Running Heading: Defining Marketing

Individual Assignment: Defining Marketing
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Marketing Defined

Marketing is often thought of as advertising and selling, but marketing encompasses more than just selling a product or service and advertising it to entice customers to make a purchase. Perrault, Cannon, and McCarthy (2009) defined marketing as "the performance of activities that seek to accomplish an organization’s objectives by anticipating customer or client needs and directing a flow of need satisfying goods and services from producer to customer or client" (p. 6). However, Kotler and Keller (2009) stated one of the shortest definitions is "meeting needs profitably" (p. 5). The author's definition of marketing includes all of the activities a business accomplishes to identify customers, products and services that will fill a void, targeting potential customers with advertising, delivering the products or services, and following through with quality customer service.

Organizational Success and Marketing

When companies stop trying to sell what they make and start making what consumers want to buy they will be successful and understand marketing. For an organization to be successful, it needs to continue to grow, produce, and maintain profitability. If a company becomes stagnant they could fail. A great example of this concept is the United States auto industry. In the 1970s Japanese manufactures began selling smaller fuel efficient vehicles whereas the United States automakers continued to make large fuel inefficient vehicles. The Japanese recognized an unfulfilled niche in the market and past events validated the research indicating there was a market for the new vehicles. General Motors went through hard times in the recent past for similar reasons. While foreign automakers