Introduction
There is a direct correlation between the profits of the company and its successful marketing campaign. Marketing plays an important role in the life of society, as it gets people acquainted with new products and innovations. The paper is dedicated to the research of marketing peculiarities of the recent case, related to the increase of price for personal hygiene products, such as toilet paper, cat litter, and diapers.
The Goal of Marketing and its Concepts
Marketing experts define ten main subjects of marketing: “goods, services, events, experiences, persons, places, properties, organizations, information, and ideas” (Kotler and Keller, 2015, p. 27). In the studied case, the reason for raising the price was linked with the increase in prices on raw materials and with the fluctuations in the market of currency. The marketing strategies of the largest producers of household staples are aimed at stabilizing the volume of sales, which might fall due to the price increase policy.
Three core marketing concepts include needs, wishes, and demands. Needs are defined as basic requirements for the existence of a human, wishes are certain goods, the aim of which is to fulfill the need, and demands which are linked with purchase capacity. The marketing environment consists of parties that are involved in the production (company), distribution (suppliers, distributors), advertisement (agencies). The new realities widen the range of factors that have an impact on successful marketing. These include demographic, economic, social, and cultural backgrounds, as well as nature, technology, and politics. All these factors need to be taken into account while planning a marketing campaign.
The current market is under a serious influence of technological advancements, globalization processes, and social responsibility. New capabilities of consumers now include using the Internet as a tool for getting information, buying, communicating, providing feedback, or even blocking a share of marketing information that the user finds irrelevant. At the same time, marketers get a new platform through which they can sell, collect information about the customers and form databases, communicate with their clients, focus on the target audience, and optimize marketing costs.
The Concept of Holistic Marketing
One of the concepts aimed to include new factors that influence the market is called holistic philosophy. It is based on the concept of correlation between the structural elements of the marketing campaign and their implementation, emphasizing that there are no unimportant details in marketing. The studied case of raising prices on personal hygiene products is clearly demonstrating that the producers are already facing new marketing realities. Marketing experts claim that “it used to be easier for these companies to raise prices” for the reason that “consumers have figured out the art of trading-down” (Al-Muslim, 2019). It means that the marketing strategies of the companies have to be reviewed, taking the recent marketing changes into account.
Years back, economists defined a key to a successful marketing campaign as addressing its four key components that include product, price, place, and promotion (Kotler and Keller, 2015). The holistic philosophy approach states that these concepts are not enough to be successful in contemporary marketing. The notion of people is defined as internal marketing activities, processes embrace marketing management steps, programs include online and offline activities attracting customers. Performance includes not only profitability but also social responsibility and related concepts. Other economists make a focus on such concepts as accessibility (availability and convenience), affordability (willingness to purchase), acceptability (consumer expectations), and awareness (information). A deeper look at these classifications gives an understanding that the traditional concepts are in tight connection with the newly proposed ones. Thus, the product is related to acceptability, the price is linked with affordability, the place is accessibility, and promotion is awareness of the marketed product.
Conclusion
The current understanding of marketing clearly explains that every detail needs to be taken into detailed consideration. Outdated marketing policies lead to a situation where a number of companies, such as personal hygiene producers, face difficulties, risking losing consumers who are sensitive to the price increase. This case has to be a notification, reminding the modern business world to update its marketing strategies.
References
Al-Muslim, A. (2019). Prepare to pay more for diapers, Clorox, and cat litter. Web.
Kotler P., Keller, K.L. (2015). Marketing management. Global Edition, Pearson.