Marketing Principle

| Defining Marketing |

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A brief history of marketing |   |   |

In some ways marketing is as old as civilization itself. You may have seen films based in ancient Greece or Rome with images of bustling market stalls and traders actively engaged in persuasive communications. Of course these traders would not have called their activities marketing and their activities may seem far removed from someone ordering airline ticketsvia a website.The concept of marketing that we now see has more to do with developments during the industrial revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries. This was a period of rapid social change driven by technological and scientific innovation (see BBC history website). One result was that for the first time the production of goods was separated from their consumption. Mass production, developing transport infrastructure and growing mass media meant that producers needed to, and could develop more sophisticated ways of managing the distribution of goods.The production orientation era

For much of the industrial revolution goods were generally scarce and producers could sell pretty much all that they could produce, as long as people could afford to buy them. Their focus was therefore on production and distribution at the lowest possible cost and what marketing management that there was considered these issues (for example, reducing distribution costs, opening new markets).The sales orientation era

From the start of the twentieth century to the period following the Second World War (although the development was interrupted by the wars) competition grew and the focus of marketing turned to selling. Communications, advertising and branding started to become more important (see archive at the History of Advertising Trust website) as companies needed to sell the increasing outputs of production in an increasingly crowded market. Marketing was therefore still a 'slave' to production, but focussed on distribution, communication and...