Marketing enriches lives

Welcome back! One of the questions that a marketing teacher asks their students in the first class in a marketing course is whether marketing is art or science? Another question is whether marketing and sales are the same? Whether marketing creates needs or satisfies them? While you think about it, I want to recall something that happened in my childhood. 

It was sometime in 1982. I was too young and can't remember all the details now but I recollect how excited my dad was. A huge cricket fan, dad wanted to see the Prudential World Cup that was scheduled for 1983. Those were the days colour televisions were very new in the market. Very few households had them. There were a few brands of TVs available in the market like Dyanora, Solidaire, NELCO, Weston, Uptron, Beltek, BPL, etc. and they used to put out big ads in the newspapers. Dad was desperate to get a TV home. 1982 also happened to be the year when India hosted the Asian Games that had Appu the Elephant as its mascot. Anyways back to dad. 

He spent a lot of time and effort at the TV showrooms to shortlist one of them. I remember tagging along once and being amazed at the display. So many TVs, showing so many programs. For a child that was so magical! We finally bought a NELCO. Why? It was sold as a Tata product, there was a warantee on it and one could pay in monthly installments (EMIs). Here are a couple of ads I found for NELCO

 

Once it was home, it was a total game changer for all of us and the entire neighbourhood! We not only enjoyed the World Cup and many other programs, but we had so many neighbours and kids coming to our home to watch with us! :-)) We suddenly became very popular in our street. People started identifying us as 'the family that had colour TV.' Lol. 

Our lives changed from then on. Our world opened up. I personally now became part of a group of friends in school who would talk about some shows and I could participate/belong. I no longer was out of place. From Hum Log, Nukkad, Buniyaad, Karamchand, Malgudi Days, Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi, Khandaan, Chitrahaar, Katha Sagar, Giant Robot, Ramayan, Mahabharat, Rajani, Vikam Betal, Flop Show, 8 pm news and God knows how many more shows we watched! And how many ads we saw and still recall them! That only my generation had the privilege...of having seen ads with jingles and remembering them. Lol again. 

Why is this story even important to the topic? Well, you can see how a product, a TV in this case, made a huge impact on our lives. We were not just considered "elite" for having a colour TV, we were included in groups that were till then not accessible, we became famous for a short period of time in our neighbourhood and we improved on our general knowledge watching news, games, shows etc. It ENRICHED our lives. 

The 1983 World Cup was marketed as a 'not-to-miss event'. NELCO was marketed as a TATA product- trusted (with 3 year warantee), with a "Blue Diamond Technology".

When we think of the word Marketing, people usually confuse it with the word "Sales" but that's incorrect and it's important for you to know that. Simply put, "Selling" is more like the Eureka Forbes guys going around imploring people to buy their products while Marketing is about creating desire amongst your target audience for your products/services. In selling the manufacturer/seller is chasing the customer (think of cold calling) while in marketing, the customer is actually seeking the product/brand. Huge HUGE difference. 

Why should we be bothered about this difference? Think of shopping on a street where the hawkers are calling out to you and giving you some attractive offers to buy from them. They are trying to sell to you. Is that how you would want to do business? Do you see yourself doing that to grow? Or, do you want customers to actually call you and ask you about your product/service? 

Selling is all about your need dear entrepreneur, whereas Marketing is all about the customer's needs and wants and turning them into demands. Selling is often called an art but marketing is both science and art and requires a lot of thinking. Selling therefore, is short term while marketing is long term. 

Hence, we need to equip ourselves with this knowledge and use it to our advantage to grow our business. 

We'll learn more as we go forward. Stay tuned and don't forget to come back for more! Don't forget to comment, share your thoughts and experiences. See you around soon!

PS:

Oh! Where is NELCO today and what are they doing? They no longer make TVs and are now into VSAT communication products. What happened? Will deep dive into that some other day.