Major Tasks of Marketing Management The popular image of the marketer is that he is a professional whose job is to create and maintain demand for something. Unfortunately, this is too limited a view of the range of marketing challenges he faces. Depending upon the type of demand, the different marketing tasks can be classified into eight types: 1. Negative Demand: |Definition |A state in which all or most of the important segments of the potential market dislike the | | |product and in fact might conceivably pay a price to avoid it. |Examples |Vegetarians feel negative demand for meat of all kinds. | |Challenges for the Marketer |Conversional Marketing: The marketer faces a market that dislikes the object. The challenge is to| | |develop a plan that will cause demand to rise from negative to positive and eventually equal the | | |positive supply level. | 2. No Demand: |Definition |A state in which all or most of the important segments of the potential market are uninterested | | |or indifferent to a particular object.
Three different categories of objects are characterized by| | |no demand. 1. Those that are perceived as having no value. 2. Familiar objects that are | | |recognised to have value but not in the particular market. 3. No demand because of no knowledge | | |of the object. | |Examples |1. Urban junk such as disposable coke bottles. | | |2. Boats in areas not near water. | | |3. Trinkets that people don’t normally desire about. |Challenges for the Marketer |1. Connect the object with some existing need in the market. | | |2. Alter the environment so that the object becomes valued in that environment. | | |3. Distribute information or the object itself in a lot of places. | 3. Latent Demand: |Definition |A state of latent demand exists when a substantial number of people share a strong need for | | |something which does not exist in the form of an actual product. |Examples |A large number of cigarette smokers would like a good-tasting cigarette that does not yield | | |nicotine. | |Challenges for the Marketer |Developmental Marketing: The latent need must be recognized, the right product developed, the | | |right price chosen, the right channels of distribution put together and convincing product | | |information disseminated. | 4. Faltering Demand: Definition |A state in which the demand for a product is less than its former level and where further decline| | |is expected in the absence of remedial efforts. | |Examples |The natural fur industry is in deep trouble today as demand declines in the face of the trend | | |towards more casual living, attacks from ecologists. | |Challenges for the Marketer |Remarketing: Reconsideration of the target market, product features and the current marketing | | |program. 5. Irregular Demand: |Definition |A state in which the current timing pattern of demand is marked by seasonal or volatile | | |fluctuations that depart from the timing pattern of supply. | |Examples |Hotels in Miami are insufficiently booked during the off seasons and overbooked during the peak | | |seasons. | |Challenges for the Marketer |Synchromarketing: The marketer may promote new uses and desires for the product in the | | |off-season.
The effort is to bring the movements of demand and supply into better | | |synchronization. | 6. Full Demand: |Definition |A state in which the current level and timing of demand is equal to the desired level and timing | | |of demand. | |Examples |Various products and services achieve this condition from time to time. | |Challenges for the Marketer |Maintenance Marketing: Maintaining the full demand. | 7. Overfull Demand: Definition |A state in which the demand exceeds the level at which the marketer feels able to or motivated to| | |supply it. | |Examples |Eastman Kodak faced this situation when it first introduced its Instamatic camera in the early | | |1960s and faced runaway demand. | |Challenges for the Marketer |Demarketing: Attempts to discourage customers in general or a certain class of customers in | | |particular on either a temporary or permanent basis. | . Unwholesome Demand: |Definition |A state in which any positive level of demand is felt to be excessive because of undesirable | | |qualities associated with the product. | |Examples |Antismoking groups managed to put enough pressure on the Surgeon General’s office to get a law | | |passed requiring the cigarette manufacturers to add a warning to each package. | |Challenges for the Marketer |Countermarketing/ Unselling: A marketer is trying to break down the taste for something.
Learning| | |and reinforcement theory are suggestive in this connection. | A marketer in a given job may face all of these tasks as the product moves through its life cycle. At the beginning, there may be only latent demand. In the stage of high growth, there may be overfull demand. When the demand reaches the maturity stage, maintenance marketing becomes essential. When demand begins to decline, remarketing is required. Finally the product may eventually fall into the category of being unwholesome and someone may undertake steps to destroy demand by Countermarketing.
