The American Marketing Association defines marketing as the following, “Marketing is the function that links the consumer, customer, and public to the marketer through information—information used to identify and define opportunities and problems; generate, refine, and evaluate actions; monitor performance; and improve understanding of it as a process. It specifies the information required to address these issues, designs the method for collecting information, manages and implements the data collection process, analyzes the results, and communicates the findings and their implications.”
Marketing is everywhere, whether for a Coca-Cola ad to show off their new soda or for a non-profit to get consumers to donate to. Inside the field of marketing, there are many different compontents. There is product development, which consists of creating products or services.
Secondly, brand management creates and sustains the brand image and manages brand loyalty over time.
Thirdly, this project will focus on market research. Market research is the most important step in marketing; it gathers and analyzes data and current and potential consumers, market trends, and competitors in the same market.
Marketing is heavily related to world culture; to have a successful marketing campaign, it must be related to the consumers, beliefs, values, and tastes. Marketing produces culture in many different ways; brands can create an entire lifestyle for a person if they market their brand correctly. For example, Patagonia has fostered an enormous community for people whose lifestyle consists of traveling and nature.
Another example of a marketing-producing culture is yoga. Lululemon Athletica is a household brand name that has always been associated with modern Western yoga culture. Yoga was originally created in ancient India. It is very spiritual and has philosophical traditions. Lululemon brought this culture to the West and developed products to help strengthen yoga culture: yoga leggings, Mats, and more.
