Consumer Needs and Marketing

Q - Take a position between “marketing shapes consumer needs and wants” versus “marketing merely reflects the needs and wants of customers” and justify your position.

Many of the most ubiquitous products used today, such as smartphones, did not exist at the beginning of the century. Apple’s founder Steve Jobs famously said: “we never hire consultants, per se. We just want to make great products” (Martin, 2022, par.4). The founder of Ford Motors, Henry Ford, said that if he had asked consumers what they wanted, they would merely have asked for faster horses (Martin, 2022). While companies can identify needs, such as a desire to communicate more quickly and share images and words (and even to have fancier and sleeker technology in their pockets), or a desire for more affordable and faster transportation, companies must also take an aggressive role in shaping those needs and wants by demonstrating how their products satisfy those needs better than competitors, and in unique and engaging ways (including through improved technology).

Companies that merely reflect the basic needs and wants of consumers, such as for cheaper products, or fast and convenient meals, are apt to fall behind trends or be outmaneuvered by competitors with similar value propositions, even if there are core, basic needs that seem to drive all consumer behaviors (Breschi, 2022). Apple was not only a first-mover in the smartphone market, but has been unique and visionary in the ways in which it has given consumers things that they wanted. It did so before consumers themselves could conceptualize how tablets like the iPad could replace many of the functions of personal computers, just as Ford was visionary in his idea that by reducing costs, cars would replace many of the ways horses and public transportation had served to move people from one location to another.

Of course, marketing in the sense of conveying to consumers how such products function and the product’s attractiveness is important, and may pander to certain basic consumer desires for safety, convenience, impressing friends, and other core needs. But companies with truly successful marketing strategies do not merely reflect consumer desires and play catch-up, but rather lead the way.

Q2 - Is it possible to reconcile or solve this debate at least to some degree? Please justify.

The consulting company McKinsey & Co., which studies consumer psychology and behavior, notes that behavioral science means identifying the target market’s beliefs and habits, as well as moments in the consumer’s life that can result in change (Understanding and shaping consumer behavior, 2020). For a new organization, this means stimulating new habits (such as using an iPhone or a car) and then sustaining them. For example, since cars may have become a part of everyday life, car companies are less apt to sell cars as cars, but rather target more basic, everyday needs such as price and safety. Similarly, with smartphones, although Apple initially sold the iPhone based upon its associations with Apple innovation and design, other smartphone companies have since moved into the market and capitalized on Apple’s success by targeting other values, such as low cost.

Different demographics have different needs and are more or less apt to respond to positioning and to marketing itself. Some consumers are more functionally driven and less apt to innovate. It is always necessary to market to consumers, even to loyal ones, so they are not drawn to other organizations or substitutions. Needs must be addressed and satisfied.