Loud and Raw

What is marketing without its market, a business without someone to deal with and much worse, a company without industry? These questions tell simply what customers can do for an organization in order for them to provide long-term, satisfying and extremely valuable goods or services based on service- centred and oriented logic of marketing. When we say service-oriented marketing, I believe that we should understand that this primarily address the power of consumers to bring unlimited possibilities for opportunities, development and growth of a business, and a way for marketers to render satisfaction through goods or services itself. While on the other hand, goods-based marketing is about the output which is product – improvement of products for distribution and maximizing profits as reflected by sales. While both of them seem fairly applicable, services for me can reach a whole new level when goods are used as a tool for satisfying customers.

Levitt on his “Marketing Myopia” discussed about the narrowness of product-oriented marketing and expanded his views on service-oriented marketing that could help the growth of companies and not drag them to extinction. Levitt believes that the continuous growth of a company includes defining what they are and what industry they are in, for them to think and act according to the needs of consumers without the barrier of being myopic. The role of consumers became popular because it is where the heart of providing goods and services should be, know them well and you can give them what they need. His idea about oil companies being stagnant for growth made me thinking, if only they have defined themselves to be an energy industry, then they should’ve not let outsiders steal opportunities from them. If they have concentrated more on consumer relations, then they should have opened their minds and develop new sources of energy, but instead, they acted as suppliers, supporting other firms and relying on them to provide what they fear to develop by themselves. Companies must stop being nearsighted and embrace the evolution of marketing.

Vargo & Lusch on their “Evolving to a New Dominant Logic for Marketing” discussed briefly the evolution from goods-based marketing to the new age acceptance for service-oriented marketing. There are differences in goods based from service-centred dominant logic and one of them is about the role of the customer. In traditional, they are the recipients and in service-centred they are the co-producer of service. Companies must take cue from them to know what is being demanded. Goods based marketing is a good strategy, but not all of the time. It may have been one but it was a long time ago when that same strategy is still applicable in that certain age.  I believe that there is a reason for service marketing to be thought of by scholars as an innovative strategy in marketing, it’s because in goods-based, there are borders, hindrances and limits to development. Strategies like all others have places that they fit in. Same strategies don’t work efficiently if used the second time, what is needed is the formulation of a more flexible one that will cover important aspects of the whole process.

Another thing that struck me was the idea of mass production being selfish. It aims to produce what they can from what they have and from there, maximize their profits, the problem is – they sell, and marketing is only a residue of selling. Marketing should be about the value, the benefits from goods and services being realized by consumers. There is a huge difference in selling and marketing. Selling focuses on the needs of the seller while marketing focuses on the needs of the buyer. Selling is product made into cash in marketing it provides the overall satisfaction from the creation of goods to the benefits it will serve. My realization about this is that we can mass produce but we should accompany it with hard thinking. Companies need to understand of consumer preferences, not their own need for profit. Success should also be based on the companies’ followers and they are the consumers.

Levitt,  Vargo and Lusch may have lived from different time but what they all have in common is that they find goods-based process incomplete, myopic, the reason that service marketing emerged as the new dominating factor is because it holds the key point to success – the customers. It is also true that service-based process is full of research. The idea is to pay wisely and appropriately to researches done, never do it with bias to suit the needs of sellers. Never settle for filtered results that cling directly to the answers that companies wanted to hear in the first place. Consumers are unpredictable, study their preferences and they can give continuous growth. In the future, this also strategy may also come to a point that it will be obsolete, but through guidance of consumers the growth will still be possible. Companies should aim not only for success, but also with entrepreneurial greatness.

In marketing, we face a very important question; “can service-based operation be more effective than a goods-based manufacturing model”? 40 – 50 years ago, marketing concentrated on goods-based manufacturing model and its perspective is to satisfy the demands of consumers by offering them tangible products. But in our modern time, a service-based operation should be more dominant for it involves the whole process of satisfying the consumers and at the same time they proactively contribute to the development of the whole structure of a more effective and efficient marketing approach. Goods are also services, what consumers buy is the long term benefits from tangible or intangible goods and services.

Let me break down the reasons. According to Stephen Vargo and Robert Lusch, there are four myths in service marketing that divides goods from services and they are; Intangibility, Heterogeneity, Inseparability, Perishability. It is said that when we talk about Intangibility, services lack the tactile quality of goods but in reality services often have tangible results because in a customer’s perspective they buy activities that render services and things also render services. The function of a good is to serve as a supply for a service to materialize. The idea is that a thing will remain useless unless it offers a valuable service and function to the consumer.

The other myth is about heterogeneity where it is said that services cannot be standardized. But really, who will layout the judgement, is it the manufacturer or the consumers? The standards are perceived by the consumers given the fact that goods are homogenous by nature; consumers will be the ones who will judge it according to how they will be satisfied because what they are looking for is the service rendered by that determinate good. Even though marketers offer homogenous or standardized things to consumers, not every one of them will have the same perception therefore these things or goods are services in because consumers have different perceptions on how they think they will be satisfied – each individual have unique judgement. There are similarities between the myths heterogeneity and inseparability. The way that I understand inseparability, consumers are always involved in the process and production of what-should-be value of tangible goods. If consumers interact with the tangible goods, they will be able to perceive its value and to the extent that how that determinate thing will render service from them. We must put this in our mind, “the goal of service marketing is to maximize consumer involvement”. Examples of which are their feedbacks and cooperation to fully experience what has been offered. When there is an involvement goods or services will be further innovated.

The last myth is about perishability. It is true that tangible goods are perishable, fruits rot, cars rust and will lose its manufactured value but not in service marketing for it gives long-term benefits to consumers. The idea in this myth is said to be that services cannot be produced ahead of time and be inventoried. The truth is that both tangible and intangible goods can be inventoried and for service it is measured again by the long-term benefits from the rendered service itself. Who would want to put tangible products in an inventory anyway? That only means there is an unbalanced distribution in the logistic cycle of the operation. In addition to this myth, tangible products have no value when manufactured, it is only created when it come in contact with consumers. Again consumer involvement is much needed because the focus is not on the products but on the customer’s value creating processes.

Everything is about service marketing, may it be tangible or intangible. Physical goods only become an element in rendering services. I think it is time that we need to embrace service marketing and declare goods-based manufacturing model as an outdated strategy in marketing. What it can do is to help future marketing people to choose the right steps in satisfying the demands of the customers. Remember this: benefits from goods are obtained by use of these goods—goods are merely the distribution vehicle or channel for service provision; they are appliances (Vargo and Lusch 2004). Keep in mind that even if goods and services differ in some ways, the synergy of these two will lead to the success of a company’s goals.

When I was a child my dream is to have my own official ping pong table. Why? because back when I was still a high school table tennis player, I’ve spent most of my playing time inside the campus but not in my home. I have a brother who also plays ping pong but we don’t have a table. I believe that if only I have a table then maybe I could have continued playing as an athlete on my college days. But its just a realization, I don’t really need it, I just wanted to have it all this time. It doesn’t matter what brand but as long as it is the same with other ping pong tables I think I’ll be more than happy with it.

I love my home more than anything else. You may ask me why but I’ll just say that my home is where I feel all the luxury I need. I can sleep freely, move around, enjoy the air and do anything I want. But guess what, a home will never be one without rugs. Now that I’ve thought about that, there was this one time that I am looking for stuffs that I want to put in my room so I went to a nearby mall and looked for discount rugs, luckily I found one. I just think that rugs can be simply amazing and there are no reasons that I need to tell someone, its just simply amazing and somewhat comfortable and so I like it. If ever you want to put something new in your home, try looking for rugs alright?

Ever wonder what’s with all the pop displays all about on you window? If curiosity can wound you, you’d be probably wounded. Those are advertisements but most of the time, are spams because they contain a lot of virus. So, don’t just click and click. Be alert and don’t let it cause you a lot of money calling a computer technician just to remove the contagious virus.