An Analysis of the Fundamentals of Marketing (part 4)

“It's not what you sell that matters as much as how you sell it!”

1.  — Brian Halligan, CEO & Co-Founder, HubSpot

Marketing Warfare

by

Charles Lamson

In focusing on the long-run interest of the firm, and in calling for an integrated marketing program, a key problem for marketing, which is the external face of the organization, is the motivation, co-ordination and control of internal resources.

The practice of marketing is almost as old as civilization, and its validity has been proved over and over again. The oldest profession in the world used classic marketing techniques: It identified and satisfied a need; it created a market where buyer and seller could meet, in the form of a brothel; and it turned a handsome profit on the operation. 

 The warfare approach focuses on the notion of marketing intelligence and information gathering in discussing a consumer orientation. Market orientation is the organization-wide generation of market intelligence pertaining to current and future customer needs, dissemination of the intelligence across departments, and organizational responsiveness to it.

 

Ries and Trout (1981, 1986), who have made the marketing warfare orientation approach their own, place the competition and not the customer as the central problem of the marketer. Within this view, the key aim is to position the product in the mind of the consumer and to knock the competitors out. Marketing warfare theorists are skeptical about those who might argue that marketers should be the lapdogs of customers. For example, Davidson (1987) describes 'consumer worshipers' as one of the 'marketing perverts'.
Levitt (1962) strikes a balance by suggesting that marketing is no 'do-gooder' treatise but a 'tough-minded explanation, outline and example of how to serve yourself by serving the customer better'. While the above definitions are diverse, taking either the customer or the competition as the central focus of marketing, they share the fundamental idea that the interest of the firm, as represented by the need to make a profit, is primary. The ultimate satisfaction of this interest is based on the need to satisfy customer requirements. 

Levitt (1960) warns against the 'self-deceiving cycle' whereby producers can become lured into the illusory belief that the demand for their product will be eternal, or that their success is due to the technical quality of their product, or the efficiency of their operations. As an example of the former he cites the early twentieth century millionaire who insisted that his vast inheritance be invested solely in electric streetcars! In relation to technical quality it can be understood how easily an engineer can be lured into thinking that her or his idea of quality is consonant with that ascribed by the consumer. In a personal discussion with some MBA students who worked in the Scottish knitwear industry, they heatedly supported their view that UK consumers would prefer the superior technical quality of their product to the inferior quality provided by Benetton. They were motivated by the discussion to conduct research to prove their point. Unfortunately for them, they found that consumers preferred the technically inferior product, especially when they knew the price difference.

Levitt (1960) focuses attention on to the double-edged relations between efficiency and effectiveness. While efficiency is good, one should be careful not to over or under-engineer a product, as in the knitwear example described above, but instead to give the customer what he or she wants. Related to this is the orientation to technology. Technology too undoubtedly can be a good thing, but it may be tempting for managers to implement technological solutions that do not take into account user requirements. Levit's insight has been developed into a two-by-two matrix. A company that is inefficient and ineffective will fail to survive because it produces goods that are relatively expensive, that consumers do not particularly want. Even though a company is efficient and produces goods at a low relative cost, still it will go out of business if it does not produce goods that customers want. Marketers argue that it is only when firms act effectively by making things that people want, that the firm stands any chance of surviving into the long term.

*SOURCE: ESSENTIALS OF MARKETING, 2007, MARILYN A. STONE AND JOHN DESMOND, PGS. 30-32*

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