MKTG90004 · Marketing Management
Marketing Management Foundations
Strip away the campaigns and the logos and marketing is one job: understand value, create it, and deliver it to chosen customers profitably. This foundational chapter sets the definition every later framework hangs on. It distinguishes the marketing concept (an outside-in philosophy that starts with the customer's needs) from production, product and selling orientations; introduces the New Marketing Realities that reshape the manager's world; and lays out the five-stage Core Process of Marketing that organises the whole subject. It then gives marketing a way to compute value — the Customer-Delivered Value model (total benefit minus total cost) — draws the hard line between strategy and tactics, and adds just enough consumer behaviour (the 5-stage decision process, buying roles, involvement) to make a situation analysis sharp. Foundations questions are short but high-yield; the classic trap is equating marketing with promotion.
What this chapter covers
- 012.1 The marketing concept & market orientation
- 02Production / product / selling / marketing / holistic orientations
- 032.2 The New Marketing Realities (technology, connectivity, globalisation, responsibility)
- 04The Core Process of Marketing — the five-stage loop
- 052.3 Customer-delivered value = total benefit − total cost
- 062.4 Strategy vs tactics — and the value proposition hinge
- 072.5–2.7 Consumer behaviour: decision process, buying roles, involvement
Worked example: prove a premium brand can win on value
- +1State the model: Customer-Delivered Value = Total Customer Benefit − Total Customer Cost — value is the whole equation, not the price tag.
- +1Total benefit (4 sources): product, service, personnel and image. The sustainable brand lifts the image benefit (buying it signals values) and adds service/personnel benefit.
- +1Total cost (4 sources): monetary, time, energy and psychological. Its monetary cost is up, but its psychological cost is down (no guilt, lower perceived risk).
- +1Net it out: if the added image benefit and psychological saving exceed the extra price, net delivered value is higher than the cheaper rival's.
- +1Lesson: a manager competes on the whole equation. Raise perceived benefit or cut non-monetary cost and you can win without cutting price.
Key terms
- Marketing concept
- The philosophy that a firm wins by being better than rivals at creating, delivering and communicating superior customer value to chosen targets — an outside-in view that starts with the customer's needs, not the product.
- Market orientation
- An organisation that senses customers and competitors and coordinates the whole firm around them — the marketing concept lived out, rather than just stated.
- Core Process of Marketing
- The five-stage loop the subject hangs on: diagnostics → strategy → tactics → building relationships → capturing value — then back round. It doubles as a revision map and a plan contents page.
- Customer-delivered value
- Total customer benefit (product, service, personnel, image) minus total customer cost (monetary, time, energy, psychological). The operational way the subject computes value.
- Involvement
- How much effort, risk and personal relevance a purchase carries. High involvement → extended problem-solving (cars, homes); low involvement → routine, habitual buying (milk, snacks) — and that sets the tactics.
Marketing Management Foundations FAQ
Isn't marketing just advertising?
No — this is the myth the subject debunks first. Advertising is one of eight communication tools inside one P (Promotion). Marketing is the whole job of understanding, creating, delivering and capturing value; done well it surfaces and serves real needs and is data-, platform- and metrics-heavy, not fluffy.
What is the difference between strategy and tactics here?
Strategy is the what & why — who you serve and how you want to be seen (STP, the value proposition). Tactics are the how — the specific 7P activities that execute it. The hinge between them is the value proposition: the perceived value STP promises and the 7P mix must deliver. Exam answers lose marks when the tactics don't obviously serve the stated positioning.
Why does the subject teach consumer behaviour as a foundation?
Because you diagnose markets by understanding how people actually buy. The subject teaches it as input to the situation analysis: the 5-stage decision process tells you where to intervene, the buying roles tell you whom to reach, and involvement tells you how hard your marketing has to work.
How do I answer a "foundations" exam question well?
Define the concept precisely, distinguish it from the near-misses (marketing vs selling/production; marketing vs promotion), then apply it. For value questions, run the Customer-Delivered Value model on a real brand against a competitor. For a buyer scenario, name the decision stage, the roles, and the involvement level — that is what turns a vague answer into a managerial one.
Exam move
Lock the definitions cold — foundations questions are short but high-yield, and the marks come from precision. Be able to (1) state the marketing concept and contrast it with production / product / selling / holistic orientations; (2) list the five stages of the Core Process and say which block of the course and piece of the plan each maps to; (3) run the Customer-Delivered Value model (four benefit sources, four cost sources) on a brand; (4) keep strategy and tactics apart and name the value proposition as the hinge; and (5) place a buyer in a decision stage, name the roles, and read the involvement level. Avoid the three myths (marketing = advertising; marketing manipulates; marketing is non-analytical) — examiners reward the manager's framing, not the slogan.
