A. Needs, Wants, and Demand
The rationale marketing starts from value, cost, and satisfaction of human needs and desires. Humans need food, air, water, clothing, and exchange and transactions. The desire is the desire for satisfying specific needs. Urban people in need of food and want a hamburger, fries, and drinks carbonized. In other communities this requirement may be met by other means. A hungry in rural areas may want rice, fruits, and nuts. Although little human needs, wishes them a lot. Human desire continually generated and updated in line with the changing times.
Requests (demands) is the desire for a specific product that is supported by the ability and willingness to buy. Desire so request if backed by purchasing power. Many people who want a luxury car, but only a few are able and willing to buy. Therefore, companies must measure not only how many people want their product but more importantly how many people are actually willing and able to buy.
These differences are often thrown deflect criticism that “marketers create needs” or “marketers get people to buy things they do not want”. Marketers do not create needs but the needs of pre-existing. Marketers, as well as other social influence, affect desire. Marketers can offer ideas that luxury cars can meet the needs of a person’s social status. Marketers affect demand by creating a product that is suitable, attractive, affordable, and easily obtained by the intended consumer.
B. Product (goods, services, and ideas)
Man in satisfying the needs and desires
using the product. Product is anything that can be offered to satisfy a need and desire. Products or offers can be divided into three, namely goods, services, and ideas.
For example, is a fast-food restaurant to provide goods hamburgers, fries, and soft drinks), services (purchasing, cooking services, and provide a place to sit), and ideas (save consumers time). The level of importance of physical products more dependent on services that accompany ownership. For example, we buy cars for providing transportation services. Thus, the actual physical product is a means of providing services to us.
Indeed, services are also provided by other means such as people, places, activities, organization, or idea. For example see the show of a comedian (people), vacationing at the beach (place), go to the health club (activities), join the club adventurous (organization), or embrace a different philosophy of life (the idea). Manufacturing companies often make mistakes with more attention to physical products than services provided by these products.
They are selling products rather than solutions to a need. A carpenter does not buy a drill but buy hole. A physical object is just a way to package a service. The task of the marketer is to sell the benefits or services are realized in the form of a physical product, not merely describe the physical characteristics of the product. Sellers who focused his thoughts on physical products rather than on customers’ needs, said to suffer from marketing myopia.
C. Value, Cost, and Satisfaction
How does one choose among the many products that can satisfy their needs? For example, a person requires a three mile drive to his workplace every day. He can use a number of products to satisfy these needs, such as roller skates, bicycles, motorcycles, cars, taxis, or buses. This alternative is a collection of products (product choise sets).
If he wants to satisfy some additional requirements on the way to work, ie speed, convenience, security, and economy. Each product has different capabilities in satisfying collection needs (needs set) it.
Bike is slower, less secure and requires more power than a car, but the bike is more economical. However one must decide which product will provide the greatest total satisfaction. The concept can help solve this problem is the value and satisfaction. Value (value) is the estimate of the entire consumer product’s ability to satisfy its needs. Suppose one is interested in the speed and ease of leaving for work. If at all the above mentioned products at no cost, he would choose a car.
However, because each product has a cost (cost), he would not choose a car that cost more than the bike or taxi. He had to sacrifice something to get the car. Because of that he would consider the value and price of products before settling on a choice. He will choose the product that produces more value per dollars. According to DeRose, the value is “meeting customer demands with the cost of the acquisition, ownership, and the lowest usage”.