Financing and Marketing Management

Unit 9 - Introduction to marketing management

9.2. Demand States and Marketing Tasks

• Negative Demand: A market is in a state of negative demand if a major part of the market dislikes the product and may even pay a price to avoid it. People have a negative demand for vaccinations, dental work, vasectomies and gall bladder operations. Employers feel a negative demand for ex-convicts and alcoholics as employees. The marketing task is to analyze why the market dislikes the product and whether a marketing program consisting of product redesign, lower prices and more positive promotion can change the markets beliefs and attitudes.
• No Demand: Target customers may be uninterested or indifferent to the product. Thus farmers may not be interested in a new farming method and college students may not be interested in foreign language courses. The marketing task is to find ways to connect the benefits of the product with the person’s natural needs and interests.
• Latent Demand: Many consumers may share a strong need that cannot be satisfied by any existing product. There is a strong latent demand for harmless cigarettes, safer neighborhoods and more fuel-efficient cars. The marketing task is to measure the size of the potential market and develop effective goods and services that would satisfy the demand.
• Falling Demand: Every organization sooner or later faces falling demand for one or more of its products. Churches have seen their membership decline and private colleges have seen their application fall. The marketer must analyze the causes of market decline and determine whether demand can be restimulated by finding new target markets, changing the products features or developing more effective communication. The marketing task is to reverse the declining demand through creative remarketing of the product.
• Irregular Demand: Many organizations face demand that varies on a seasonal, daily or even hourly basis, causing problems of idle capacity or overworked capacity. In mass transit, much of the equipment is idle during the off-peak hours and insufficient during the peak travel hours. Museums are undervisited on weekdays and overcrowded on weekends. Hospital operating rooms are overbooked early in the week and underbooked toward the end of the week.
• Full Demand: Organizations face full demand when they are pleased with their volume of business. The marketing task is to maintain the current level of demand in the face of changing consumer preferences and increasing competition. The organization must maintain or improve its quality and continually measure consumer satisfaction to make sure it is doing a good job.
• Overfull Demand: Some organizations face a demand level that is higher than they can or want to handle. Thus the Golden Gate Bridge carries a higher amount of traffic than is safe and Yosemite National Park is terribly overcrowded in the summertime. The marketing task called demarketing requires finding ways to reduce the demand temporarily or permanently. General demarketing seeks to discourage overall demand and consists of such steps as raising prices and reducing promotion and service. Selective demarketing consists of trying to reduce the demand coming from those parts of the market that are less profitable or less in need of the service.
• Unwholesome Demand: Unwholesome products will attract organized efforts to discourage their consumption. Unselling campaigns have been conducted against cigarettes, alcohol, hard drugs, handguns, X-rated movies and large families. The marketing task is to get people who like something to give it up using such tools as fear communication, price hikes and reduced availability.