Needs, Wants, and Demands
To understand the marketing function, we need to understand multiple core set of concepts.
Let’s start with Customer Needs, Wants and Demands.
Casus:
example of existing products
You are working as Marketing Manager at Red Band.
Red Band has a strong heritage in the Netherlands, where its roots go back to 1928. Since the start, the Red Band brand has built up a leading position in the Dutch and German sugar confectionery markets with a promise to deliver fun, quality and pleasure.
Your assignment is to develop a new product line. This product line should not compete with the existing products but must increase the number of ‘eating sweats-moments.’ The product line will be sold via the existing supermarket channels.
Where do you start with? What product specific information do you need to increase the possibility that customers will desire the product and buy it?
To maximize the market acceptance of your products you have to start with identifying the needs, wants and demands of your customers.
EXCERCISE
Take a piece of paper and write down what according to you the differences are between customer Needs, Wants and Demands.
According to Kotler the correct definitions are: (click the TAB to open)
Need is state of felt deprivation of some basic satisfaction.
Examples of needs:basic human requirements such as for air, food, water, clothing, and shelter. Humans also have strong needs for recreation, education, and entertainment.
Wants are desires for a specific satisfier of these deeper needs
Examples of Wants: These needs become wants when directed to specific objects that might satisfy the need.
An U.S. consumer needs food but may want a Chicago-style “deep-dish” pizza and a craft beer. A person in Afghanistan needs food but may want rice, lamb, and carrots. Our wants are shaped by our society.
Demands are wants for specific products that are backed up by an ability en willingness to buy them.
Examples od Demands: Demands are wants for specific products backed by an ability to pay. Many people want a Mercedes; only a few can buy one. Companies must measure not only how many people want their product, but also how many are willing and able to buy it.
Does marketers get people to buy things they don’t want?
These distinctions shed light on the criticism that “marketers get people to buy things they don’t want”
Marketers do not create needs: Needs pre-exist marketers. Marketers might promote the idea that a Mercedes satisfies a person’s need for social status. They do not, however, create the need for social status.
Five types of needs
Some customers have needs of which they are not fully conscious or that they cannot articulate. What does the customer mean in asking for a “powerful” lawn mower or a “peaceful” hotel? We can distinguish five types of needs:
- Stated needs (The customer wants an inexpensive car.)
- Real needs (The customer wants a car whose operating cost, not initial price, is low.)
- Unstated needs (The customer expects good service from the dealer.)
- Delight needs (The customer would like the dealer to include an onboard GPS system.)
- Secret needs (The customer wants friends to see him or her as a savvy consumer.)
Marketing challenge:
Responding only to the stated need may shortchange the customer. Consumers did not know much about tablet computers when they were first introduced, but Apple worked hard to shape consumer perceptions of them.
Back to the Red Band assignment:
Red Band has a clear goal: To expand their profitable business.
But what are the needs, wants and demands of their customers?
I need something sweet to improve the taste in my mouth due to my hard working.
I want to reward myself for my efforts with a luxury sweet.
My reward must surprise me, come from a reliable brand that I already know and be affordable.
When you have identified the needs, wants and demands of the target audience, you can start developing the new product line that’s in line with the Red Band fun, quality and pleasure promises.
Red Band Candy Ice Creams.
What is your opinion? Will these Red Band Ice Creams fitting the Needs, Wants and Demands of their target audience?
They enter a new product line and also a new place in the supermarkets (from candy section to the frozen department).
Such a new product line is risky. Red Band must invest in new technology (ice cream machines), new distribution (refrigerated transport) and conquer a new place in the supermarket.
Without thorough consumer acceptance research, this investment can go wrong and endanger the continuity of the company.
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English