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| Marketing is the process companies use to make a profit by satisfying their customers' needs for products. Marketing focuses on the special relationship between a customer's needs and a product's functional or psychic utility. The essence of marketing is the perceived equal-value exchange. Need satisfaction is the customer's goal and should be the marketer's goal as well. Advertising is concerned with the promotion aspect of the marketing process. It is one of several tools marketers use to inform, persuade, and remind groups of customers (markets) about the need-satisfying value of their products and services. Advertising's effectiveness depends on the communication skill of the advertising person. It also depends on the extent to which firms correctly implement other marketing activities, such as market research, pricing, and distribution. There are three categories of participants in the marketing process: customers, markets, and marketers. To reach customers and markets, advertisers must effectively blend data from the behavioral sciences with the communicating arts. Advertisers study the behavioral characteristics of large groups of people to create advertising aimed at those groups. Successful advertising people understand the complexity of consumer behavior, which is governed by three personal processes: perception, learning and persuasion, and motivation. These processes determine how consumers see the world around them, how they learn information and habits, and how they actualize their personal needs and motives. Two sets of influences also affect consumer behavior: interpersonal influences (the consumer's family, society, and culture) and nonpersonal influences (time, place, and environment). These factors combine to determine how the consumer behaves, and their influence differs considerably from one country to another. Advertisers evaluate the effect of these factors on groups of consumers to determine how best to create their messages. Once customers or prospects are motivated to satisfy their needs and wants, the purchase process begins. Based on certain standards they have established in their own minds, they evaluate various alternative products (the evoked set). If none of the alternatives meets their evaluative criteria, they may reject or postpone the purchase. If they do buy, they may experience cognitive dissonance in the form of postpurchase doubt and concern. An important role of advertising is to help people cope with dissonance by reinforcing the wisdom of their purchase decision. The result of the postpurchase evaluation will greatly affect the customer's attitude toward future purchases. |