Evolution of the marketing concept

THE HISTORY OF MARKETING

EVOLUTION OF THE MARKETING CONCEPT

The marketing concept may seem like an obvious and sensible way of running a business. However, businesspeople have not always believed that the best way to make sales and profits is to satisfy customers. A famous example is the marketing philosophy for cars of  Henry Ford in the early 1900s: "the customers can have any colour car they want as long as it is black". The history of business has had three major phases (the production era¹, the sales era² and the marketing era³) and the marketing concept emerged only in the third places. Surprisingly, nearly 40 years after the marketing era began, many businesses still have not adopted the marketing concept.

During the second half of the nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution was in full swing in Europe and in the USA. Electricity, railways, the division of labour, the assembly line and mass production mad it possible to manufacture products more efficiently. Whit new technology and new ways of using labour, products poured into the market-place, where consumer demand for manufactured good was strong. This production orientation continued until the early part of the twentieth century.

In the 1920s, the strong consumer demand declined. Businesses realised that products, which by this time could be made quite efficiently, would have to be "sold" to consumers. From the mid-1920s to the early 7950s, businesses viewed sales as the major means of increasing profit. As a result, this period came to have a sales orientation. Businesspeople believed that the most important marketing activities were personal selling and advertising.

By the early 1950s, some businesspeople began to recognise that efficient production and extensive promotion of products did not guarantee that efficient production and extensive promotion of products did not guarantee that customers would buy them. These businesses, and many others since then, found that they must first determine what customers want and then produce it, rather than simply make products first and then try to change customers' needs to correspond to what was being produced. As more organisations have realised the importance of knowing customers' needs, businesses have entered into the marketing era - the era of customer orientation.