The marketing concept is a concept, a way of corporate thinking, a business guiding ideology that "centers on consumer needs and takes the market as the starting point". It is the basic condition for effectively achieving marketing goals. . The marketing concept believes that the key to achieving organizational goals is to correctly determine the needs and desires of the target market and deliver what the target market expects to satisfy more effectively and profitably than competitors. The marketing concept runs through the entire process of marketing activities and restricts the marketing goals and principles of the enterprise. It is the basic strategy and means to achieve marketing goals. Whether the marketing concept is correct or not is directly related to the quality and effectiveness of the company's marketing activities. Shopping malls are like battlefields, and bloody life and death are played out in the battlefield without gunpowder smoke. The theory of natural evolution is also suitable for marketing concept evolution and survival. Regardless of history or reality, enterprises and other organizations all engage in marketing activities under the guidance of the following five concepts. 1. Production-oriented - production concept The production concept emerged at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Since the level of social productivity is still relatively low and the supply of products exceeds demand, the market economy is in a seller's market state. It shows that whatever products the company produces will be sold on the market. Under the guidance of this marketing concept, the business focus of enterprises is to strive to improve production efficiency, increase output, reduce costs, and produce products that are accessible and affordable to consumers. Therefore, the production concept is also called "production centralism". The production concept is the oldest concept that guides corporate marketing activities. Henry Ford, who was once the king of American automobiles, did everything possible to increase the production of Model T cars and adopted assembly line operations to expand market share. As for consumers' subjective preferences for car styles and colors, he completely ignored them. The colors of the cars were all the same. It's black. This has formed a marketing concept in which companies only care about production and not about the market. 2. Product-oriented - product concept This concept believes that consumers or users like products with good quality, good performance and distinctive features. As long as the quality is good, customers will naturally come to the door, and customers are willing to pay higher prices for high quality. . "The fragrance of wine does not fear deep alleys" and "The emperor's daughter does not have to worry about getting married" are vivid portrayals of this guiding ideology. It can be summed up in one sentence: "As long as the product is good, you don't have to worry about not being able to sell it." On the surface, the company aims to bring the most perfect products to customers and meet customer needs, which seems to be perfect and natural. In fact, product orientation has greater risks. Product-centered rather than customer-centered concepts will cause companies to ignore what customers' real needs are. If you don’t start from the true needs of customers, then no matter how excellent the product is and how high-end the technology is, customers will not pay for such a product. Product orientation ignores the very important link of "communication" in the marketing process. During production, companies only focus on producing products that they think customers will be satisfied with, and do not form interactions and connections with customers. Marketing cannot be successful only from the corporate level. 3. Sales-oriented type - Sales concept After the Second World War, the great development of capitalist industrialization has led to an increasing number of social products, and many products on the market have begun to oversupply. In order to remain invincible in the competition, companies have attached great importance to sales promotion work, such as establishing sales organizations, training sales personnel, researching sales techniques, and vigorously carrying out advertising to induce consumers to purchase products. This marketing concept is "what we do, we try to sell." The transformation from the production concept and product concept to the sales concept is a major change in the guiding ideology of enterprise management. However, this change does not break away from the categories of "production-centered" and "production-based sales." The former emphasizes the production of products, while the latter emphasizes the promotion of products. The difference is that the first two concepts are to wait for customers to come to your door, while the sales concept is to strengthen the promotion and promotion of products. 4. User-oriented - market concept This concept believes that the key to achieving corporate goals is to truly grasp the needs and desires of target customers, and focus all resources and strength of the company on customer needs to design and produce marketable products. Products, arrange appropriate marketing mix, adopt more effective strategies than competitors, meet consumer needs and achieve profits. The fundamental difference between the market concept and the sales concept is that the sales concept focuses on existing products and uses promotion and sales promotion as a means to stimulate sales, thereby achieving the purpose of expanding sales and making profits. The market concept is centered on the target customers of the enterprise and their needs, and uses the means of concentrating all the resources and strength of the enterprise and appropriately arranging the marketing mix to achieve the purpose of meeting the needs of target customers, expanding sales, and achieving corporate goals.

The market concept completely reverses the logic of the sales concept. Instead of selling whatever you produce, you must first discover and understand the needs of customers, and then produce and sell whatever customers need. Customer needs are always at the center of marketing. It is a business philosophy oriented by customer needs and desires, and is a major leap in business thinking. The new product (MVP) development process recommended in this book starts with market research, which follows the "user-oriented-market concept". 5. Social marketing orientation - social marketing concept At present, issues such as corporate social image, conflicts between corporate interests and social interests, and customer interests have attracted more and more attention from the government, the public, and public opinion. Environmental pollution, price wars, abnormal consumption and other adverse phenomena have led to calls for "rational consumption", "return to frugality" and "human concepts". Correspondingly, a series of new marketing concepts such as "green marketing" and "from caring about customers to caring about human beings, from focusing on enterprises to focusing on society" are also accepted by more and more enterprises. Enterprises are changing from a marketing concept to a social marketing concept. According to the views of Marx and others [Zhang Lefei1], people are originally social beings. Social marketing not only helps companies increase their profits, but also requires companies to give back to society. This is true social marketing. Marketing theory goes through three stages: 4P-4C-4R, as shown in Figure 6-3. 4P was first proposed by Philip Kotler in 1967. Later, as market competition became increasingly fierce and media communication became faster and faster, the 4P theory was increasingly challenged. In 1990, the American Lauterburn proposed the 4C marketing theory in response to the existing problems of P; later, in 2001, the American scholar Don Schultz proposed the new marketing theory 4R based on the C marketing theory. It represents the gradual transition of marketing theory from product-centered to customer-centered. Later, with the development of the market, companies need to establish a relationship between the company and customers from a higher level and in a more effective way that is different from the traditional A new type of proactive relationship, and the launch of R is a process of continuous improvement. Figure 6-3 Historical evolution of marketing theory: 4P-4C-4Rl4P theory. 4P marketing theory actually studies marketing issues from the perspective of management decision-making. From the perspective of management decision-making, various factors (variables) that affect an enterprise's marketing activities can be divided into two categories: First, uncontrollable factors of the enterprise, that is, the market that cannot be controlled by the marketer itself; Marketing environment, including micro-environment and macro-environment environment; the second is controllable factors, that is, products, trademarks, brands, prices, advertising, channels, etc. that marketers can control themselves. In 1960, E. Jerome McCarthy, a professor at the University of Michigan, summarized various controllable factors and proposed the 4P theory, namely product, price, promotion and place. Dimension: Products are items that meet consumer needs, which can be tangible products or intangible services; price is what consumers are willing to pay for the product. Adjusting prices has a profound impact on market strategy and needs to be based on the price elasticity of the product. Generally Generally speaking, it will affect demand and sales; promotion represents the communication methods used by various marketers to allow different groups to understand the product; channel refers to placing the product in the right location so that consumers can easily obtain it. l4C theory. Although 4P has swept across nearly half a century, by the 1990s, as consumer personalization became increasingly prominent, coupled with media differentiation and information overload, traditional 4P was gradually challenged by 4C. In essence, the starting point of 4P thinking is the center of the enterprise, which is what products the business operators want to produce, what kind of profits they expect to obtain and set corresponding prices, what selling points of the products they want to disseminate and promote, and what path they choose to do so. Sale. This ignores the interest characteristics of customers as buyers and ignores the fact that customers are the real targets of the entire marketing service. The emergence of new customer-centered marketing ideas has given rise to the customer-oriented 4C theory. In 1990, American scholar Professor Lauteborn proposed the 4C theory corresponding to 4P. The core of 4C is customer strategy. Customer strategy is also the basic strategic principle of many successful companies. For example, Alibaba's basic corporate value of "making it never difficult to do business in the world" develops products and services based on merchants and customers.

The basic principle of 4C is to plan and design corporate marketing activities with the customer as the center, from products to how to meet customer needs (Consumer), from price to comprehensive weighing of the cost that customers are willing to pay for purchase (Cost), from the one-way promotion Information is transmitted to achieve two-way communication with customers (Communication), from product flow in the channel to achieving customer purchase convenience (Convenience). l4R theory[C2][Zhang Lefei3]. The 4C theory, with customer strategy as its core, has also shown its limitations with the development of the times. Customer strategies are also maladaptive when customer needs conflict with social principles. For example, in the context of advocating a frugal society, whether the luxury needs of some customers should be met. This is not only a corporate marketing issue, but also a social and moral issue. Similarly, building villas is also contrary to the national strategic requirements of energy conservation and land conservation. At the beginning of the 21st century, American scholar Don Shultz proposed a 4R combination based on relationship marketing, which received widespread attention. 4R elaborates on a new four elements of marketing, namely Relevance, Response, Relationship and Return, which “focuses on using more effective ways to establish a difference between enterprises and customers. A new relationship with tradition." In short, the 4R theory is competition-oriented, summarizes the new framework of marketing at a new level, and embodies and implements the idea of ??relationship marketing. From 4P, 4C to 4R, it reflects the trend of continuous deepening and integration of marketing concepts in the integration and collision. Therefore, these three are not a simple substitution relationship but a development and improvement relationship. Since business situations vary widely and business environment and marketing are still in development, 4P is still a basic element framework of marketing at least for a period of time, and 4C is also a valuable theory and idea. 4R does not replace 4P and 4C, but innovates and develops on the basis of 4P and 4C. Therefore, the three cannot be separated or even opposed. According to the actual situation of the enterprise, combining the three to guide marketing practice will help achieve better results.