Is Mass Marketing Dead?

TABLE OF CONTENT NO 1.0: 2.0 3.0: 4.0: References DETAIL Introduction Is Mass Marketing still a viable way to build a profitable brand? The reasons for the fall of traditional Mass Marketing Conclusions PAGE 3-4 5-7 7 – 13 14 - 16 17

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INTRODUCTION

Marketing is about identifying and meeting human and social needs, (Kotler, 2002) or even in simpler words, that is done to attract and retain customer at a profit. Thus, we see marketing management as the art and science of choosing target markets and getting, keeping, and growing customers through creating, delivering and communicating superior customer value (Kotler, 2012). This simple definition tells that marketing is basically customer oriented in nature. However, looking back at the history of marketing indicates that the idea of marketing was different and it took many different shapes at different ages. The four major marketing management philosophies i.e production concept, product concept, selling concept and marketing concept are in fact, related to this evolutionary nature of marketing. This conceptual development of marketing implies that initially marketing was associated with the mass production and efficient delivery of the products (production concept) and now it is viewed as a customer oriented essential business activity (marketing concept). An inquisitive mind may ask a simple question: before even production concept what was the form of marketing? If the job of marketing was to sell products, obviously there was some sort of marketing activities practiced even before that point of time. In the past, the neighborhood bartender, the corner storeowner and the family doctor had intimate knowledge of their customers’ needs, budget constraints and family secrets. All of them involve face-to-face interactions and such relationships were based on trust, meetings