Have you heard of Pontis Elecronics? It was the first to develop a prototype working mp3 player in 1995. By 1999, it began mass production. Three years after, the company was sold. It was due to less demand and ineffective marketing strategies.1 Yes, it has a product; but its mistake was paying no attention to the consumers. To expound this, I adapted some arguments of Olive Penderghast in the chick flick Easy A.
The shudder inducing, however totally false account. More product results to higher sales: False. The mistake of the said company was focusing on production. Levitt’s Marketing Myopia stated, “… the product fails to adapt to the constantly changing patterns of consumer needs and tastes, to new and modified marketing institutions and practices, or to product developments in competing or complementary industries. The industry has its eyes firmly on its own specific product that it does not see how it is being made obsolete.”2 Aside from Pontis Electronics, there were several others who tried to develop the mp3 player but failed. However, Apple Inc. succeeded when it entered the market. It is because it modifies its products depending on how customers would like it. It improved the specifications of an mp3 player, like capacity and portability. Until now, we can see its evolution from its first generation.
The accelerated velocity of terminological inexactitude. This just means that lies travel fast until words got wrong. After the falsehood about mass production, another emerges about population. It was believed that if there are wealthier and more people, your company can earn a success story. The only way it can earn one is through adjusting through the changing needs of the customers. Kotler suggested that “[The marketer] can try to design the social object more attractively; he can put an attractive terms on the social object; he can add symbolic significance in the social object; and he can make it easier for the market to obtain the social object.”3 Going back to Apple Inc., it did not only offered the mp3 player, iPod, but also the music software, iTunes. It did not only improve the product but presented another new product.
A lady’s choice and a gentleman’s agreement. Mckitterick stated, “So the principal task of the marketing function in a management concept is not so much to be skillful in making the customer do what suits the interests of the business as to be skillful in conceiving and then making the business do what suits the interests of the customer.”4 Before the company decides on what to offer, it must first know what the people who would offer them to like and will like. Techno geeks would like their music player to be able to be inserted in their pockets, so Apple Inc. made it thin. They would like it to be not just a music player but an entertainment gadget, so Apple Inc. Gave the iPod an ability to play videos, games, etc.
Not with a fizzle, but with a bang. Remember that marketing aims for profit and customer satisfaction. However, customer satisfaction should come first in order to generate profit. The business must always be mindful of the market. It does not make a product to sell it, but to be bought. It must not picture its product in a grocery shelf, but in the grocery list, better yet on the shopping cart.
1 Abel, Ivan. “The Apple iPod: succeeding where others failed”. Competitiveness Review: An International Business Journal. Emerald Publishing Group Limited, December 2008.
2 Levitt, Theodore. “Marketing Myopia”. Harvard Business Review, 1960.
3 Kotler, Philip. “A Generic Concept of Marketing”. Journal of Marketing. American Marketing Association, April 1972.
4 Mckitterick, J.B. “What is Marketing Managemen Concept”. The Frontiers of Marketing Thought and Science. Chicago: American Marketing Association, 1957.
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