Defining Marketing

The first things that cross people minds when introduced to marketing are the advertising and selling functions of marketing. But that is just the popular belief. Marketing has a lot more functions in a company's existence than to introduce and sell a new product. The American Marketing Association offers the following formal definition: Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.( Marketing academics @ AMA) I believe that marketing is the willingness of a company to find the right product that the customers needs, at the most convenient price for customer while still reaching the company's goal on making profit. In his book "Marketing Management", Philip Kotler stated that "marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating, offering and exchanging products of value with others".

Nowadays marketing is getting recognized as one of the most important activities in a company's success. If the marketing does its research well and the promoted product reaches the right segment of the market then the company will register success. If the product is good but the marketing campaign does not reach the right target then a failure might be registered and the product may not survive on the market for a long time.

Marketing involves doing market research on customers, analyzing their needs, making strategic decisions about product design, pricing, promotion and product distribution. It is practically the heart of a business. When Andrea Jung was named as CEO for AVON Products Inc. she said that Avon products can be "as big in the women's beauty business as Walt Disney Co. in entertainment". She focused on changing the well known door-to-door selling. The new marketing plan was to make AVON "the source for anything and everything a woman wants to buy", giving a choice to busy women on how they do their buying: through a representative, in a store, or online. In each mall there will be an AVON kiosk, which will try to target the young generation. Another change was the decision to create a separate line of products for sale at a store-within-a-store targeting such stores as Wal-Mart Inc. and Kmart Corp. We'll see over the years if the new strategies work, but AVON's stock is up since Jung's arrival.

In a computer era we cannot talk about marketing success if we do not mention eBay Inc which is the first company that came on the market with a product that was well known on a regular market - Actions- and which became available on the new formed market represented by virtual market. eBay Inc explored the online opportunity on conducting actions online because of the big pool of customers from all over the world and it won. By using the Internet platforms the company grew its e-commerce adding new features such as payments and communications. The focus is on customers who are provided with a very well designed site, which is easy accessible from any computer, based on user name and password. The site is self-explanatory. The company provides many free services for its users. The revenues are coming in from listing, feature and final values fees paid by sellers and lead referral fees. Another way to get revenues is by serving as advertising medium for companies willing to enter on the new, virtual market with their products. eBay is still going strong but the future is questionable as long as more companies are willing to enter as competitors on virtual commerce.

Let us move now to the entertainment industry. The Walt Disney Company is one of the largest media and entertainment companies in the world. Founded in 1923 by Walt and Roy Disney. The company grew over the years adding more features to the starting company. Its theme parks are well known by kids around the globe. In 1992 Disney opened in Paris its second resort outside of the United States. The complex was not what the marketing department predicted. The Disney Co. did not consider social and cultural differences between France, a country geared toward a socialist way in conducting business