On many occasions the subject of culture, its implications and the different perspectives that attempt to explain this phenomenon have been addressed. However, it is not frequent to try to establish relationships, between culture and Marketing. For this reason, the reason for this article.
Delimitation of the notions of culture and marketing
What is to be understood by culture? By culture we understand all human production, whether material or immaterial, that allows man to adapt to his environment, accumulate a heritage, seek higher levels of well-being and generate identifications and distinctions with other men and with the environment. In this way, culture is a worldview, a way of being, locating and projecting itself in the world.
On the other hand, we can state with Levinson that " marketing is everything that is done to promote an activity, from the moment the idea is conceived, until the moment that customers begin to purchase the product or service on a regular basis." Thus, marketing involves the different processes that make possible the acceptance of a product in the market, taking into account aspects such as the determination of the product, the distribution establishments, advertising, public relations, sales, the expansion plan and the market positioning.
On the other hand, the emergence of marketing can be traced back to the Industrial Revolution, but it is only during the last half of the 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th century that sales began to be given great importance as a generator of income.
Links between modern culture and marketing
But, what would be the possible link that can be configured between culture and marketing?
We can answer this question by inferring some ties, dependencies, and determinants that arise between a particular way of taking on the world (culture) and science (rather than art) of promoting and developing a product (marketing) in that culture.
The first clarification that must be made is that marketing, as it arises and develops in the modern stage, and therefore, in Western culture, is configured within some general assumptions established since the French Revolution. Great slogans that generate change: liberte, equalite, fraternite. Metar stories that surround modern man and gather him in extrapolated rationality and individuality.
In this way, marketing responds to the values, beliefs and attitudes of modern man. This implies that it is imperative to build strategies, models and theories that account for and manage to ensure the success of any commercial activity. But this is not all. This "science" seeks to anticipate and measure the attitude, disposition and hidden needs of potential consumers in percentage terms and then develop tactics that lurk and drag through a decoy in the hunt for the new consumer.
Historical development of marketing
Western culture deploys and imposes a production model - starting with the Industrial Revolution - that combines science and technology as imperatives of instrumental reason to reach ever higher levels of well-being and development.
In this first production-oriented stage, everything that was produced was consumed immediately, as demand in most cases exceeded supply. It was not necessary to market to sell.
Production capitalism took needs as its data: it produced the products that satisfied those needs, and they informed consumers about the product.
However, since the crisis of the year 1920, the potential supply of goods and services far exceeds real demand, with which strategies for promotion and sale begin to be created. Consequently, the processes of commercialization and optimization of any economic activity take on central importance in academic life and the mechanisms that theoretically tend to generate an optimal balance are questioned.
As a consequence, we no longer only consume but are also consumed and tamed by marketing strategies. In addition, the consumer is no longer the vital reference for the coordination of marketing in its various aspects; now is the product.
On the other hand, marketing in product planning, pricing, distribution and promotion is not only customer-oriented but also marks the customer as a member of the brand's consumer group.
A brand that marks the consumer is, for example, Lee. Lee's ads are not at all about the quality of his pants - he is referring to the consumers of the pants. Lee has a slogan: "Since 1885, Lee identifies you."
The operation on consumers is, therefore, the classification, ordering and measurement, so that they are marked out and valued within society.
On the other hand, the perfection of a product - self-attack - offers the greatest possible captivation and produces the need to consume LEVINSON, Jac C. Guerrilla marketing. 1985.
IBAÑEZ, Jesus. For a sociology of everyday life. Page 230.
Idem. Page 231.
Idem. Page 238.
