Financing and Marketing Management

Unit 8 - Markets

8.3. Marketing and Marketers
The concept of markets brings us full circle to the concept of marketing. Marketing means human activity taking place in relation to markets. Marketing means working with markets to actualize potential exchanges for the purpose of satisfying human needs and wants. Marketing involves a set of activities or processes that are essential from transferring a product from production point until it reaches consumers.
If one party is more actively seeking an exchange than the other party, we call the first party a marketer and the second party a prospect. A marketer is someone seeking a resource from someone else and willing to offer something of value in exchange. The marketer is seeking a response from the other party, either to sell something or to buy something. The marketer, in other words, can be a seller or a buyer. Suppose several persons want to buy an attractive house that has just become available. Each would-be buyer will try to market himself or herself to be the one the seller selects. These buyers are doing the marketing. In the event that both parties actively seek an exchange, we say that both of them are marketers and call the situation one of reciprocal marketing.
Four types of utilities created in marketing, namely, form, place, time and possession utilities
All of marketing’s functions are performed to move goods from products to consumers. During this process, marketing adds utility (value) to goods and services. There are 4 types of utilities: 1) form 2) time 3) place 4) possession

• Form utility: refers to the changing of raw materials into a finished products. Taking grains and turning them into cereal is an example of form utility. Form utility is usually considered a production function rather than a marketing function.
• Time utility: it helps consumers by making products available when the consumer wishes. Supermarkets that are open 24 hours a day provide time utility. Making fresh fruit available in the winter is also a form of time utility.
• Place utility: it makes sure that the goods and services are conveniently located where consumers want them.
• Possession utility: it helps to make the exchange of goods between buyers and sellers easy. Anything that helps complete the sale- delivery, installation, warranties credit is considered part of possession utility.

In the normal situation, the marketer is a company serving a market of end users in the face of competitors (see figure 4). The company and the competitors send their respective products and messages directly and/or through marketing intermediaries (middlemen and facilitators) to the end users. Their relative effectiveness is influenced by their respective supplies as well as major environmental forces (demographic, economic, physical, technological, political/legal, and social/cultural). Thus fig 4 represents the main elements in a modern marketing system.