Marketing Forces for Good and for Worse
When discussing about marketing forces the main aspect that comes to my mind is how marketing influences the market and people’s buying decisions. Marketing can impulse consumers’ buying decisions and when this happens the prices of the chosen product can suffer changes, determining the entire market in which the product activates to change the prices, as a competitive measure. In this moment, consumers can choose to go further with the product of their choice, even if the price increased, or they can search for other products to satisfy them, at smaller prices. For this alternative they have three options: either to choose other similar products of the competition, already existent on the market (which might have also suffered changes because a player on the market modified its price), to select a new entry product, or to go for substitute products. Therefore, customers, existent competitors, new entry competitors, substitute products are four of the marketing forces, to which another one ads: the suppliers, which contribute to setting the price of the products and to consumers’ buying decision.
Marketing, therefore, is the main engine that determines the consumption in the nowadays world. If consumers have a need, there is always a commercial that prompts the consumer to buy a certain brand, which promise to satisfy that identified need. If consumers are yet unaware of the fact that they might have certain needs, no problem, there are still other commercials that will show the customers that they need a specific product for fulfilling their personal well being, determining them to consider that they have always been waiting for that product and push them on the supermarket’s shelves, searching for those advertised products.
Indeed, marketing has become a part of our everyday lives, determining our buying decisions and creating needs for increasing the consumption and marketers’ budgets. Besides, marketing has an intrusive side, because, through its mechanisms (advertisements and commercials), it disturbs people from their regular activities: watching a football game on TV suddenly interrupted by a beer commercial, in a key moment of the game, reading a financial article on web when a huge pop – up banner fills the desktop, and any click leads the user to the advertiser’s homepage, etc.
Advertisements appeal to human needs, but for this they must really know the target consumers to whom the advertised brands address. Otherwise, it can result into negative advertising. From personal experience, I can relate to both positive and negative advertising.
For sure, Pepsi commercials that featured Michael Jackson induced me the main positive advertising experience, because since the time I saw the ad until present days there is permanently a bottle of Pepsi in my room, on my desk, in my shopping basket. “The choice of a new generation” remained for me “the unchanged choice for then and now”. The Pepsi commercials featuring Michael Jackson targeted the consumers perfectly, in a moment where Michael Jackson ruled over the hearts of people all around the world, associating the brand Pepsi with the iconic image of the greatest megastar of all times.
On the contrary, Quiznos always appeared to me as negative advertising, determining me to never buy its “nasty” sandwiches. The commercials feature either a very bad singing cat or a laboratory doctor talking dirty with his oven, being disturbing rather than appealing.
Marketing has become a constant element in our lives, which guides our choices and manipulates our needs. It is intrusive, it clings on human needs and feelings for increasing the marketers’ budgets, but it is appealing. However, marketing can determine people to consume, or on the contrary, to never purchase certain products, as a result of the associations that it creates in its promotional materials, advertisements or commercials. My personal experience with Pepsi and Quiznos sustains precisely how marketing can determine attitudes towards a certain brand.
