Over the past 100 year, many marketing scholar tried to answer the simple question “what is marketing?” Many of them looked at or defined marketing differently. It began with a simple answer or definition that focusing on product itself, then focusing on customer and to partnering with customer.
At early stage marketing was defined as “figuring out what you have to do to sell your product or service for a profit” and this definition lacked the collaboration and the co-creation part. In this article, the evolution of marketing views was characterized as going through three different stages. It started with “To Market” , then “Marketing to” and finally “marketing with”.
At the first stage “To Market”, the primary role of marketing is taking things to market. This was due to the fact that supply and production capability was scarce and the seller & buyer are separated. The main role of marketing at this stage was to close the gap between the buyers and sellers. At this stage, the American Marketing Association defined marketing in 1937 as “ the performance of business activities that direct the flow of goods and services from production to consumption “and later on in 1960 revised to be “producers & consumers” . At this stage, marketing cost became a public concern even though it was justified as producing utilities and accordingly adding value. Part of the problem was that the public didn’t realize that full value of marketing innovation which plays a key role in the industrial revolution.
After having the industrial and distribution sector more fully developed, it was clear that the supply and distribution is not a problem anymore but lack of customers and market is main concern. It was the turning point to the second stage “Marketing to” which focus on the customers. Marketing is not any more taking the finished product to market but it’s marketing to consumer to get them to buy. Marketing became more into generating demand. Accordingly, one of the scholar...