantity not quality. Companies like Dollar General and Wal Mart provide their low-income consumers with their necessities they require for their everyday life like clothes and groceries.

Some steps required for building a brand are discovering a target audience, having a mission statement and creating logo and tagline. All aspects require time and effort to discover because as you begin a business you want understand who you are and what endeavors you hope to accomplish. But as I stated earlier, each brand must separate itself from others in order to become successful.

Advertising

Advertising generally refers to any form of paid communication to sponsor businesses wishes to promote their products or services. I spoke earlier about the free apps that contain ads. These ads are what fund the application, businesses pay app organizations to display their ads throughout their application. If there are no ads, then there is a price to pay, so either way the app organizations earn a profit. Another popular method of advertising I see today is in sports. It is all over sports with sponsored commercials, the ads placed throughout the stadium, and in sports like basketball and soccer you even see advertisements on their uniforms. The major business that sports bring is almost unreal and a supreme scene for advertisers to be positioned in. I mean look at The National Association of Stock Car Racing (NASCAR), cars and uniforms are covered in nothing but advertisements. Since its formation in 1948, NASCAR has been among the most watched sports in the United States, ranking second only to the National Football League in the U.S.. In today’s digital market, the number of websites available for advertising has ballooned into the millions. We see ads all over the internet, I mean why not? The internet is used constantly and never sleeps. In the current advertising climate, forms need an online presence more than ever. Nevertheless, the ever-increasing websites presents endless opportunities but also tremendous challenges for firms’ online display ad campaigns. Advertisement is all about placement, its just a matter of pinpointing the place in which you wish to do so.

Public Relations

Cayce Myers of Virginia Tech gives the definition of Public Relations (PR) as a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics (2016). But the practice has become more expansive with the growth of media and merging of communication. As PR incorporates the practice of advertising, marketing, and human resources, it finds itself being subject to different professional rules and procedures. Professional organizations nearly always develop and tighten standards after they realize that behavior standards need to be defined or redefined or more strictly enforced. A lot of times we see forms of PR after something unethical or untrustworthy has taken place and the organization will make a statement to either disprove the incident, to make an apology to the public or in some instances the organization may make no statement at all to let issues handle itself. Not making a statement could either really help an organization by not allowing them to make an unwise comment or really hurt them because there is action that needs to be taken place and they are not doing so. A popular case I saw recently in 2018 was Facebook when it was scrutinized over its use of user data. The scandal consisted of targeting U.S. citizens with political ads based on personality traits with the objective of attempting to change their political views. Facebook was accountable for doing this to millions of Facebook users and caused many data lawsuits against the firm. With an issue this major Facebook could not just stand still and let this go on without taking any action, they had to gain the public’s trust again if they wanted to move on from the issue. So what did Facebook do? Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg went on to take full responsibility for the issues that had been occurring. He assured the public he would not let this matter go on any longer and will act on the matter. After the lawsuits and scandals, we saw a Facebook commercial committed to doing more to keep users safe and protect your privacy. This is their PR move in order to gain the trust of the public, assure them they will be more ethical with their organization and provide them with a more esteemed and positive application for users. In essence everyone uses PR. For example, if a group of people believe a rumor to be true about you and they are telling everyone, when in reality it is false, you have to disprove of the rumor and allow them to distinguish where you stand. For the reason that if you do not do anything, then it is going to be believed to be true and it is up to you whether you let be believed to be true or not. It is quite the equivalent in the PR world just in a much larger scope of the world. Issues like these are not intentional for organizations, they do not prepare for lawsuits filed against them, they are business people, which is why we see many organizations with hired PR professionals to handle cases out of their everyday task of their business.

Applying Ethics to Business Marketing

Marketing ethics refers to the application of ethical principles in the creation and implementation of the marketing strategy and individual elements of the marketing mix. For example, eliminating misled advertising, pricing, selling dangerous products without notice to the customer, or use of illegal distribution channels. Evidently most have different sets of ethics which creates problematic issues because fundamentally what one believes is moral or immoral. Some believe this not a not a debatable issue, “Just do what is right” is what they say, but it is not straight forward when there are several business men and women with different cultural beliefs, religion, and morals. Everyone has their own set beliefs of what is right and wrong. Abiding Regulatory Rules In the laws set in marketing there is a list called The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing established by Al Reis and Jack Trout in 1993 (Keyes 2017). These laws do present some interesting views and valuable perspectives and create a more broad-based debate on the subject of marketing, but these are not regulatory laws. The 22 laws are meant to give information on how to organize better marketing. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) exist to safeguard consumers from deception in advertisements to be truthful, cannot be misleading or unfair, and must be proven by evidence. This federal agency along with competition in America benefits consumers by keeping prices low and the quality and choice of goods and services high. Competition also encourages businesses to offer new and better product with price, selection, and service. Without competition the business would have no desire to lower their prices and continue to charge consumers at a high rate. FTC promotes free and open competition and challenges anticompetitive business practices to make sure that consumers have access to quality goods and services at competitive prices, and that businesses can compete on the merits of their work.

Celebrity Representation Start here…Providing a Service to Society

The beneficial aspect for an economy is it has created more job opportunities for our Americans. It can be considered a catch-22 situation since if one business booming it more than likely indicates that another business is declining. A perfect example of this could be described how Uber and Lyft has put taxi services out of business. This is an aspect in the business world as a whole I have yet to come to grips with.

Conclusion

Marketing is the science of convincing us that What You Get Is What You Want – John Carter.