Marketing Shapes Consumers’ Needs and Wants, Essay Example

When Steve Jobs famously claimed that lot of times people don’t know what they want until we show it to them (Mui, 2011), he probably wanted to emphasize Apple’s focus on innovation and forward-thinking. But inadvertently he also reminded us that now marketing doesn’t merely reflect customers’ needs and wants but actually shapes them. This change in marketing approach has occurred due to number of factors including progress in technologies as also indicated by the Moore’s Law (Intel), rising customers’ incomes and expectations, advancements in communication technologies including the internet, and rising competition.

The technological progress has been especially instrumental in promoting this attitude change in marketing because customers are not always in touch with the latest possibilities, thus, companies take it upon themselves to visualize products and services that may change the way customers live. In addition, competitive pressures have also forced companies to innovate in order to differentiate themselves from the competition and earn higher profit margins.

There are many products that have been introduced recently and have drawn excitement from customers even though they do not apparently seem to fulfill any need that existing products in the market already don’t such as the Google Glass. But these products will be embraced because they make our lives even more convenient. Most people won’t be able to define what a product like Google Glass is capable of but engineers at Google or Apple or Samsung know. The marketing profession understands that technologies have been progressing at much faster rate than the needs, wants, and knowledge of customers, thus, they are taking initiatives to create new needs and wants for customers because of huge commercial stakes involved.

Works Cited

Intel. (n.d.). Moore’s Law and Intel Innovation. Retrieved March 26, 2014, from http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/history/museum-gordon-moore-law.html

Mui, C. (2011, October 17). Five Dangerous Lessons to Learn From Steve Jobs. Retrieved March 26, 2014, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/chunkamui/2011/10/17/five-dangerous-lessons-to-learn-from-steve-jobs/