The Concept of Marketing Within the Context of Public and Government Sector

The Concept of Marketing Within the Context of Public and Government Sector

The aim of this paper is to discuss the concept of marketing within

the context of the public/government sector. Also, issues of

relevance, benefits, constraints and implementation, including

literature based or organisation specific adaptations or models,

trends and current practises have been included.

The paper begins with the discussion of traditional marketing mix that

is what marketing is and the 4Ps of marketing. It suggests that the

simplicity of this marketing mix paradigm has become a taken for

granted path rather than considering it a social exchange process and

hence customers suffer.

It discusses broadening the concept of marketing and new approach to

marketing, which emphasises on social and relationship marketing.

Then, the government/public sector has been introduced and it proceeds

with whether traditional marketing principles can be applied to the

marketing of organisations in this sector. It concentrates on issues

of relevance-how marketing mix fits to it, what are the benefits and

constraints.

1.1 The Marketing Concept and the Marketing Mix:

Before proceeding further, it is essential to define what marketing

is:

Kotler (1991) defines marketing as “a social and managerial process by

which individuals and groups obtain what they want and need through

creating, offering, and exchanging products of value with others.”

Chartered Institute of Marketing defines it as the management process

responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer’s

requirements profitably.

However, there exist numerous definitions of marketing, it is always

about “meeting existing needs and anticipating future needs” (Bagozzi,

1975).

The marketing concept is a kind of recipe how a company can achieve

its goals by understanding the exchange partners and associated costs,

being a response to external opportunities and threats and to internal

strengths and weaknesses as a means of competitive advantage (Houston,

1986). Bagozzi (1975) underpins this viewpoint, arguing that marketing

is much about the exchange paradigm which focuses on the question why

parties take part in exchanges and how these work.