What marketing management orientation holds that consumer will favor products that are available and highly affordable?

The marketing concept is a strategy that companies implement to satisfy their customers' needs, increase sales, maximize profit and get ahead of their competition. There are five common marketing concepts that organizations adopt for this.

The Marketing department designs strategies that will build profitable engagements and relationships with their target market and buyer personas. But which philosophy is the best for your company, and which matches your marketing strategy?

There are five different concepts that you can design and implement for marketing strategies:

1. Production Concept,
2. Product Concept,
3. Selling Concept,
4. Marketing Concept,
5. Societal Marketing Concept.

Production Concept

A production concept has beendescribed as: 

“Consumers will favour products that are available and highly affordable”.

Companies adopting this orientation run a major risk of focusing too narrowly on their own operations and losing sight of the real objective. It is one of the oldest known marketing concepts. Most of the time, the production concept can lead to marketing blind. Management focuses on improving production and distribution efficiency.

However, there are some situations where the production concept is still a very useful philosophy, and worth still thinking about.

Product Concept

The product concept holds that the consumers will favour products that offer the most in quality, performance and innovative features. Marketing strategies are focused on making continuous product improvements.

Product quality and improvement are important parts of marketing strategies, sometimes the only part. Targeting only on the company’s products could also lead to marketing myopia.

Selling Concept

The selling concept is the idea that “consumers will not buy enough of the firm’s products unless it undertakes a large-scale selling and promotion effort”.

Management focuses on creating sales transactions rather than on building long-term, profitable customer relationships.

In other words, the aim is to sell what the company makes rather than making what the market wants. Such aggressive selling program carries very high risks.

In selling concept the marketer assumes that customers will be coaxed into buying the product will like it, if they don’t like it, they will possibly forget their disappointment and buy it again later. This is usually very poor and costly assumption.

Typically the selling concept is practiced with unsought goods. Unsought goods are that buyers do not normally think of buying, such as insurance or blood donations.

These industries must be good at tracking down prospects and selling them on a product’s benefits.

Marketing Concept

The marketing concept holds- “achieving organizational goals depends on knowing the needs and wants of target markets and delivering the desired satisfactions better than competitors do”.

Here marketing management takes a “customer first” approach.

Under the marketing concept, customer focus and value are the routes to achieve sales and profits.

The marketing concept is a customer-centered “sense and responds” philosophy. The job is not to find the right customers for your product but to find the right products for your customers.

The marketing concept and the selling concepts are two extreme concepts and totally different from each other.

Difference between Selling Concept and Marketing Concept

No.The Selling ConceptThe Marketing Concept1undertakes a large-scale selling and promotion effortundertakes activities such as; market research,2The Selling Concept is suitable with unsought goods—those that buyers do not normally think of buying, such as insurance or blood donations.The Marketing Concept is suitable for almost any type of product and market.3Focus of the selling concept starts at the production level.Focus of the marketing concept starts at understanding the market.4Any company following selling concept undertakes a high-riskCompanies that are following the marketing concept requires to bare less risk and uncertainty.5The Selling Concept assumes –“customers who are coaxed into buying the product will like it. Or, if they don’t like it, they will possibly forget their disappointment and buy it again later.”Instead of making an assumption, The marketing concept finds out what really the consumer requires and acts accordingly to them.6The Selling Concept makes poor assumptions.Marketing concept works on facts gathered by its “market and customer first” approach.

Societal Marketing Concept

Societal marketing concept questions whether the pure marketing concept overlooks possible conflicts between consumer short-run wants and consumer long-run welfare.

The societal marketing concept holds “marketing strategy should deliver value to customers in a way that maintains or improves both the consumer’s and society’s well-being”.

It calls for sustainable marketing, socially and environmentally responsible marketing that meets the present needs of consumers and businesses while also preserving or enhancing the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

The Societal Marketing Concept puts the Human welfare on top before profits and satisfying the wants.

The global warming panic button is pushed and a revelation is required in the way we use our resources. So companies are slowly either fully or partially trying to implement the societal marketing concept.

Theproduction conceptholds that consumers will favor products that are available and highlyaffordable. Theproduct conceptholds that consumers will favor products that offer the most quality,performance, and features. Theselling conceptrefers to the idea that consumers will not buy enough ofthe firm’s products unless the firm undertakes a large-scale selling and promotion effort. Themarketingconceptis a philosophy in which achieving organizational goals depends on knowing the needs andwants of target markets and delivering the desired satisfactions better than competitors do. The finalalternative is thesocietal marketing conceptwhich holds the idea that a company’s marketing decisionsshould consider consumers’ wants, the company’s requirements, consumers’ long-run interests, andsociety’s long-run interests.This figure contrasts the selling concept and the marketing concept.The selling concept takes an inside-out view that focuses on existing products and heavy selling. The aimis to sell what the company makes rather than making what the customer wants.The marketing concept takes an outside-in view that focuses on satisfying customer needs as a path toprofits. It starts with a well-defined market, focuses on customer needs, and integrates all the marketingactivities that affect customers.As Southwest Airlines’ colorful founder puts it, “We don’t have amarketing department, we have a customer department.”This figure shows that companies should balance three considerations in setting their marketingstrategies: company profits, consumer wants, and society’s interests.For example, Cosmetics retailer Lush knows that doing what’s right benefits both customers and thecompany. “We believe in happy people making happy soap,” says the company’s mission statement.The marketing mix is the set of marketing tools, the four Ps, the firm uses to implement its marketingstrategy.The major marketing mix tools are product, price, place, and promotion. To deliver on its valueproposition, the firm must first create a need-satisfying market offering (product). It must then decidehow much it will charge for the offering (price) and how it will make the offering available to targetconsumers (place). Finally, it must communicate with target customers about the offering and persuadethem of its merits (promotion).The firm must blend each marketing mix tool into a comprehensiveintegrated marketing programthatcommunicates and delivers the intended value to chosen customers.