Charting the Course: Marketing Foundations

Learning Outcomes

This chapter provides an overview of marketing foundations, exploring key concepts, the marketing environment, and the evolution of marketing orientation. By understanding these fundamental principles, you will gain valuable insights into how marketing shapes business strategies and consumer experiences in various contexts, particularly within the tourism, hospitality, recreation, and services sectors.

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

  • Define marketing and explain its core concepts, including needs, wants, demands, products, markets, value, and satisfaction.
  • Analyze the components of the marketing environment, both internal and external.
  • Trace how the marketing orientation has evolved from production-focused to societal-focused approaches.
  • Understand the strategic framework for marketing and its role within an organization’s overall business strategy.
  • Recognize the unique challenges and considerations in marketing across different contexts, particularly in the tourism, hospitality, recreation, and services sectors.

Opening Thoughts

“People don’t want what you make, they want what it will do for them. They want the way it will make them feel. And there aren’t that many feelings to choose from. In essence, most marketers deliver the same feelings. We just do it in different ways, with different services, products, and stories. And we do it for different people in different moments. If you can bring someone belonging, connection, peace of mind, status, or one of the other most desired emotions, you’ve done something worthwhile. The thing you sell is simply a road to achieve those emotions, and we let everyone down when we focus on the tactics, not the outcomes. Who’s it for and what’s it for are the two questions that guide all of our decisions.” — Seth Godin[1]

Chapter Topics

  1. Godin, S. (2018). This is marketing: You can't be seen until you learn to see. Portfolio/Penguin. P.21 ↵

License

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The Marketing Map Copyright © 2024 by Lian Dumouchel, Thompson Rivers University Open Press is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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