Product Orientation and Need-based Products

Many companies have to market their product in order to achieve adequate sales, but there are a few exceptions to this ideal. Following a product orientation is surely a risky business. Not catering to the wants of consumers is very dangerous indeed. Many would look at this strategy as impossible. How could a company that does not cater to its customers be successful?

I’ll tell you how. The key to this is a need based product. It is true that the consumer wants and wants, but what about what the consumer needs? The only types of large-scale companies I can understand following a product orientation with success are the ones that provide a product or service that everyone needs.

My example of this is electric companies. Electric companies need not market their electricity to others in order to get customers. The majority of the modern world uses electricity and there are few companies to get it from, especially in the United States.

Product orientation works here because we have a modern day monopoly. Electricity is essential to almost everyone. They can’t afford to question its provider, nor can they look elsewhere to another provider. A system like this works for most, but is there any other type of large-scale company that has a product orientation without the use of need-based products?

Opinions on Marketing Terms

 What is the difference, in your opinion (don’t look up definitions) between marketing, advertising, and propaganda?

Based on my current knowledge, marketing is the process of a vendor making a product or idea aesthetically desirable to a consumer. This idea can be implicated on either a small or large scale, from small businesses to large multinational corporations.

In my opinion, ideas such as advertising and propaganda are somewhat part of the overall concept of marketing. For instance, advertising is a general form of marketing. It is when a vendor tries to make a product or idea desirable to the consumer by showing them how useful it is. A typical form of advertising is a commercial on television. Television ads for products such as cars often make the viewer aware of qualities such as safety features and price. Both of these categories are very valuable to a person interested in buying a car.

My idea of propaganda is that it is when the qualities being used to persuade a buyer are made more desirable than they actually are. This can usually be in the form of an exaggeration or by not including important details about a product or idea when it is being advertised.

Through my opinions, these three terms seem to be a subcategory of the next. If that is incorrect, what qualities separate marketing from advertising or marketing from propaganda if there are any?