2024 – Marketing has often been defined in terms of satisfying customers needs and wants Critics

Marketing has often been defined in terms of satisfying customers’ needs and wants. Critics, however, maintain that marketing goes beyond that and creates needs and wants that did not exist before. They feel marketers encourage consumers to spend more money than they should on goods and services they do not really need.

Take a position: Marketing shapes consumer needs and wants versus Marketing merely reflects the needs and wants of consumers.

 

Mission statements are often the product of much deliberation and discussion. At the same time, critics claim they sometimes lack “teeth” and specificity, or do not vary much from firm to firm and make the same empty promises.

Take a position: Mission statements are critical to a successful marketing organization versus Mission statements rarely provide useful marketing value.

 

One of the widely debated issues in developing marketing programs that target certain age groups is how much consumers change over time. Some marketers maintain that age differences are critical and that the needs and wants of a 25-year-old in 2010 are not that different from those of a 25-year-old in 1980. Others argue that cohort and generation effects are critical, and that marketing programs must therefore suit the times.

 

Take a position: Age differences are fundamentally more important than cohort effects versus Cohort effects can dominate age differences.

 

Take a position: The best marketing research is quantitative in nature versus The best marketing research is qualitative in nature.