An orientation, in the marketing context, relates to a perception or attitude a firm holds towards its product or service, essentially concerning consumers and end-users.
[edit] Earlier approaches
The marketing orientation evolved from earlier orientations namely the production orientation, the product orientation and the selling orientation.[7]
| Orientation | Profit driver | Western European timeframe | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Production[7] | Production methods | until the 1950s | A firm focusing on a production orientation specializes in producing as much as possible of a given product or service. Thus, this signifies a firm exploiting economies of scale, until the minimum efficient scale is reached. A production orientation may be deployed when a high demand for a product or service exists, coupled with a good certainty that consumer tastes do not rapidly alter (similar to the sales orientation). |
| Product[7] | Quality of the product | until the 1960s | A firm employing a product orientation is chiefly concerned with the quality of its own product. A firm would also assume that as long as its product was of a high standard, people would buy and consume the product. |
| Selling[7] | Selling methods | 1950s and 1960s | A firm using a sales orientation focuses primarily on the selling/promotion of a particular product, and not determining new consumer desires as such. Consequently, this entails simply selling an already existing product, and using promotion techniques to attain the highest sales possible.Such an orientation may suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or otherwise sells a product that is in high demand, with little likelihood of changes in consumer tastes diminishing demand. |
| Marketing[7] | Needs and wants of customers | 1970 to present day | The marketing orientation is perhaps the most common orientation used in contemporary marketing. It involves a firm essentially basing its marketing plans around the marketing concept, and thus supplying products to suit new consumer tastes. As an example, a firm would employ market research to gauge consumer desires, use R&D to develop a product attuned to the revealed information, and then utilize promotion techniques to ensure persons know the product exists. |
[edit] Product Innovation
In a product innovation approach, the company pursues product innovation, then tries to develop a market for the product. Product innovation drives the process and marketing research is conducted primarily to ensure that profitable market segment(s) exist for the innovation. The rationale is that customers may not know what options will be available to them in the future so we should not expect them to tell us what they will buy in the future. However, marketers can aggressively over-pursue product innovation and try to overcapitalize on a niche. When pursuing a product innovation approach, marketers must ensure that they have a varied and multi-tiered approach to product innovation. It is claimed that if Thomas Edison depended on marketing research he would have produced larger candles rather than inventing light bulbs. Many firms, such as research and development focused companies, successfully focus on product innovation. Many purists doubt whether this is really a form of marketing orientation at all, because of the ex post status of consumer research. Some even question whether it is marketing.
[edit] Contemporary approaches
Recent approaches in marketing is the relationship marketing with focus on the customer, the business marketing or industrial marketing with focus on an organization or institution and the social marketing with focus on benefits to the society.[8] New forms of marketing also uses the internet and are therefore called internet marketing or more generally e-marketing, online marketing, desktop advertising or affiliate marketing. It tries to perfect the segmentation strategy used in traditional marketing. It targets its audience more precisely, and is sometimes called personalized marketing or one-to-one marketing.
| Orientation | Profit driver | Western European timeframe | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Relationship marketing / Relationship management[8] | Building and keeping good customer relations | 1960s to present day | Emphasis is placed on the whole relationship between suppliers and customers. The aim is to give the best possible attention, customer services and therefore build customer loyalty. |
| Business marketing / Industrial marketing | Building and keeping relationships between organizations | 1980s to present day | In this context marketing takes place between businesses or organizations. The product focus lies on industrial goods or capital goods than consumer products or end products. A different form of marketing activities like promotion, advertising and communication to the customer is used. |
| Social marketing[8] | Benefit to society | 1990s to present day | Similar characteristics as marketing orientation but with the added proviso that there will be a curtailment on any harmful activities to society, in either product, production, or selling methods. |
