Financing and Marketing Management

Unit 7 - The Core concepts of marketing

7.2. Need, Wants and Demands
The starting point for the discipline of marketing lies in human needs and wants. People need food, air, water, clothing and shelter to survive. Beyond this people have a strong desire for recreation, education and other services. They have strong preferences for particular versions and brands of basic goods and services.
There is no doubt that people’s needs and wants today keep on multiplying and staggering. A useful distinction can be drawn between needs, wants and demands. A human need is a state of felt deprivation of some basic satisfaction. People require food, clothing, shelter, safety, belonging, esteem and a few other things for survival. These needs are not created by their society or by marketers; they exist in the very texture of human biology and the human condition.
Wants are desires for specific satisfiers of these deeper needs. An American needs food and wants a hamburger, needs clothing and wants a Pierre Cardin suit, needs esteem and buys a Cadillac. In another society, these needs are satisfied differently.

Demands are wants for specific products that are backed up by an ability and willingness to buy them. Wants become demands when backed up by purchasing power. Many people want a Cadillac; only a few are able and willing to buy one. Companies must therefore measure not only how many people want their product but more important how many would actually be willing and able to buy it.